How much was someone paid to say it is 'technically possible' to re-lay new railway onto an existing track bed where the track bed is largely in place? A quick look at Google Earth is all it takes.
I still can't see it happening. Having a decent road route from Crosshills to M65 is far easier to justify in business case terms.
The cost of any new Road via Cross Hills is so much more than you think, and not to mention the engineering challenges including cutting off the railway viaduct at Colne .
I suspect that that average will have taken a hit this year.
Either way, 95k is a respectable usage for a branch line terminus and I don't think that anecdotally being on a train with one person on it can be seen as a fair representation.
I know from talking to passengers on Colne train station that this number would be far greater if Northern used modern clean faster trains, and more trains per hour, some passengers drive all the way to Preston or Skipton to catch long distance trains. I totally understand them to given that most trains on the East Lancashire Line are 142 Pacers.
The question is does it include double track? At that cost I bloody well hope so!
Anyway isn't they're a separate thread for the Skipton to Colne, naturally I though they would be?
This does include double track , and the preferred option of sinking Vivary Way down to go under the railway at Colne, costs also include upgrading the rail line from Preston to Colne for freight use I think upto W12, (unconfirmed) at that level.
One New train station is also included in the final project costs along the Colne to Skipton section.
The cost does seem considerably higher than (IIRC) the costs suggested by the earlier SELRAP (can't recall exactly what that acronym stands for) campaign. At that cost I'd expect it includes significant use of double track or loops, including the existing Rose Grove to Colne "long siding". At that price I'd also hope that there's allowance for at least an hourly passenger service as far as Skipton with reliable connections to Leeds services.
Crossing the throat at Leeds will be a significant issue, a flyover looks do-able but would be expensive. NR/DfT may be reluctant to spend significant sums on freight infrastructure projects after that flyover between Doncaster and York (don't recall the name of the location) was rendered largely obsolete by the drop in coal traffic.
SELRAP (Skipton East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership). Costs are high but these figures didn't come via the DFT, so not 100% sure who gave the media this 400M, note that the Reopening is still around the 100M, the other costs would probably come from upgrading the Preston to Colne Rail Line, which would include double track, and freight clearance work, I know the section from Burnley to Colne is W8, think it would be re-engineered to as high as W12 . This would also included modifications all the way from Preston.
Liverpool to Drax ? Why not use the old route from Liverpool to Hellifield - reinstate the chord at Farmington/Lostock Hall - and reverse at Hellifield to get down to Skipton and onwards. No need to argue about passenger numbers around deepest East Lancashire. And for how long is wood going to be dragged over the Pennines to make electricity ? Not many years I would guess.
Can't see many people who could afford to commute a fair distance to Leeds or Manchester choosing Colne, Nelson or Burnley as places to commute from !
DRAX, doesn't even use this route now, and for good reason because of its steep gradient, the Colne to Skipton Rail Line is the lowest crossing over the Moss.
As for Passenger usage, it's not about just a shuttle service that your suggesting, the benefits come due to the fact that your going to have direct trains between Accrington and Leeds, Bradford via Colne and Skipton, the Benefits are also in having fast direct trains to Manchester and , Manchester Airport for people living between Shipley and Skipton.
It's also common knowledge now that Peel Ports is a major backer of reopening the Skipton to Colne Rail Line .
But for total branch usage, you have to add Nelson, Brierfield and 2 Burnley stations, which adds about another 300,000 using the branch.
Well said, the Population of East Lancashire is much higher than Oxford and yet it has mainline services, just look at Skipton station to when it comes to passenger usage, population is around 18,000, yet it's got a footfall of over 1 million using it every year.
Colne has a higher population but much lower rail station usage much of it due to poor quality of trains, service frequency , and speed.
Once you link the two towns together train usage in Colne would go up! Car ownership levels in parts of East Lancashire are the lowest in the Country, and don't see that changing.
In my own view the Reopening of the Skipton to Colne line is a no Brainer !
The quicker the journey time the fewer trains need to be out on the tracks. It's all about turn round times and at both ends loading and unloading is quick. With a quicker route they might save 25% on the number of trains needed. I have no details of the figures to hand but may have heard a suggestion that the saving could be greater than 25%.
Currently bio-mass trains have to go south to find paths with both capacity and sufficient gauge to take the loads. The Hope Valley doesn't normally see freight other than stone and cement due to capacity issues, but the tunnels aren't wide enough for the largest container loads. (A quarry manager recently told me they can be short of wagons because the railway can't get empties back to them quick enough.) The SELRAP route avoids major tunnels.
Well said! Some of those freight trains can take upto 10 hours, once the rail line is reopend this could be as quick as 2.5 hrs, it's not just about DRAX power this rail project, Peel Ports is one of the other main backers in the project having just invested millions in to the port of Liverpool for deep sea contains which are much larger, at present most of the Rail corridors are at capacity, or close to and significantly their are going to be more container ships coming in to the Port in the not too distant future, something has to be done!
They won’t pay for it. At least not anywhere near enough to make a case for the line.
Drax takes biomass from Immingham, Tyne and Liverpool. Maybe 5-6 trains a day from the latter, which take about 7 hours. Personally, I don’t see how a reopened Skipton-Colne could save 3 hours on that, but let’s assume it does. Allowing for typical loading / unloading times, the haulier could save maybe 2 sets of locos / wagons, 4-6 drivers, and perhaps a bit of fuel. Being very, very generous, that’s worth about £2-3m a year, let’s say £3m. Now if Drax are paying up front to save this much cash, they will want to make a return on their investment, after borrowing at commercial rates. (Their most recent bonds were issued at 6.625%). And they would want that return from a relatively short period, and certainly no longer than that of the biomass units. Putting all those optimistic assumptions through the spreadsheet means that they might chip in something like £20m-£30m, after some hard negotiations. On a project that’s £400m.
Note, it can take upto 10 hours for those trains to get to the power station, and having to use rail lines that are of steep gradient isn't the cheapest of way to get any freight over the Moss, Colne to Skipton is the lowest gradient over the Pennines so the most economical one to operate on.
It's not just DRAX that have a significant interest in this rail project, Peel Ports are in need of better access to the rail network.
