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My suggestion to re-open the Whole Great Central route

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yorksrob

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This is the trouble with the Government even hinting at possible rail re-openings it will bring out every crackpot cryonista in the country. The Government should have kept its mouth shut, HS2 and current infrastructure investment is enough to be getting on with and any rail re-opening should generally limited to freight routes that still exist not nonsense like this.

What a ridiculous post.

Even if someone started a campaign to reopen the Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore line as an intermodal freight route, that doesn't mean the Government has to act on it. That's certainly no reason not to contemplate reinstating some of the many useful missing links, if only the Government could be made to put it's money where it's mouth is.

Sadly I don't believe the GC is a goer, but there are a few others that should happen.
 
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swanhill41

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Oh dear. This was seriously put forward as a case against the Mottram-Hollingworth-Tintwistle bypass a few years ago, but with the ex-freight sidings between Hattersley and Broadbottom put forward as the loading point. Not sure about the other end. Forget about electric lorries etc. - just grit teeth and queue up through the villages for 20 minutes or so, or wait till 2020 when half the bypass will be open. In any case, a lot quicker than that idiocy. How do these people get taken seriously?
Its Bredbury in the west now to I think Tinsley in the east this time...Agree with your last sentence....There are two groups on Facebook that are giving him space ...The guy behind it has so called the private funding to carry it through !!!!
 

keith1879

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What a ridiculous post.

Even if someone started a campaign to reopen the Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore line as an intermodal freight route, that doesn't mean the Government has to act on it. That's certainly no reason not to contemplate reinstating some of the many useful missing links, if only the Government could be made to put it's money where it's mouth is.

Sadly I don't believe the GC is a goer, but there are a few others that should happen.

Maybe you don't agree with 47802 but I don't see his view as ridiculous. I doubt if the government seriously intends to reopen one inch of the lines closed by Beeching - they just wanted some favourable headlines and they got them.
 

Mugby

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Maybe you don't agree with 47802 but I don't see his view as ridiculous. I doubt if the government seriously intends to reopen one inch of the lines closed by Beeching - they just wanted some favourable headlines and they got them.

Absolutely. Cheap talk raising false hopes.
 

yorksrob

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Maybe you don't agree with 47802 but I don't see his view as ridiculous. I doubt if the government seriously intends to reopen one inch of the lines closed by Beeching - they just wanted some favourable headlines and they got them.

No, I'm sorry, but I think it is a bit ridiculous to suggest that just because some people will inevitably come up with some ideas that are unlikely to be viable, all policy discussion around reopening routes should be closed down.
 

DynamicSpirit

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Absolutely. Cheap talk raising false hopes.

It may well be cheap talk, but I think it's important that the Government have talked about it - because by raising some expectations, it will inevitably mean more pressure on the Government in the coming years to act on opening (or re-opening) at least a few new rail routes - and that can only be a good thing. There are after all amongst all the obviously hopeless schemes more than enough places in the UK where new rail routes would very likely be successful, and anything that makes it even slightly more likely that some of those lines would actually be built must surely be welcomed.
 

yorksrob

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It may well be cheap talk, but I think it's important that the Government have talked about it - because by raising some expectations, it will inevitably mean more pressure on the Government in the coming years to act on opening (or re-opening) at least a few new rail routes - and that can only be a good thing. There are after all amongst all the obviously hopeless schemes more than enough places in the UK where new rail routes would very likely be successful, and anything that makes it even slightly more likely that some of those lines would actually be built must surely be welcomed.

Absolutely spot on.
 

swanhill41

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There are more relevant parts of the economy to spend money on,that daydream railway schemes,that were when built not viable
 

tbtc

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The GCR is a funny one. As far as I see it, there's no priority for it and no hope of it reopening (especially if we can't find the money/skills to electrify the MML)

But there's some argument for part of it - unlike the usual "lets reopen a line to a village in Devon/ Cumbria/ Carmarthenshire/ Galloway (etc)" stuff that we get a number of threads about.

A line from the MML to the WCML would link some relatively large places (e.g. Nottingham/ Leicester to Rugby/ Northampton/ Milton Keynes) - the kind of journeys that the M1 currently dominates the market for.

The rest of the scheme seems to be more about nostalgia and conspiracy theories (e.g. the Facebook page talking about "vested interests" in HS2, "the Midland dominated BR was said to want to finish off the Great Central") and wild optimism (e.g. a Grimsby - Liverpool line to remove freight from the M62).

Woodhead seems a non-starter (without worrying about the feasibility :

  • Passenger services from Sheffield to Manchester are two/three/four coaches long, so there's plenty of scope to increase capacity on them (before we need to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on a new line).
  • Much of the freight on the Hope Valley route is running to/from Hope itself (so a Woodhead route wouldn't be much help for that).
  • It currently takes over half an hour to get from Hadfield to Piccadilly (just over a dozen miles away), so you won't be able to squeeze any fast passenger services over Woodhead.
  • You'd have to build a new station at Sheffield, which doesn't connect to Midland (and would have no tram either).
  • Running Sheffield - Penistone - Manchester is a fairly indirect route.
  • The 'putting lorries onto a wagon in Yorkshire and running ro-ro services through to somewhere near the M60 doesn't stand up to much scrutiny (it's not long enough to warrant those kind of delays to the "just in time" economy that lorry drivers work in).
There's no capacity at the London end (which is why HS2 needs to be a new route)

Maybe you don't agree with 47802 but I don't see his view as ridiculous. I doubt if the government seriously intends to reopen one inch of the lines closed by Beeching - they just wanted some favourable headlines and they got them.

Agreed.

It was a useful way of getting a "good news story" into the press, without spending a penny. Much easier to generate some nostalgia from journalists who can write a simplistic story than understand the complexities of the VTEC "partnership"/ "handing back the keys" announcement that came out on the same day.

So we had a few pages of "Beeching" in the papers, because it distracted newspapers from investigating the awkward situation on the ECML.

It's like "fox hunting" or "grammar schools" - a simple thing for a Government minister to start a national conversation about to get easily-excited people excited (and demanding that we sign petitions etc). Some people will get their hopes up, there'll be debates on the letters pages of some local newspapers, social media will get clogged up with several petitions, but little ever changes.
 

DarloRich

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This thread makes me chortle. There is no chance of this happening. None.

I have asked on another thread about the notion of freight, based on the major flows of today, which is intermodal, what use would it be?

the silence is deafening.....................................
 

70014IronDuke

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Absolutely spot on.

Yes and no. Unfortunately, making totally unrealistic suggestions can be used against those who make serious suggestions - as in "It's another barmy suggestion from a daft enthusiast" when in fact it is no such thing.

And entitling the thread "My Suggestion.... " seems anoyingly egotistical to me - as if nobody had ever suggested it before (when it was being suggested almost as soon as the line closed in the railway press).

Nonetheless, once it is open to Calvert for East-West, I could see a push to extend the line north to a simple Parkway terminus south of Brackely, with another Parkway station to server Buckingham. In fact, I think that could be quite predictable - assuming, that is, HS2 doesn't steal critical sections of land.
 

keith1879

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No, I'm sorry, but I think it is a bit ridiculous to suggest that just because some people will inevitably come up with some ideas that are unlikely to be viable, all policy discussion around reopening routes should be closed down.
I suppose we are getting a bit tied up with words - but FWIW I agree with you that we should be open-minded - I just don't think that 47802 really said what you think he said (if you see what I mean).

To be honest - most of the time when I look at the lines closed by Beeching I do struggle to see much justification for reopening - more to be gained for the money by improving what we have or building from new. I speak as someone who remembers many journeys over such closed lines (Wennington to Morecambe, Castleford Central to Leeds via the Methley Joint, the Woodhead route and others). There was a fair justification for closing all these (although I always felt that Wennington to Morecambe should have been kept instead of Wennington to Carnforth).
 

TheBeard

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Yes and no. Unfortunately, making totally unrealistic suggestions can be used against those who make serious suggestions - as in "It's another barmy suggestion from a daft enthusiast" when in fact it is no such thing.

And entitling the thread "My Suggestion.... " seems anoyingly egotistical to me - as if nobody had ever suggested it before (when it was being suggested almost as soon as the line closed in the railway press).

Nonetheless, once it is open to Calvert for East-West, I could see a push to extend the line north to a simple Parkway terminus south of Brackely, with another Parkway station to server Buckingham. In fact, I think that could be quite predictable - assuming, that is, HS2 doesn't steal critical sections of land.

Sorry I think the thread title was moderated with my suggestion.

I think space for a track by the HS1 segment should be added by Parliament, and to safeguard the whole route. With the East West line it may be a lot of the intermodal traffic blocking the WCML could in theory move via this and the Woodhead to Manchester and even Scotland. I have edited as no intention of 'conspiracies'. Indeed a loosely connected series of local lines may be the best outcome, but it isn't a daft suggestion, and depending on Government attitudes nor is it unrealistic.
 

yorksrob

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Yes and no. Unfortunately, making totally unrealistic suggestions can be used against those who make serious suggestions - as in "It's another barmy suggestion from a daft enthusiast" when in fact it is no such thing.

And entitling the thread "My Suggestion.... " seems anoyingly egotistical to me - as if nobody had ever suggested it before (when it was being suggested almost as soon as the line closed in the railway press).

Nonetheless, once it is open to Calvert for East-West, I could see a push to extend the line north to a simple Parkway terminus south of Brackely, with another Parkway station to server Buckingham. In fact, I think that could be quite predictable - assuming, that is, HS2 doesn't steal critical sections of land.

We don't exercise any similar veto against suggestions for new rolling stock for example, just because someone might come up with an unrealistic suggestion. Why should reopening's be any different.
 

yorksrob

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I suppose we are getting a bit tied up with words - but FWIW I agree with you that we should be open-minded - I just don't think that 47802 really said what you think he said (if you see what I mean).

To be honest - most of the time when I look at the lines closed by Beeching I do struggle to see much justification for reopening - more to be gained for the money by improving what we have or building from new. I speak as someone who remembers many journeys over such closed lines (Wennington to Morecambe, Castleford Central to Leeds via the Methley Joint, the Woodhead route and others). There was a fair justification for closing all these (although I always felt that Wennington to Morecambe should have been kept instead of Wennington to Carnforth).

Well, 47802 did specifically say the Government should have kept it's "trap shut" which I can only really interpret as meaning that the Government shouldn't have invited any discussion on this topic of policy. Along with with Dynamic Spirit, I believe there is a value to having an open discussion about such a policy, whether the Government intends to pursue it at present, or not.

The second part of the argument is one that I have an even bigger problem with. In the past, when passenger numbers were lower, those with an agenda against reopenings found it easy to propagate the view that reopening's would be worthless.

Now that we have had a growing railway, shortcomings on the existing network, as well as large investments such as HS2 are being used as an excuse to shut down policy discussions about potential reopening's, as is derogatory language such as "crayonistas" and "crackpots".
 
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Kettledrum

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Nonetheless, once it is open to Calvert for East-West, I could see a push to extend the line north to a simple Parkway terminus south of Brackely, with another Parkway station to server Buckingham. In fact, I think that could be quite predictable - assuming, that is, HS2 doesn't steal critical sections of land.

This is a good idea with potential. I wish we could start planning for this as a possibility now, so we could progress such relatively modest re-openings in a much quicker time span.
 

HSTEd

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For a fraction of that subsidy we could put all that traffic into containers and swap bodies and forget our loading gauge problems.
Extremely doubtful.

Container lift costs alone render most HGV hauls cheaper than rail by a huge margin.
Container trains have poor utilisation of expensive rolling stock (30 articulated lorry tractor units cost about as much as one locomotive) and expensive loading cranes (a shuttle type operation loads quicker and with less fixed equipment).

Then there is the fact that there is absolutely no network capacity for any significant freight expansion, and thus any freight expansion would require newbuild lines - which makes loading gauge problems an utter irrelevance.

In other words, over short hauls, containers and swap bodies will get crushed versus a rolling highway system that is faster, cheaper to operate and cheaper to build.
 

The Planner

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Nonetheless, once it is open to Calvert for East-West, I could see a push to extend the line north to a simple Parkway terminus south of Brackely, with another Parkway station to server Buckingham. In fact, I think that could be quite predictable - assuming, that is, HS2 doesn't steal critical sections of land.
Which it does, the line up to Calvert is moved quite substantially to the east to get HS2 in around the Calvert area itself and the waste terminal is being moved further south. You would require a bridge under E-W which there is no provision for and it would also cause issues with HS2 depot. I would ask the question of what use to Brackley and Buckingham this would be without some concrete evidence of where residents want to go, I would expect the major flows to be towards MK. If that is the case I would be looking for the line to Verney Jn rather than the Great Central.
 

furnessvale

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Extremely doubtful.

Container lift costs alone render most HGV hauls cheaper than rail by a huge margin.
Container trains have poor utilisation of expensive rolling stock (30 articulated lorry tractor units cost about as much as one locomotive) and expensive loading cranes (a shuttle type operation loads quicker and with less fixed equipment).

Then there is the fact that there is absolutely no network capacity for any significant freight expansion, and thus any freight expansion would require newbuild lines - which makes loading gauge problems an utter irrelevance.

In other words, over short hauls, containers and swap bodies will get crushed versus a rolling highway system that is faster, cheaper to operate and cheaper to build.
As I mentioned previously, a single container lift is £20 (source Julian Worth CILT). HGV running costs £1.89p per mile (source RHA).
Two lifts cost £40 which equals 21.16 miles of HGV running.
A container train may have one expensive loco on it, but your ro-ro shuttle train also has one expensive loco on it PLUS 30 HGV tractor units, trailers and drivers, which could be elsewhere earning money.
Then you say it will all have to be newbuild lines. ANY newbuild in the UK would only be High Speed for passengers, freeing classic capacity for freight. Any thoughts of newbuild for freight, except minor works, whether by private or public capital are pure flights of fancy.
Unless you provide some costings to back up your ideas, I will not be commenting further on the matter.
 

OverSpeed

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And Rugby is a bottleneck put some of the locals down to Marylebone...

How on earth have you come up with that one? Like the planner said, Rugby works pretty damn well with the WCml.
Just out of interest @TheBeard how would you link the Wcml up with the old Gcr line at Rugby?

Tbh if it was freight related, reopening the old MR line between Rugby and Leicester would make more sense, as it would pass by a major industrial estate at Rugby and distrubtion park at magna Park at Lutterworth, but that also would not happen due to housing estates being in the way around the south of Leicester.
 

aylesbury

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Brackley and Buckingham have no requirement for re-opening.

Buses do the job nowadays; for instance the X60 Aylesbury - Buckingham - Milton Keynes is not overly patronised.

Also if people want to go to London they drive to MK for a quick journey.

Opening to Rugby is a non-starter and as for sending locals to Marylebone there is not enough capacity on the route or at stations. All this is a pipe dream as the GC never made money; it only went through minor towns and was paralleled by better routes.

I remember when the GC closed here in Aylesbury there was not a great deal of upset and the replacement buses only survived a couple of months as they were empty.

The travel patterns south of Buckingham are southward and always have been. The current travel arrangements are more than adequate with a boost coming with East West Rail, so we are all happy bunnies in Bucks.
 
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Kettledrum

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Previous plans for the route hit the news in 2010

http://www.cwn.org.uk/business/a-z/c/chiltern-railways/2000/08/000810-new-central-scheme.htm
[10 AUG 00] CHILTERN RAILWAYS NEWS
Bid To Reopen Central Railway To Passengers

BY ARRYN BUGGINS

Residents could have to put up with more trains through Rugby with a rival scheme announced today to reopen a disused rail line through the town.


The unexpected news means there is now a second bidder trying to use the old line, built 100 years ago to link up the Channel Tunnel.

Chiltern Railways, which operates services along the M40 corridor through Banbury, Leamington and Warwick revealed it wants to run passenger services along the former Great Central Railway.

which covers the plans put forward by Chiltern for an extension to Rugby Parkway and also the freight only scheme.

Neither of these plans got any traction (no pun intended). I don't think the freight only route had any serious financial planning behind it, whereas the Chiltern one was had more credibility at the time because Chiltern were looking at a range of options to expend its network and had a track record of delivering. Chiltern decided to concentrate on the Oxford market and didn't pursue the Rugby extension.
Anyone have any further intelligence on why?
 
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TheBeard

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Rugby having had a £182 million upgrade in 2008.
The idea would be the whole GCR, to, and around Manchester to move the freight. A nice Park and ride North of Rugby by the M1, probably have a very large catchment.
 
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johnnychips

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Rugby is having a £182 million upgrade.
The idea would be the whole GCR, to, and around Manchester to move the freight. A nice Park and ride North of Rugby by the M1, probably have a very large catchment.

Where would the passenger users of the Park and Ride be travelling to? Or do you mean an interchange for freight?
 

TheBeard

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Where would the passenger users of the Park and Ride be travelling to? Or do you mean an interchange for freight?
Parkways are highly successful for passengers, , to London. I'm trying to advocate more capacity in the network. Apparently without HS2 everything will grind to a halt, so thinking about the freight, and with the bonus of a further passenger route, has got to be good for the nation. With politicians espousing this, its time to support it.
 
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