Lines That Should Exist

[Ladder23]

Network Rail has just awarded you a 5 billion pound contract and want you to build a new line wherever you want.

I will kick things off by building a "cross-Hertfordshire", running Rickmansworth-Watford-St Albans-Hatfield-Hoddesdon-Harlow. This line would use some existing lines (Ie the Abbey and Metropolitan) and would hopefully relieve the horrendous traffic in these towns, meanwhile connecting the WCML, MML and ECML

What would you do?

Honestly, you summed up my thoughts also!

 

[Bevan Price]

I would build a new "Liverpool & Manchester Railway" closer to the route it could have been - if the landed gentry had not wanted to pass close to their estates and mansions. I would add an eastern extension into Yorkshire, but that need more funds, and come later.
Due to subsequent development, several longish sections would now need to be in tunnels.

So, Liverpool - Prescot - St. Helens - Golborne - Leigh - Swinton - Manchester (Exchange, reinstated, maybe),
then Manchester - Oldham - Bradford - Leeds.

 

[Grimsby town]

One that came close a couple of times is a humber rail link. I'd go for a tunnel between New Holland and Hull which could link into the Barton Line in the south and around Hessle Road in the north.

I'd estimate cost of less than a £1 billion but upgrades to existing lines might tip it over that cost. It would really revolutionise travel in the area. It would facilitate a half hourly service from Grimsby to Hull and perhaps onwards to Leeds or York. It would also allow a direct Hull to Nottingham service via Lincoln and an additonal freight access into Hull/Immingham.

 

[Clansman]

Reopening Aberdeen to Peterhead and Fraserburgh, and St Andrews with spurs in the direction of both Dundee and Fife.

 

[Killingworth]

One that came close a couple of times is a humber rail link. I'd go for a tunnel between New Holland and Hull which could link into the Barton Line in the south and around Hessle Road in the north.

I'd estimate cost of less than a £1 billion but upgrades to existing lines might tip it over that cost. It would really revolutionise travel in the area. It would facilitate a half hourly service from Grimsby to Hull and perhaps onwards to Leeds or York. It would also allow a direct Hull to Nottingham service via Lincoln and an additonal freight access into Hull/Immingham.

Joined up thinking opportunity missed. The Humber Gas Tunnel only recently completed. See; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humber_Gas_Tunnel

Maybe they could have made it bigger to take a railway track alongside. If that had been proposed we'd still be discussing it in 2050.

 

[MarkyT]

Joined up thinking opportunity missed. The Humber Gas Tunnel only recently completed. See; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humber_Gas_Tunnel

Maybe they could have made it bigger to take a railway track alongside. If that had been proposed we'd still be discussing it in 2050.

Well if gas goes out of fashion quickly and they're looking to repurpose the link, internal tunnel diameter is 3.65m or 12 ft so used ex-London deep tube vehicles might fit, assuming gradients and curvature were suitable. Imagine Line 1 of the Humber Metro. Or Siemens might use it to test new stock for TfL.

 

[Killingworth]

I

Well if gas goes out of fashion quickly and they're looking to repurpose the link, internal tunnel diameter is 3.65m or 12 ft so used ex-London deep tube vehicles might fit, assuming gradients and curvature were suitable. Imagine Line 1 of the Humber Metro. Or Siemens might use it to test new stock for TfL.

I think if was effectively a cut and cover tunnel on the muddy river bed. A new rail or road tunnel would probably be built the same way. One for further thought.

It's interesting to see how new infrastructure creates It's own demand. M1, M25, Elizabeth Line etc.

 

[The Ham]

It's interesting to see how new infrastructure creates It's own demand. M1, M25, Elizabeth Line etc.

Indeed it does. It's why new roads rarely result in much reduction in traffic congestion for very long (or of it does, only locally, with congestion then becoming an issue at the next pinch point).

It's also why cutting rail services is never going to reduce the amount it costs to run the railways. The best thing is to try and run as many services as possible over existing track as possible. As the track is the expensive bit, with the cost difference of a line having 1tpd or 8tph being fairly small. However the income from the latter had the potential to be much higher.

The best way of spending the £5bn would be too enable new city pairings (or to create a metro route), most likely several small schemes.

For example I've previously on other threads suggested a new grade separated junction at Frimley Green to allow a new Basingstoke/Ascot service to run. Add in some extra stations as well and there's likely capacity for the new service to run 2tph (you'd probably consider reducing to 1tph on the Ascot/Aldershot route so as to not have the Camberley level crossing closed too much) serving the circa 250,000 Aldershot Urban Area (Aldershot, Camberley, Farnborough) as a metro for the northern area of that conurbation.

The costly bit would be building the link to allow trains to pass under the main line and loop back up to it to allow trains to avoid crossing on the flat when travelling from Frimley to Farnborough.

You could even extend it so that the service went beyond Basingstoke to increase the frequency of services along the WofE line (probably only as far as Salisbury).

Why? Will the four lines between the junction at Brookwood and just before Basingstoke have spare capacity (typically about 11tph, which in theory should be achievable on just a pair of lines - obviously calling patterns would have an impact on the actual services being run so probably wouldn't work on the existing timetable - but that wouldn't stop new services with limited timetable interfaces from running in the gaps) and so, as long as you can attract enough passengers to more than cover the running costs of the trains you speak the cost of the infrastructure over more services.

If we assume least costs of £220,000 per coach, to run a service with 4 coaches at a frequency of 2tph (in theory it's sub 60 minutes to run between Ascot and Basingstoke, showing for as few extra stops, so it's 4 diagrams being very optimistic) and then assuming that's 1/3 of all costs you're looking at a cost of £11 million a year.

Over 360 days as year, on a 15 hour day with 2tph, and passengers paying an average of £4.50 each way (about the same as half the cost of the anytime return ticket for Basingstoke to Farnborough) then you'd need an average of an extra 110 people using the railways using each of these services.

In perspective that's effectively a doubling of passengers which use Farnborough Main, which could be possible, especially given that there's a few new stations which could generate reasonable passenger numbers on their own right.

See below which demonstrates the possible service timings (I'm not sure if it would fit in the actual network, but by starting at 12:00 it shows more easily the time it would take from end to end):

1200 Ascot
1209 Bagshot
1215 Camberley
1217 Watchmoor Park*
1220 Frimley
1222 Frimley Green*
1225 Farnborough Main
1228 Southwood*
1231 Fleet
1235 Fleet West*
1239 Winchfield
1244 Hook
1252 Basingstoke
1257 Basingstoke Leisure Park*

* Indicates a new station.

Watchmoor Park has a large business park, with limited public transport options, it also had a large Sainsbury's, which whilst you may not get many shoppers using the railways to get there you could have staff use it.

Frimley Green is mostly residential, however not very far away is Frimley Lodge Park which is a fairly popular leisure space. Whilst they won't attract people from out of area, it does make it possible to get to from Frimley and Camberley without using a car.

Southwood is a mixed development (a lot of houses but also quite a bit of business space, for example BMW have a major UK office there - not that a lot of them would use the train). Whilst there would be a lot of passengers, probably a fair number would be changing to London bound services rather than their current drive to Farnborough Main.

Fleet West would serve two new(ish) large developments to the west of Fleet, it would also give easier access to Fleet leisure centre (something which is difficult by public transport without a long walk, from other places within the district of Hart).

Basingstoke leisure park would serve the area around the Milestones museum, it's likely this could be a platform on a siding to allow the services to be turned around away from the main Basingstoke station. Again there wouldn't be a large flow from further afield, but access to the ice rink and cinema by rail could generate reasonable passenger numbers.

Do I know that it could generate the numbers required, no, but given the existing user of railways in the local area and that (whilst in some areas I've probably been fairly optimistic this is somewhere I haven't) it could make rail travel beyond the local area (such at to London) easier. For example, based on off peak ticket prices from Farnborough Main, it would be possible that an extra 35 people (each service) traveling between the service and London would mean no other tickets would be needed to be sold to cover the costs (whilst that's an unlikely number or highlights that there's the potential for significantly higher than £4.50 per passenger of ticket income).

It would mean that between Farnborough and Basingstoke there was 6tph, Farnborough and the existing local stations on the main line would be 4tph and between Farnborough and the Ascot line or the new stations on the main line 2tph (depending on demand your could switch Winchfield with one of the new stations so each had a direct service once per hour to/from London).

 

[Grimsby town]

I think if was effectively a cut and cover tunnel on the muddy river bed. A new rail or road tunnel would probably be built the same way. One for further thought.

It's interesting to see how new infrastructure creates It's own demand. M1, M25, Elizabeth Line etc.

It certainly shows that tunneling is possible under the humber and gives an idea of the costs. Going off that tunnel, a scheme under £500 million could be possible.

The humber bridge isn't a bad piece of infrastructure but it doesn't connect Grimsby to Hull particularly well. The public transport connections are absolutely terrible. A journey time of 90 mins is fairly common between Grimsby and Hull. When you consider that integration in health and education between the areas, a 90 minute public transport journey time simply isn't good enough.

 

[JKF]

Thread topic says 5bn for a new line and many people are trotting out the same old tired reopenings! Many of those lines closed because their infrastructure was costly to maintain or the routes were slow and winding. Go for something new, fast, fit for purpose and useful, ignore whether there was once a track there in the past.

Anyhow, I’ll go for a direct Bristol-Cardiff high speed line with a new Severn crossing. Suspect I might be over budget however.

 

[lachlan]

Thread topic says 5bn for a new line and many people are trotting out the same old tired reopenings! Many of those lines closed because their infrastructure was costly to maintain or the routes were slow and winding. Go for something new, fast, fit for purpose and useful, ignore whether there was once a track there in the past.

Anyhow, I’ll go for a direct Bristol-Cardiff high speed line with a new Severn crossing. Suspect I might be over budget however.

What route would the tunnel take - would you approach Bristol from the other side and/or skip Newport?

 

[Adrian1980uk]

Such a successful and prosperous destination these days. Cambridge more than deserves EWR in my opinion and all other incentives to improve public transport to, from and around it.

Not just Cambridge though, opportunities exist for Peterborough, Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester through to Bedford, Milton Keynes and Oxford so bigger population centres than just Cambridge (obviously assumes capacity are Ely).

 

[A S Leib]

Thread topic says 5bn for a new line and many people are trotting out the same old tired reopenings! Many of those lines closed because their infrastructure was costly to maintain or the routes were slow and winding. Go for something new, fast, fit for purpose and useful, ignore whether there was once a track there in the past.

What we really need is a fast line connecting towns which were a lot smaller fifty years ago, like from Milton Keynes to Warrington, Telford or Hemel Hempstead.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

What we really need is a fast line connecting towns which were a lot smaller fifty years ago, like from Milton Keynes to Warrington, Telford or Hemel Hempstead.

There is a 'fast' line between Milton Keynes and Warrington, isn't there? Believe it's called the West Coast Main Line. For some particular reason though, the train operating company with trains calling at these two places prefers to route the majority of its direct services via Birmingham New Street.

 

[A S Leib]

There is a 'fast' line between Milton Keynes and Warrington, isn't there? Believe it's called the West Coast Main Line. For some particular reason though, the train operating company with trains calling at these two places prefers to route the majority of its direct services via Birmingham New Street.

That would be the sound of sarcasm passing by.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

That would be the sound of sarcasm passing by.

Whoosh! Maybe use a smiley face, next time?!

 

[D6975]

What route would the tunnel take - would you approach Bristol from the other side and/or skip Newport?

Where was a tunnel mentioned? A crossing was mentioned - not a tunnel. A double deck replacement for the old bridge is what I read it as.

 

[778]

A branch line from Tring station to Aylesbury with stations in Tring (close to the town centre) and Aston Clinton. Would be quicker to get to Aylesbury from Euston than Marylebone.

 

[A S Leib]

A branch line from Tring station to Aylesbury with stations in Tring (close to the town centre) and Aston Clinton. Would be quicker to get to Aylesbury from Euston than Marylebone.

How much would it cost to shift the WCML through Hemel Hempstead (even 'just' the slow lines) and Tring (where I think the slow lines are the other side of the fast lines from Tring itself) closer to the town centres?

 

[A0wen]

A branch line from Tring station to Aylesbury with stations in Tring (close to the town centre) and Aston Clinton. Would be quicker to get to Aylesbury from Euston than Marylebone.

Sort of existed in the LNW Cheddington to Aylesbury branch which closed to passengers a decade before Beeching.

 

[Dr_Paul]

That would be the sound of sarcasm passing by.

I was thinking that about the idea, mooted above, of a Humber Tunnel connecting Hull and Grimsby.

 

[The Ham]

Thread topic says 5bn for a new line and many people are trotting out the same old tired reopenings! Many of those lines closed because their infrastructure was costly to maintain or the routes were slow and winding. Go for something new, fast, fit for purpose and useful, ignore whether there was once a track there in the past.

Anyhow, I’ll go for a direct Bristol-Cardiff high speed line with a new Severn crossing. Suspect I might be over budget however.

I suspected that reopenings would be the go to option, which is why early on I asked if the question meant a new line (which would have ruled out reopenings, and would have probably made for a more diverse thread than just the normal list of reopenings.

 

[Killingworth]

What an utter waste of money, given the places served are relatively small compared to the major cities in the North of England.

I would build a new tunnel under the Pennines to provide a faster more direct rail route from Manchester to Sheffield.

The CrossPennine link will never be built but a straight line of about 33 miles between Sheffield Midland and Manchester Piccadilly in a deep tunnel would have minimal gradients and could provide a city centre to city centre time of maybe 20 minutes. A deep station for Glossop might be the only stop.

That 20 minutes would totally revolutionise east-west communications. Quicker than either city centre to many of its suburbs.

Manchester is the most booked rail journey from Sheffield despite taking almost an hour. It ican be a difficult journey by road in good weather, in winter it can be impossible. A deep tunnel would avoid such impediments for both rail and road.

Sadly it would take a lot more than £5 billion and after the HS2 and potential HS3 experience will remain a dream. A shame because it would be entirely possible. The men who built all the Pennine tunnels 100-250 years must wonder how we can't do better with all the construction methods and materials we now have available.

 

[The Ham]

The CrossPennine link will never be built but a straight line of about 33 miles between Sheffield Midland and Manchester Piccadilly in a deep tunnel would have minimal gradients and could provide a city centre to city centre time of maybe 20 minutes. A deep station for Glossop might be the only stop.

That 20 minutes would totally revolutionise east-west communications. Quicker than either city centre to many of its suburbs.

Manchester is the most booked rail journey from Sheffield despite taking almost an hour. It ican be a difficult journey by road in good weather, in winter it can be impossible. A deep tunnel would avoid such impediments for both rail and road.

Sadly it would take a lot more than £5 billion and after the HS2 and potential HS3 experience will remain a dream. A shame because it would be entirely possible. The men who built all the Pennine tunnels 100-250 years must wonder how we can't do better with all the construction methods and materials we now have available.

33 miles in 20 minutes is only averaging 100mph, even with a stop that's still averaging 120mph, so arguably (especially given it's a new build) a shorter journey time should be viable.

Even if it's not viable to run it quicker, you'd only need one diagram for each shuttle service between the two, meaning that you could run 5tph for the same cost as running 2tph currently. However with a turn up and go frequency, there's a good chance you'll attract a lot more people to use rail, so the services could be run with trains of a longer length.

If you then used the other (say) 10tph to pair with services beyond either city (for example Doncaster or Bolton), especially if they would normally terminate in Manchester or Sheffield, then the connectivity across the North would be vastly improved, even before building any further lines.

You could reduce the number of paths a bit too run slower services, for example a metro service to Manchester, then "fast" at 100mph to Sheffield before then finishing off as a metro service out the other side.

The reality interesting service would be one which takes the old route one way and returns on the new line (running in both directions), as for some going to the other city it'll be quicker to go to the wrong city first.

It's one of the reasons why building a new high speed line between two cities would be of more benefit than a reopening.

 

[Grimsby town]

I was thinking that about the idea, mooted above, of a Humber Tunnel connecting Hull and Grimsby.

Why is a humber tunnel unrealistic? I'd say its significantly more achievable than most reopenings that will inevitably come up against Nimbys and construction on alignments.

The urban area of Hull is around 500k and North East Lincolnshire is around 150k. A rail journey time could be close to 30 minutes meaning that they become an integrated urban area. When you consider the costs are going to be similar (and probably less) to something like Skipton to Colne, then it seems like a sensible option. It would have a better case than any other rail reopenings in Lincolnshire and probably East Yorkshire.

 

[daodao]

The Cross-Pennine link will never be built but a straight line of about 33 miles between Sheffield Midland and Manchester Piccadilly in a deep tunnel would have minimal gradients and could provide a city centre to city centre time of maybe 20 minutes. A deep station for Glossop might be the only stop.

That 20 minutes would totally revolutionise east-west communications. Quicker than either city centre to many of its suburbs.

Manchester is the most booked rail journey from Sheffield despite taking almost an hour. It can be a difficult journey by road in good weather, in winter it can be impossible. A deep tunnel would avoid such impediments for both rail and road.

Sadly it would take a lot more than £5 billion and after the HS2 and potential HS3 experience will remain a dream. A shame because it would be entirely possible. The men who built all the Pennine tunnels 100-250 years must wonder how we can't do better with all the construction methods and materials we now have available.

Other countries appear to be able to construct similar lines at lesser cost. For example, the new fast direct Tel Aviv–Jerusalem railway was built in recent years, at an approximate cost of US$2 billion in 2008 dollars, and opened in 2018. This line to Jerusalem branches off from the Tel Aviv–Lod railway southeast of Tel Aviv and comprises about 35 miles (56 km) of electrified double track, with extensive bridging and tunnelling along its mountainous route. Its current operational speed is 99 mph (160 km/h) and trains take 37 minutes up to Jerusalem and 31 minutes down to Tel Aviv, with 1 stop at Lod Airport, running every 30 minutes on Israeli weekdays (Sunday to Thursday); Jerusalem is 2,474 feet (754 m) above sea level.

For more information, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Aviv–Jerusalem_railway

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I've always thought the Brighton Main Line's sudden turn westwards at Tooting Common towards Balham has left an annoying hole in the Clapham Park area that needs to be filled in.

Also no obvious path from the East Croydon to New Cross corridor into the West End. Pushing the LBSCR from London Bridge into Charing Cross makes (some) sense.

 

[Kingston Dan]

How many miles of track could you electrify for £5bn?

 

[A S Leib]

Pushing the LBSCR from London Bridge into Charing Cross makes (some) sense

Charing Cross currently has six platforms to deal with 16 to 20 tph; I'm guessing it couldn't really deal with any more without either more platforms or through platforms to somewhere, unless you're advocating terminating some Southeastern services at London Bridge in place of Croydon services? (I know Fenchurch Street has a similar peak frequency with four platforms, but has a less complicated network to deal with.)

How many miles of track could you electrify for £5bn?

The most pessimistic count I could find from a quick search for Great Western electrification costs is £6.8 mn per track km, so ~735 km or 450 miles.

Kettering to Doncaster's 179 rail km / 111 miles, so if that budget could be kept, Kettering to Nottingham and Doncaster should be possible (I don't know how much of the Midland Main Line is quadruple track to know whether or not you'd have enough for the Erewash Valley (I think ~60 track miles at most) as well, but via Thurscoe to the ECML would only be another 26 track km / 16 miles.) Manchester Victoria to York's 110 rail km (so I think under 250 track km / 150 miles); I suspect with an allowance of 450 miles you could quite easily do Leeds, York and Sheffield to Hull as well.

 

[Kingston Dan]

The most pessimistic count I could find from a quick search for Great Western electrification costs is £6.8 mn per track km, so ~735 km or 450 miles.

Thanks - so a guaranteed rolling programme funded over a few years ought to get more than that - say 600 miles? Complete GWR to Swansea, MML, Liverpool-Hull, Didcot - Brum, Reading - Southampton, Sheffield - Leeds and Bristol - Brum? Think you'd probably have a few miles left after that. I'm excluding Scotland and Wales as they are getting on with it.