A new Beeching-style report is needed, to refocus the role of rail

[daodao]

Moderator note: Split from

Article in the Spectator yesterday - "It's time we stopped subsidising the railways"

mod note - thread moved to the Speculative section of the forum as it is ostensibly just that - a speculative idea! By Ross Clark in the Spectator - in their blog not the magazine - some interesting/questionable figures in this article...

www.railforums.co.uk

The government is spending far too much money on things that are not their core responsibility.

Sure transport will not be entirely self funding, but £15-20bn a year just for railways, on top of the fares, cannot continue.

That sums up the essence of the article.

The railway network in Great Britain needs to focus on what rail does best in the light of the changed economic circumstances, which are at least partly self-inflicted. The basic principles were outlined in the Beeching reports from 60 years ago:

1. The Reshaping of British Railways
2. The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes

Rail is best at:

• Carrying large numbers of passengers between major urban centres, and into big cities from their suburbs and neighbouring settlements
• bulk freight

A new Beeching-style report is needed, with timely implementation. New factors that need to be taken into account include:

• reduction in commuting, enabling a reduction in peak hour services (particularly to/from London), which are expensive to run in terms of staff/trains/infrastructure
• potential conversion of lines to light rail, with reduced costs and improved service frequency (vis-a-vis heavy rail), in which Manchester has led the way
• the major decline in certain freight flows, which has reduced the need for certain rural lines such as the Settle & Carlisle and Brigg lines, and thus raises the question as to whether their retention is either affordable or necessary

Such a report should be about refocussing the role of rail and not just about closing lines or track. Re-opening of lines into major cities (e.g. Ashington to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Portishead to Bristol) could still be justified. However, rail cannot continue doing what it has done over the last 30 years, eating up more and more government subsidy. The elephant in the room, namely HS2b north of Crewe/NPR/HS2 eastern leg, also needs to be re-evaluated.

 

[43074]

• reduction in commuting, enabling a reduction in peak hour services (particularly to/from London), which are expensive to run in terms of staff/trains/infrastructure
• potential conversion of lines to light rail, with reduced costs and improved service frequency (vis-a-vis heavy rail), in which Manchester has led the way
• the major decline in certain freight flows, which has reduced the need for certain rural lines such as the Settle & Carlisle and Brigg lines, and thus raises the question as to whether their retention is either affordable or necessary

There are plenty of peak hour services which haven't returned compared to before Covid

Converting lines to light rail moves the costs of running them to someone else rather than reduces them entirely, e.g. if converting the Atherton line to Metrolink meant the line increased from 2 trains per hour to trams every 12 minutes you still need more tram drivers, nevermind the investment in electrification and new trams it would require. There is also speculation about Metrolink funding being reduced, such is the way in which Manchester has "led the way".

Closing a line like Barton on Humber (S&C was too political in the late 80s nevermind today) might save tens of millions a year at best, but the revenue gap which the treasury is not prepared to fund is in the billions. If the industry is still paying for both the traincrew (at the moment Barton line drivers are Freightliner drivers therefore the bulk of their work is profitable anyway...) and the rolling stock what exactly does that achieve?

 

[yorksrob]

That sums up the essence of the article.

The railway network in Great Britain needs to focus on what rail does best in the light of the changed economic circumstances, which are at least partly self-inflicted. The basic principles were outlined in the Beeching reports from 60 years ago:

1. The Reshaping of British Railways
2. The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes

Rail is best at:

• Carrying large numbers of passengers between major urban centres, and into big cities from their suburbs and neighbouring settlements
• bulk freight

A new Beeching-style report is needed, with timely implementation. New factors that need to be taken into account include:

• reduction in commuting, enabling a reduction in peak hour services (particularly to/from London), which are expensive to run in terms of staff/trains/infrastructure
• potential conversion of lines to light rail, with reduced costs and improved service frequency (vis-a-vis heavy rail), in which Manchester has led the way
• the major decline in certain freight flows, which has reduced the need for certain rural lines such as the Settle & Carlisle and Brigg lines, and thus raises the question as to whether their retention is either affordable or necessary

Such a report should be about refocussing the role of rail and not just about closing lines or track. Re-opening of lines into major cities (Ashington to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Portishead to Bristol) could still be justified. However, rail cannot continue doing what it has done over the last 30 years, eating up more and more government subsidy. The elephant in the room, namely HS2b north of Crewe/NPR/HS2 eastern leg, also needs to be re-evaluated.

Which is disingenuous because it would primarily be about closing lines and track.

Exciting efficiency gains on the main line to London will be of no value to me if I can't make use of them because my local line has been closed.

Which is the point I have made a few times, but solving that can only really be viable by proper integration, with bus and rail managed under the same authority.

Better not to spend millions on little used stations in that case.

It can't cost millions to patch up the holes in the platform, change a light bulb and repaint the white line. If it does - why ? Those costs need to be addressed through efficiency, not closing lines

 

[Bletchleyite]

Those costs need to be addressed through efficiency, not closing lines

"Railway inflation" certainly needs addressing, yes.

 

[eldomtom2]

Converting lines to light rail moves the costs of running them to someone else rather than reduces them entirely

You could say the same about closing lines entirely - what would the increased cost in road maintenance, congestion, carbon emissions etc. be?

 

[tbtc]

Closing a line like Barton on Humber (S&C was too political in the late 80s nevermind today) might save tens of millions a year at best, but the revenue gap which the treasury is not prepared to fund is in the billions

That’s the perennial problem on such threads

If I suggest *one* closure/ cutback (to at least get people to agree that there are surely some stations/ lines with such low passenger numbers that they are practically impossible to justify) then I get the response of “There’s no point in making that specific cut because it’ll be a drop in the ocean compared to the overall deficits”…

… But if I suggest a nationwide litmus test for larger savings, e.g. “Any station with an average of fewer than one passenger per arrival/departure should see its services cut” brings out the shrill cries of “Beeching” or “Serpell”

There’s therefore no acceptable level of cuts that some people will ever accept - any “modest” trimming (“let’s close a lightly used station like Breich”) is dismissed as being too low key to bother with, but a suggestion that “any station with under a thousand passengers a year is a waste of time” is too big for people to accept and gets some very “emotional” reactions!

I thought at least that there were some bits of line where it was obvious that the primary purpose was no longer (e.g. many routes were built hundreds of years ago with a market in mind but maybe it’s time to accept that the ferries aren’t coming back to Barton on Humber/ Stranraer?), but apparently not

Each to their own etc, but I think it’d be more interesting to discuss some grey areas - for example “If the costs of making a crumbling station fully accessible/ repairing a line after a bad storm are bigger than a certain number of years of ticket revenue then does that mean it’s not economic to fix” (based on the example of the Barton branch line where we spent over a million pounds upgrading a station that’s only had a maximum number of around three departing passengers a day… maybe some are happy with that, of course)

 

[Bletchleyite]

Each to their own etc, but I think it’d be more interesting to discuss some grey areas - for example “If the costs of making a crumbling station fully accessible/ repairing a line after a bad storm are bigger than a certain number of years of ticket revenue then does that mean it’s not economic to fix” (based on the example of the Barton branch line where we spent over a million pounds upgrading a station that’s only had a maximum number of around three departing passengers a day… maybe some are happy with that, of course)

This is potentially the "Conwy Valley argument" and so is more solid. While it has been patched up fairly cheaply (in railway terms) lots of times, if there was a major problem in the tunnel (as distinct from a repairable minor rockfall as happened a while back) then it's likely that would be truncated back to Betws, as spending huge sums boring a new tunnel would be uneconomic. I similarly think there's a reasonable chance that if Ribblehead Viaduct actually fell down it wouldn't be replaced.

I'd not be opposed to the UK adopting a Switzerland like policy - "a settlement of N1 population justifies DRT, N2 justifies an hourly bus service from 6am to midnight to the nearest railway station or main town, N3 justifies a railway station on an existing line and at least 0.5tph" etc, which would result in a number of closures*, but the bus/DRT part of that concept would also need to be included, which would mean regulation of regional bus operation (urban operation should be regulated by urban authorities) in order to be able to manage that properly.

* And of new openings. As we love extreme examples, if the policy didn't result in the closure of the Far North Line, it pretty much guaranteed would result in the closure of Scotscalder, Forsinard and Altnabreac, but equally reinstatement at Halkirk which actually has people living near it to use it.

 

[43074]

I thought at least that there were some bits of line where it was obvious that the primary purpose was no longer (e.g. many routes were built hundreds of years ago with a market in mind but maybe it’s time to accept that the ferries aren’t coming back to Barton on Humber/ Stranraer?), but apparently not

At least if you closed Stranraer you could scrap a couple of 156s and Scotrail would simply not replace the drivers through natural wastage so it's pretty clear where the cost savings end up. The reduction in mileage (network mileage and vehicle/train miles) is also more significant than Habrough to Barton.

How many other examples are there like that? Nunthorpe to Whitby is pretty costly to run, but is the cost to the road network of high summer congestion greater than the cost of shuttling a 4 car 156 to Middlesbrough and back? Castle Cary to Dorchester could free up a couple of units for HST replacement but loses a cross country route from Yeovil southwards.

 

[Bletchleyite]

How many other examples are there like that? Nunthorpe to Whitby is pretty costly to run, but is the cost to the road network of high summer congestion greater than the cost of shuttling a 4 car 156 to Middlesbrough and back? Castle Cary to Dorchester could free up a couple of units for HST replacement but loses a cross country route from Yeovil southwards.

I'm not convinced there are many in England, and the political situation in Scotland and Wales is different, so even though Kyle might have lost some of its raison d'etre that won't go any time soon.

Morecambe's seaside use is weaker than it was, but with Lancaster suffering terrible traffic congestion it's surprisingly well used. Heysham still has the ferries plus the line is needed for nuclear traffic. The case for the S&C is weak but it's too political. I genuinely can't think of many in England at all. You could maybe lop Rose Hill Marple but what's that going to save?

If we're concentrating on England, I think it's possibly more likely a neo-Beeching would be about thinning and station closures to enable less frequent but quicker regular interval timetabling more like what Beeching did on the mainlines. The Marston Vale East-West Rail proposals are one example. Another might be getting rid of the barely-used New Lane, Bescar Lane and Hoscar, with Southport reduced to an hourly clockface service. Or do we need Cheddington when the few passengers that use it basically all get there by car and could go to Tring or Leighton instead? And close the remaining Parliamentaries properly. Or some thinning of stations might be possible on Chiltern where they get in the way a bit and have low usage - e.g. do we really need Denham Golf Club? Could the innersuburban stations close as they all have good alternatives?

 

[geoffk]

Most of the "basket cases" (not my words) are in Scotland and Wales and surely any decision to close would be for the devolved authorities, and that seems unlikely. So we are left with Whitby, Barton-on-Humber, Settle - Carlisle, Yeovil - Dorchester....

Back in 2011, Sir Roy McNulty's Rail Value for Money Study identified ten barriers to efficiency in the GB rail industry. In particular, GB rail costs would need to be reduced by around 40% to match those of France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden. How many of McNulty's recommendations were implemented and how many went into the "too difficult" tray? A former Northern (Serco-Abellio) MD told a meeting I was at that "we sweat our assets (rolling stock and staff) here more than they (Dutch Railways) do." i.e. we do more with less, which seems to contradict the view of McNulty.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Back in 2011, Sir Roy McNulty's Rail Value for Money Study identified ten barriers to efficiency in the GB rail industry. In particular, GB rail costs would need to be reduced by around 40% to match those of France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden. How many of McNulty's recommendations were implemented and how many went into the "too difficult" tray? A former Northern (Serco-Abellio) MD told a meeting I was at that "we sweat our assets (rolling stock and staff) here more than they (Dutch Railways) do." I we do more with less, which seems to contradict the view of McNulty.

I suspect our TOCs are more efficient than most European ones, but also that Network Rail isn't.

One thing we could do is stop wasting money chasing tiny safety improvements.

Another (controversial) is accepting small safety reductions for big savings. For instance, platform staff are not a thing at all in most of Europe, the guard or driver dispatch themselves with only very few exceptions. DOO is much more common (though not in some countries, e.g. the Netherlands and Belgium).

 

[yorksrob]

At least if you closed Stranraer you could scrap a couple of 156s and Scotrail would simply not replace the drivers through natural wastage so it's pretty clear where the cost savings end up. The reduction in mileage (network mileage and vehicle/train miles) is also more significant than Habrough to Barton.

How many other examples are there like that? Nunthorpe to Whitby is pretty costly to run, but is the cost to the road network of high summer congestion greater than the cost of shuttling a 4 car 156 to Middlesbrough and back? Castle Cary to Dorchester could free up a couple of units for HST replacement but loses a cross country route from Yeovil southwards.

It's not just about high summer congestion in the case of Whitby. The services are well used by passengers and a great boost for the tourist industry.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Most of the "basket cases" (not my words) are in Scotland and Wales and surely any decision to close would be for the devolved authorities, and that seems unlikely. So we are left with Whitby, Barton-on-Humber, Settle - Carlisle, Yeovil - Dorchester....

That is a reasonable list of routes whose socio-economic value can justifiably be questioned even if the answer is in fact to try harder (= spend more) to make them more attractive, but another candidate which may be the biggest basket case of all is the Newquay branch. It has no intermediate traffic worth anything and the current infrastructure allows only a limited service with no realistic possibility of a regular frequency. Years ago there was an outline proposal to cut the connection at Par and build a new connection to St Austell which would at least serve some genuine year-round local demand. Another option would be to provide more crossing points to allow a regular interval timetable but (nearly) all trains would need to run beyond Par whether eastward or westward. Failing that complete closure might actually make financial sense as the only hardship likely to be caused would be the lack of convenient transport for a few dozen surfers each year, hardly a good use of public funding.

We do at least need to accept the need to ask such difficult questions and discuss them in a rational manner. That means without undue emotion but also with realistic data ie no traffic surveys designed to skew the outcome. It may well be that the overall political environment prevents actual line closures but we should not be afraid to accept that times have changed and that a railway service may not be the best transport solution in every case. If there is to be a Beeching v.2 then one improvement should be to fully integrate any replacement road services with the main rail network with guarantees about their long-term continuation.

 

[yorksrob]

That is a reasonable list of routes whose socio-economic value can justifiably be questioned even if the answer is in fact to try harder (= spend more) to make them more attractive, but another candidate which may be the biggest basket case of all is the Newquay branch. It has no intermediate traffic worth anything and the current infrastructure allows only a limited service with no realistic possibility of a regular frequency. Years ago there was an outline proposal to cut the connection at Par and build a new connection to St Austell which would at least serve some genuine year-round local demand. Another option would be to provide more crossing points to allow a regular interval timetable but (nearly) all trains would need to run beyond Par whether eastward or westward. Failing that complete closure might actually make financial sense as the only hardship likely to be caused would be the lack of convenient transport for a few dozen surfers each year, hardly a good use of public funding.

We do at least need to accept the need to ask such difficult questions and discuss them in a rational manner. That means without undue emotion but also with realistic data ie no traffic surveys designed to skew the outcome. It may well be that the overall political environment prevents actual line closures but we should not be afraid to accept that times have changed and that a railway service may not be the best transport solution in every case. If there is to be a Beeching v.2 then one improvement should be to fully integrate any replacement road services with the main rail network with guarantees about their long-term continuation.

I refute this 100%.

There are plenty of forces that would like to start chipping away at the railway. If these "interests" succeed in chipping away one passenger service, there is a very real risk that the momentum to chip away at others will become irresistible.

It is our job as passengers to make the point that the network is a national rail network, it is not just there to enable isolated groups of commuters to undertake self-contained journeys, it is there to enable citizens across the nation to travel to a wide range of destinations nationwide, going about their business.

 

[geoffk]

I refute this 100%.

There are plenty of forces that would like to start chipping away at the railway. If these "interests" succeed in chipping away one passenger service, there is a very real risk that the momentum to chip away at others will become irresistible.

It is our job as passengers to make the point that the network is a national rail network, it is not just there to enable isolated groups of commuters to undertake self-contained journeys, it is there to enable citizens across the nation to travel to a wide range of destinations nationwide, going about their business.

I wasn't advocating closures, just playing devil's advocate, I suppose - although there are little-used stations in remote areas which might be closed but would the savings add up to much?

 

[Bletchleyite]

That is a reasonable list of routes whose socio-economic value can justifiably be questioned even if the answer is in fact to try harder (= spend more) to make them more attractive, but another candidate which may be the biggest basket case of all is the Newquay branch. It has no intermediate traffic worth anything and the current infrastructure allows only a limited service with no realistic possibility of a regular frequency. Years ago there was an outline proposal to cut the connection at Par and build a new connection to St Austell which would at least serve some genuine year-round local demand.

It does appear that most of that line is still there as an active freight line, and so yes, I agree, rerouting Par-Newquay to become St Austell-Newquay may be a worthwhile investment. A passing loop at St Dennis (new station) would allow for a better service to operate. This would be far better than closure. Bugle and Roche appear to have decent bus services, while Luxulyan would be a loser but is tiny.

I don't however agree that it's used just by a few surfers (most of whom probably drive their VW bus there anyway as you can't take full size boards on the train), Newquay is a major holiday destination.

Obviously there are basket cases and there are basket cases. Barton is unlikely to ever be busy, but there are some lines where a relatively small investment could make them significantly less of a basket case, e.g Newquay, and so "spending to avoid spending" should be considered, without keeping opex and capex so firmly separated. It was for instance idiotic that it took so long for flood defence work to be done on the Conwy Valley despite it being washed away every other year - and its effectiveness has been proven by it not having done so since.

I wasn't advocating closures, just playing devil's advocate, I suppose - although there are little-used stations in remote areas which might be closed but would the savings add up to much?

Station closures, as I outlined above, may make sense where it allows simplification and speeding-up of the service. Beeching did a fair bit of this on the InterCity mainlines (it's the bit of his work that is forgotten), and Switzerland is still doing it. Some of the closures didn't make sense, and some have been reversed, but some absolutely did. The S&C might be a basket case now, for instance, but can you imagine it with twice as many stations? Or can you imagine just how much of a faff operating the north WCML would be if it still had several local stops between Preston and Lancaster?

 

[yorksrob]

I wasn't advocating closures, just playing devil's advocate, I suppose - although there are little-used stations in remote areas which might be closed but would the savings add up to much?

I was more pointing out to @Shaw S Hunter the pitfalls of lending support to a wider closure agenda.

 

[TheBigD]

With regard to the Newquay line, it is proposed to be increased to hourly and run through to Truro and Falmouth, along with an extra passing loop and an extra platform at Newquay.

Search for the grandiosely titled "Mid Cornwall Metro.

As for the previous idea to build a new line to connect with St Austell, this was a 1980's proposal to allow for the diversion and improvements to the A30.

 

[HSTEd]

The Newquay Branch is something of a joke, and I say that as someone who has used it to go on holiday several times.

When your journey time over a crows eye distance over 20km is seriously contested by a 3S cableway, you know you have a serious problem!

At this point you could build a cableway to St Austell and achievable comparable journey times from most of england, and serve some local demand into the bargain. Even going to Truro would only slow down England-Newquay journey times by a few minutes (even assuming perfect connections)

 

[Bletchleyite]

As for the previous idea to build a new line

Let's not overstate "build a new line" as something like sticking HS2 across Cornwall. There's only a gap of about 5km to be filled between the existing St Austell-St Dennis freight line and where the existing line passes under the A30, and nothing appears to be in the way of the old formation. In railway terms it would be pretty cheap.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

I refute this 100%.

There are plenty of forces that would like to start chipping away at the railway. If these "interests" succeed in chipping away one passenger service, there is a very real risk that the momentum to chip away at others will become irresistible.

It is our job as passengers to make the point that the network is a national rail network, it is not just there to enable isolated groups of commuters to undertake self-contained journeys, it is there to enable citizens across the nation to travel to a wide range of destinations nationwide, going about their business.

The whole point is that this principle has finite value. From time to time it is absolutely necessary in a democracy to discuss/debate the cost and value of such intangibles and sometimes such discussion will lead to change. If your starting point is automatically to fear any suggestion of change then you are unlikely to be able to make a reasoned argument defending the status quo and thus are more likely to lose that argument. The world never stops changing. If you want an outcome that is favourable to your own principles and preferences then be prepared to engage in meaningful discussion. Alternatively you need to create a railway equivalent to the DUP that always "says no"!!

I don't however agree that it's used just by a few surfers (most of whom probably drive their VW bus there anyway as you can't take full size boards on the train), Newquay is a major holiday destination.

Traditional yes. Major no. Even with staycationing on the increase most coastal holiday accommodation is somewhat dispersed other than say Blackpool or Torbay. Coastal resorts rely just as much on day trippers from urban centres as they do on actual holidaymakers. Newquay is too remote to have such a market. As for surfboards you have obviously forgotten that not so long ago FGW used to provide a second TGS in Newquay bound HSTs on summer Saturdays for the express purpose of conveying surfboards. How much did that cost them in shunting sets around each weekend? In railway terms Newquay is a tiny market which needs a sustainable level of year-round traffic to justify maintaining its rail connection.

 

[stj]

As Railways were built in a different age maybe its time to close some lines but build new ones.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Alternatively you need to create a railway equivalent to the DUP that always "says no"!!

You mean the RMT?

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

As Railways were built in a different age maybe its time to close some lines but build new ones.

HS1? HS2? NPR?

 

[yorksrob]

The whole point is that this principle has finite value. From time to time it is absolutely necessary in a democracy to discuss/debate the cost and value of such intangibles and sometimes such discussion will lead to change. If your starting point is automatically to fear any suggestion of change then you are unlikely to be able to make a reasoned argument defending the status quo and thus are more likely to lose that argument. The world never stops changing. If you want an outcome that is favourable to your own principles and preferences then be prepared to engage in meaningful discussion. Alternatively you need to create a railway equivalent to the DUP that always "says no"!!

Traditional yes. Major no. Even with staycationing on the increase most coastal holiday accommodation is somewhat dispersed other than say Blackpool or Torbay. Coastal resorts rely just as much on day trippers from urban centres as they do on actual holidaymakers. Newquay is too remote to have such a market. As for surfboards you have obviously forgotten that not so long ago FGW used to provide a second TGS in Newquay bound HSTs on summer Saturdays for the express purpose of conveying surfboards. How much did that cost them in shunting sets around each weekend? In railway terms Newquay is a tiny market which needs a sustainable level of year-round traffic to justify maintaining its rail connection.

The passenger network has already been slashed back too far. We must not allow the same mistakes to be made again.

Give the enemy an inch and they will take mile after mile.

 

[778]

That’s the perennial problem on such threads

If I suggest *one* closure/ cutback (to at least get people to agree that there are surely some stations/ lines with such low passenger numbers that they are practically impossible to justify) then I get the response of “There’s no point in making that specific cut because it’ll be a drop in the ocean compared to the overall deficits”…

… But if I suggest a nationwide litmus test for larger savings, e.g. “Any station with an average of fewer than one passenger per arrival/departure should see its services cut” brings out the shrill cries of “Beeching” or “Serpell”

There’s therefore no acceptable level of cuts that some people will ever accept - any “modest” trimming (“let’s close a lightly used station like Breich”) is dismissed as being too low key to bother with, but a suggestion that “any station with under a thousand passengers a year is a waste of time” is too big for people to accept and gets some very “emotional” reactions!

I thought at least that there were some bits of line where it was obvious that the primary purpose was no longer (e.g. many routes were built hundreds of years ago with a market in mind but maybe it’s time to accept that the ferries aren’t coming back to Barton on Humber/ Stranraer?), but apparently not

Each to their own etc, but I think it’d be more interesting to discuss some grey areas - for example “If the costs of making a crumbling station fully accessible/ repairing a line after a bad storm are bigger than a certain number of years of ticket revenue then does that mean it’s not economic to fix” (based on the example of the Barton branch line where we spent over a million pounds upgrading a station that’s only had a maximum number of around three departing passengers a day… maybe some are happy with that, of course)

The main reason against any cutbacks (even if a few could be justified) is that it could create a domino effect. If politicians got away with closing a couple of branch lines, they would not stop there, but the goalposts would be moved and we could end up with Beeching 2. If would start of as "we will only close these 2 branch lines, don't worry there will be no more closures after this", but in reality they would just be testing the water to see what they could get away with. Some politicians would love to get rid of half the network if they thought there would be no backlash against it.

If Labour win the the next election (in 2025?) they would be much less likely to close anything. Any closures proposed by this Government would probably be revered by Labour.

 

[MarkyT]

Let's not overstate "build a new line" as something like sticking HS2 across Cornwall. There's only a gap of about 5km to be filled between the existing St Austell-St Dennis freight line and where the existing line passes under the A30, and nothing appears to be in the way of the old formation. In railway terms it would be pretty cheap.

From the end of line run-round loop buffer stop at the Imerys St Dennis china clay plant (Parkandillack) to the site of St Dennis Junction on the Newquay line, it is 3.3 km (2.1 miles), measured on Google Earth. St Austell to St Dennis Jn is ~15.5 km via Treviscoe compared to the same journey via Par (reverse) at ~27.5 km. There'd be much work upgrading the freight line to make it suitable for passengers however, including safeworking of siding points incorporating trapping around Parkandillack which are simple handpoints today, traps at Burngullow siding exits, FPLs (where not provided) on points at ground frames around Treviscoe, and a means for 'locking in' freight at intermediate siding sites while the passenger train is running. There are some level crossings that will require attention too, including at least one new site on the reinstated section. Currently, the line is worked by means of a one train staff [OT(S)], which in itself would be ok theoretically for passenger services, but the current single section would provide insufficient capacity alone for the increased traffic of passenger and freight combined.

 

[JonathanH]

If Labour win the the next election (in 2025?) they would be much less likely to close anything. Any closures proposed by this Government would probably be revered by Labour.

When Labour win a future election they will have to make the same difficult funding choices. The best hope is for a 'feel good effect' that increases British productivity and increases tax receipts.

Without that, there is no extra money. Indeed, an incoming government will be faced with all sorts of demands from people for things to be better that railways won't be anywhere near the top of the list.

 

[daodao]

If Labour win the the next election (in 2025?) they would be much less likely to close anything. Any closures proposed by this Government would probably be revered by Labour.

That is not what happened in 1964-1970. What political parties promise before a general election and what they actually deliver if elected to government are often miles apart.

 

[yorksrob]

That is not what happened in 1964-1970.

True, but this is not 1964-1970.