Rational justifications for keeping open lightly used lines

[Calthrop]

Actually, the Severn & Wye Joint system north of Lydney Town, towards Cinderford and Lydbrook Junction. (Though if the Southwold had lasted for another 35 years or so, one suspects he'd have been itching to get his hands on it...)

 

[tbtc]

What level of usage justifies 'rational' retention though? 1 person making 1 return journey per day? 10? 100?

Quantifying the social function is very difficult, but again the question has to be asked if the same or greater benefit could be provided by alternative means, and if so does it remain rational to retain the rail link.

I'm not saying we should close all loss-making lines, and of course the limit will vary depending on local circumstances, but surely at some point the level drops low enough to make it impractical to justify retention.

These are pertinent questions - the thread seems split between those trying to establish some kind of benchmark which it's worth continuing to subsidise heavy rail (we may all have different thresholds, but we can at least discuss where that line should be drawn) and those who just have blind faith that all heavy rail must be the answer and that it's worth providing a "social railway" to one man and his dog, whether that means subsidising each one of their journeys to the tune of fifty pence per passenger mile/ five pounds per passenger mile/ fifteen pounds per passenger mile.

For me, a benchmark could be "can the average passenger load be accommodated by a minibus" - e.g. fine if you have hundreds of people on a train then that's the most effective way of carrying them but if you have a dozen passengers on average then a train doing a couple of miles to the gallon doesn't seem so efficient - at some level it gets to the point where it'd be more environmentally efficient if all the passengers in a Sprinter were driving cars instead!

I'm fine with some routes being loss making, there are some services which prove their worth by taking hundreds of cars off the road, just like I'm fine with the council subsidising some "socially necessary" bus services - but heavy rail is a pretty expensive and blunt instrument when it comes to catering for demand - below a certain level it's really not the answer. Especially as each new carriage costs over a million pounds, staff wages are significantly higher than in light rail or buses - fine if you are spreading those costs over hundreds of people per journey but rather expensive if your passenger numbers are a bit lower.

Worth remembering that heavy rail was intended as a profitable endeavour by nineteenth century entrepreneurs - it wasn't intended as a "social railway" - all of this is just attempted justification for people who couldn't accept lines closing -

I know that any suggestion of a route to consider closing will bring up reactions like "ah, but if you significantly increased the frequency and slashed fares then more people would use it" / "all the passenger figures are rigged, there's thousands of ticketless passengers who aren't counted" / "but the annual subsidy only costs a fraction of the infrastructure costs of HS2" / "but it's valued by the people who do use it" / "I bet you wish that Serpell had cut everything" / "if you remove that branch line used by one man and his dog then the main line route that it connects with will lose thousands of passengers" etc - some people will never accept any closures - even the likes of Newhaven or the quayside line at Weymouth. Fair enough, some people will justify continuing a line regardless of whether anyone actually uses it - there's no point in arguing with people who cannot accept the closure of a single station.

But, here's an example of a branch line (based on the most recent figures from WIkepedia - 2019/20):

• Colne: 81,126
• Nelson: 121,000
• Brierfield: 37,688

...so 239,814 passengers per annum. That's "total passengers" though, the number of departing passengers is actually 119,907.

Spread that across fifty two weeks and you've got 2,306 departing passengers a week, which is 329 passengers a day - spread over a dozen journeys a day and you've got an average load of twenty eight passengers (not enough to half fill a single carriage 153) - you could fit that number of people on an Optare Solo. Is heavy rail really the solution for a branch line like that? And, if an average of twenty eight passengers is sufficient for you to think that we should keep it open then would you reconsider if the passenger numbers were eighteen per train? Eight per train? Or is the fact that it's an existing train line enough to keep it going regardless of whether anyone uses it?

Some people will have a threshold (it may be thirty eight or forty eight or fifty eight, it depends on the person) but others will refuse to countenance any suggestion that anything should ever close (they can wibble all they want about a "social railway" and the unquantifiable benefits of keeping the town on the map etc, but it's just a diversion tactic from the fact that they don't want to accept that sometimes passenger numbers will drop to a level where heavy rail is clearly not the answer)

And the "buses in rural areas have been terrible since deregulation, and then council cuts" argument is pretty weak really, as the answer then is to sort out the buses.

Agreed - there seems to be an attitude on here that spending hundreds of millions of pounds on building a railway through a fairly rural area (Dartmoor, Lake District etc) but you can't possibly do anything radical like subsidise a bus service and guarantee that the timetable won't change for a period of a few years - that's just crazy talk!

There seems no reason why we can't have something like the TrawsCymru network of bus/coach services in rural areas of the UK - services timed to connect with trains and designed to penetrate the places that heavy rail is too inflexible to reach - but people don't seem to want smallish practical proposals, they want the kind of "Tavistock to Okehampton" grand schemes

 

[Llandudno]

Because generally for medium to longer distances, rail is the best option for public transport. I've used buses for these sort of distances (Middlesborough/Scarborough - Whitby, Bodmin Road - Padstow, Leeds - Normanton as examples), and the journey has generally been long, tedious and to an extent, nauseating.

The Settle & Carlisle only gets a passenger train around every two hours, however its still the best way to get from urban West Yorkshire into the Dales.

It doesn’t help that there is very little attempt at bus/rail integration anywhere in the UK.
It is normally a total fluke if the bus times meet train times and of course as for through ticketing forget it, except for a local bus serving the area around a station like PlusBus, which, of course, you can’t buy on the bus to start your bus/rail journey.

You certainly wouldn’t risk boarding an afternoon/evening train and then ‘connecting’ onto a last bus, as if the train is delayed, you could be stranded, although you could claim delay repay for the train fare element!

 

[yorksrob]

It doesn’t help that there is very little attempt at bus/rail integration anywhere in the UK.
It is normally a total fluke if the bus times meet train times and of course as for through ticketing forget it, except for a local bus serving the area around a station like PlusBus, which, of course, you can’t buy on the bus to start your bus/rail journey.

You certainly wouldn’t risk boarding an afternoon/evening train and then ‘connecting’ onto a last bus, as if the train is delayed, you could be stranded, although you could claim delay repay for the train fare element!

Indeed - it doesn't help that the bus station is often twenty minutes away on the opposite side of the city !

The connection at Bodmin Road to and from the Padstow bus is one I've had problems with at various times.

 

[Greybeard33]

But, here's an example of a branch line (based on the most recent figures from WIkepedia - 2019/20):

• Colne: 81,126
• Nelson: 121,000
• Brierfield: 37,688

...so 239,814 passengers per annum. That's "total passengers" though, the number of departing passengers is actually 119,907.

Spread that across fifty two weeks and you've got 2,306 departing passengers a week, which is 329 passengers a day - spread over a dozen journeys a day and you've got an average load of twenty eight passengers (not enough to half fill a single carriage 153) - you could fit that number of people on an Optare Solo. Is heavy rail really the solution for a branch line like that?

Your attempt to portray the Colne branch as a basket case is rather disingenuous:

• In addition to the those three stations, the branch also serves Burnley Barracks and Burnley Central, which I imagine provide substantial additional footfall (Burnley also has Manchester Road on the other line, but that is in a different part of the town)
• The branch is not self contained - the service is Preston - Colne not Gannow Junction - Colne, and provides the only calls at many of the intermediate stations between Burnley and Blackburn and between Blackburn and Preston
• As the service passes through urban areas, it no doubt carries commuter traffic - in the peaks loadings west of Burnley are likely well above the capacity of a single 153, let alone a bus
• The single track branch is only 6.5 miles long and operates on a "one engine in steam" basis, so infrastructure operating and maintenance costs must be quite low.

While it is unlikely that pre-Covid farebox revenue covered the operating costs of this service, the subsidy level is not comparable with rural branches that have much higher infrastructure costs and a less frequent service, e.g. the Conwy Valley and the HoW.

This example shows that closure proposals should look at the overall cost saving versus the lost benefits of withdrawing/curtailing a particular service or service group, not attempt to look at the economics of each branch line in isolation from the rest of the network.

 

[Halifaxlad]

How about 'rational justifications for converting some lines to tram train' ?

As a permanent or temporary measure!

It may help justify electrifying some lines with 25kv OHL.

As for the Preston to Colne line I think that line has got a lot of potential, if it has a decent half hour service with some decent units! This should really be a precursor before it is extended!

I have previously thought converting the line between Wakefield Westgate and Leeds might be ideal, with a heavy rail connection from Kirkgate via Normanton and Woodlesford, obviously POST hs2.

The Blackpool South line could be ideal for this, with it terminating at Wesham. I would also move Blackpool Pleasure Beach station so it was much closer to the entrance and extend the line past Bloomfield stadium to the car parks by Coral Island near the front!

The Penistone line from Huddersfield to Barnsley might also be a good one. Post TRU of Huddersfield station it is to be segregated completed from the through lines (I don't know the exact layout at the moment) so tram trains won't have any impact, Barnsley might be best running it on the road and past the station entrance to somewhere.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

How about 'rational justifications for not converting some lines to tram train' ?

. . . I have previously thought converting the line between Wakefield Westgate and Leeds might be ideal . . .

Don't the LNER trains to London and Cross Country trains to Birmingham and the south west use that route?

 

[Halifaxlad]

Don't the LNER trains to London and Cross Country trains to Birmingham and the south west use that route?

Hence why I said 'Post HS2'

 

[Bald Rick]

Hence why I said 'Post HS2'

When there will still be regular trains to London Kings Cross via Doncaster, and Birmingham via Wakefield / Sheffield.

 

[quantinghome]

So here is my list of 'rational' reasons for keeping a highly unprofitable line open:

- The road alternative involves a big detour and closure would cause towns - e.g. Barmouth bridge on the Cambrian line, estuary crossings on the Furness line.
- It is the only railway serving the wider area - e.g. Kyle of Lochalsh, Cornish main line.
- It has realistic potential to relieve a congested parallel route - e.g. GN/GE, maybe Settle-Carlisle.
- It is an extension of a service that doesn't require a disproportionate increase in cost to run - e.g. Colne branch.
- It provides a national strategic purpose - e.g. Cumbrian Coast for Sellafield.
- It connects regions of the country which could only be otherwise connected by significantly longer or highly congested routes.
- There is a realistic prospect of greater traffic in the future, even if this is not an immediate need - e.g. Settle-Carlisle

 

[edwin_m]

How about 'rational justifications for converting some lines to tram train' ?

As a permanent or temporary measure!

It may help justify electrifying some lines with 25kv OHL.

As for the Preston to Colne line I think that line has got a lot of potential, if it has a decent half hour service with some decent units! This should really be a precursor before it is extended!

I have previously thought converting the line between Wakefield Westgate and Leeds might be ideal, with a heavy rail connection from Kirkgate via Normanton and Woodlesford, obviously POST hs2.

The Blackpool South line could be ideal for this, with it terminating at Wesham. I would also move Blackpool Pleasure Beach station so it was much closer to the entrance and extend the line past Bloomfield stadium to the car parks by Coral Island near the front!

The Penistone line from Huddersfield to Barnsley might also be a good one. Post TRU of Huddersfield station it is to be segregated completed from the through lines (I don't know the exact layout at the moment) so tram trains won't have any impact, Barnsley might be best running it on the road and past the station entrance to somewhere.

Tram-train is almost always a red herring for the types of routes we are talking about here. It would need big investment to electrify the line and, per seat, the vehicles are more expensive than trains (and still would be if the interior layout increased seating rather than standing room). You'd get some saving in signalling, but most of the lines under discussion here are single so would still need signalling of some sort.

The main reason to consider tram-train is for a route that's relatively short (so minimises the above costs) but where a short off-rail extension would allow service to a major destination not on the railway. I don't really see any of the routes discussed here falling into that category with the possible exception of Blackpool South, where connections or conversions to tramway have been discussed many times. But that doesn't fit into the category of lightly-used long rural lines, for which the better choice would be a low-cost lightweight multiple unit compatible with heavy rail operation, not spending money on features only needed for street running.

 

[HSTEd]

The main reason to consider tram-train is for a route that's relatively short (so minimises the above costs) but where a short off-rail extension would allow service to a major destination not on the railway. I don't really see any of the routes discussed here falling into that category with the possible exception of Blackpool South, where connections or conversions to tramway have been discussed many times. But that doesn't fit into the category of lightly-used long rural lines, for which the better choice would be a low-cost lightweight multiple unit compatible with heavy rail operation, not spending money on features only needed for street running.

I'd argue that tram trains are a bit more widely applicable than that.
For example I often exhort the potential for Nottingham tram extensions via Tram trains to the likes of Newark and Grantham, partially because the lines are currently so slow that a tram directly into the city centre at higher frequencies (helped by use of DOO and shorter journey times from mad tram acceleration) would stimulate dramatically higher usage.

But even so, not sure what lines like Colne would be linked to as tram trains, its a little bit far to go all the way to Manchester after all.

 

[Bald Rick]

For example I often exhort the potential for Nottingham tram extensions via Tram trains to the likes of Newark and Grantham, partially because the lines are currently so slow that a tram directly into the city centre at higher frequencies (helped by use of DOO and shorter journey times from mad tram acceleration) would stimulate dramatically higher usage.

Right idea, but wrong sort of line. It’s a long way to each of Newark and Grantham from Nottingham, and once past the immediate suburbs there’s not a lot there. Also, the existing stopping services are not self contained, eg almost all the Grantham services go on to Skeggy, so you don’t actually save much in the way of railway resource.

However, a tram train as far as Bingham would have legs, I think, sufficient to make a dent in the 4/6 buses an hour, and also the traffic.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'd argue that tram trains are a bit more widely applicable than that.
For example I often exhort the potential for Nottingham tram extensions via Tram trains to the likes of Newark and Grantham, partially because the lines are currently so slow that a tram directly into the city centre at higher frequencies (helped by use of DOO and shorter journey times from mad tram acceleration) would stimulate dramatically higher usage.

But even so, not sure what lines like Colne would be linked to as tram trains, its a little bit far to go all the way to Manchester after all.

If Blackpool South was tramified, you'd just operate Preston-Colne and Preston-Ormskirk separately, reversing in platforms 3C and 4C, or if it worked timetable-wise interwork the two. The tram wouldn't cross Preston, indeed it'd probably not go past Kirkham where you'd change for Preston.

 

[NorthOxonian]

These are pertinent questions - the thread seems split between those trying to establish some kind of benchmark which it's worth continuing to subsidise heavy rail (we may all have different thresholds, but we can at least discuss where that line should be drawn) and those who just have blind faith that all heavy rail must be the answer and that it's worth providing a "social railway" to one man and his dog, whether that means subsidising each one of their journeys to the tune of fifty pence per passenger mile/ five pounds per passenger mile/ fifteen pounds per passenger mile.

For me, a benchmark could be "can the average passenger load be accommodated by a minibus" - e.g. fine if you have hundreds of people on a train then that's the most effective way of carrying them but if you have a dozen passengers on average then a train doing a couple of miles to the gallon doesn't seem so efficient - at some level it gets to the point where it'd be more environmentally efficient if all the passengers in a Sprinter were driving cars instead!

I'm fine with some routes being loss making, there are some services which prove their worth by taking hundreds of cars off the road, just like I'm fine with the council subsidising some "socially necessary" bus services - but heavy rail is a pretty expensive and blunt instrument when it comes to catering for demand - below a certain level it's really not the answer. Especially as each new carriage costs over a million pounds, staff wages are significantly higher than in light rail or buses - fine if you are spreading those costs over hundreds of people per journey but rather expensive if your passenger numbers are a bit lower.

Worth remembering that heavy rail was intended as a profitable endeavour by nineteenth century entrepreneurs - it wasn't intended as a "social railway" - all of this is just attempted justification for people who couldn't accept lines closing -

I know that any suggestion of a route to consider closing will bring up reactions like "ah, but if you significantly increased the frequency and slashed fares then more people would use it" / "all the passenger figures are rigged, there's thousands of ticketless passengers who aren't counted" / "but the annual subsidy only costs a fraction of the infrastructure costs of HS2" / "but it's valued by the people who do use it" / "I bet you wish that Serpell had cut everything" / "if you remove that branch line used by one man and his dog then the main line route that it connects with will lose thousands of passengers" etc - some people will never accept any closures - even the likes of Newhaven or the quayside line at Weymouth. Fair enough, some people will justify continuing a line regardless of whether anyone actually uses it - there's no point in arguing with people who cannot accept the closure of a single station.

But, here's an example of a branch line (based on the most recent figures from WIkepedia - 2019/20):

• Colne: 81,126
• Nelson: 121,000
• Brierfield: 37,688

...so 239,814 passengers per annum. That's "total passengers" though, the number of departing passengers is actually 119,907.

Spread that across fifty two weeks and you've got 2,306 departing passengers a week, which is 329 passengers a day - spread over a dozen journeys a day and you've got an average load of twenty eight passengers (not enough to half fill a single carriage 153) - you could fit that number of people on an Optare Solo. Is heavy rail really the solution for a branch line like that? And, if an average of twenty eight passengers is sufficient for you to think that we should keep it open then would you reconsider if the passenger numbers were eighteen per train? Eight per train? Or is the fact that it's an existing train line enough to keep it going regardless of whether anyone uses it?

Some people will have a threshold (it may be thirty eight or forty eight or fifty eight, it depends on the person) but others will refuse to countenance any suggestion that anything should ever close (they can wibble all they want about a "social railway" and the unquantifiable benefits of keeping the town on the map etc, but it's just a diversion tactic from the fact that they don't want to accept that sometimes passenger numbers will drop to a level where heavy rail is clearly not the answer)



Agreed - there seems to be an attitude on here that spending hundreds of millions of pounds on building a railway through a fairly rural area (Dartmoor, Lake District etc) but you can't possibly do anything radical like subsidise a bus service and guarantee that the timetable won't change for a period of a few years - that's just crazy talk!

There seems no reason why we can't have something like the TrawsCymru network of bus/coach services in rural areas of the UK - services timed to connect with trains and designed to penetrate the places that heavy rail is too inflexible to reach - but people don't seem to want smallish practical proposals, they want the kind of "Tavistock to Okehampton" grand schemes

The flaw in that logic is that many of these remote lines have very variable demand. Colne is not a tourist destination and I daresay it gets the same amount of traffic at any time of year, but somewhere like Whitby will have virtually empty trains on cold winter weekdays and heaving trains on summer Saturdays. You can't just consider the average number of passengers per service - how passengers are distributed throughout the day, week, and year is crucial.

 

[HSTEd]

Right idea, but wrong sort of line. It’s a long way to each of Newark and Grantham from Nottingham, and once past the immediate suburbs there’s not a lot there. Also, the existing stopping services are not self contained, eg almost all the Grantham services go on to Skeggy, so you don’t actually save much in the way of railway resource.

However, a tram train as far as Bingham would have legs, I think, sufficient to make a dent in the 4/6 buses an hour, and also the traffic.

I think this boils down to "use tram trains to make lightly used lines not lightly used any more".
Ultimately driving increased usage is the only way to amortise the fixed costs associated with heavy rail infrastructure.

EDIT:

Ultimately using short tram-trains is just the logical extension of the "half the length, twice as often" strategy BR pursued through Sprinterisation.

 

[yorksrob]

The flaw in that logic is that many of these remote lines have very variable demand. Colne is not a tourist destination and I daresay it gets the same amount of traffic at any time of year, but somewhere like Whitby will have virtually empty trains on cold winter weekdays and heaving trains on summer Saturdays. You can't just consider the average number of passengers per service - how passengers are distributed throughout the day, week, and year is crucial.

Although I've noticed that some trains on the Whitby line get decent (if not spectacular) loadings even in the bleak midwinter.

 

[Bald Rick]

You can't just consider the average number of passengers per service - how passengers are distributed throughout the day, week, and year is crucial.

That doesn’t matter when considering the amount of revenue and social benefit generated. It’s total number of passengers that is the key metric, not when they travel.

When they travel is relevant to the service provided, and thus the variable cost. But if that service is relatively fixed (ie through the timetable) that’s less relevant as well.

 

[NorthOxonian]

That doesn’t matter when considering the amount of revenue and social benefit generated. It’s total number of passengers that is the key metric, not when they travel.

When they travel is relevant to the service provided, and thus the variable cost. But if that service is relatively fixed (ie through the timetable) that’s less relevant as well.

I agree, but if you're doing this analysis then the costs and benefits of an alternative to rail should be considered too. The Colne example you used would be a case where you might be able to substitute the line with a bus, because even the busiest services might still be fine. With the Whitby service, you'd find some days a minibus would be sufficient, but others you'd need a fleet of double deckers. Therefore the cost of providing an alternative will be greater for Whitby than for Colne, even though passenger numbers are fairly similar.

 

[Bald Rick]

I agree, but if you're doing this analysis then the costs and benefits of an alternative to rail should be considered too. The Colne example you used would be a case where you might be able to substitute the line with a bus, because even the busiest services might still be fine. With the Whitby service, you'd find some days a minibus would be sufficient, but others you'd need a fleet of double deckers. Therefore the cost of providing an alternative will be greater for Whitby than for Colne, even though passenger numbers are fairly similar.

My bold.

Maybe, maybe not. Bus costs are much more flexible than train costs. At a guess, putting a minibus / multiple doubler deckers on for a highly peaky route (say minibus off season, double deckers high tourist season) would be cheaper than providing a standard bus all year.

Not that I am advocating this of course, particularly as it wasn’t me that suggested it!

 

[Halifaxlad]

When I refered to tram trains earlier I was just mainly t hinking about running trams on certain parts of the heavy rail network, preferably completely seperate from other services. Last night was a long night.

 

[Llandudno]

My bold.

Maybe, maybe not. Bus costs are much more flexible than train costs. At a guess, putting a minibus / multiple doubler deckers on for a highly peaky route (say minibus off season, double deckers high tourist season) would be cheaper than providing a standard bus all year.

Not that I am advocating this of course, particularly as it wasn’t me that suggested it!

Depends on what you do with the expensive DDA compliant double deckers and the necessary drivers during the non high tourist season or when you get a rain sodden Sunday in August.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Depends on what you do with the expensive DDA compliant double deckers and the necessary drivers during the non high tourist season or when you get a rain sodden Sunday in August.

School contracts - just a thought ?

 

[Llandudno]

Problem is most of the large bus operators in the UK no longer run school contracts, preferring to stick with commercial and tendered stage carriage bus operations so they don’t have a surplus of buses and drivers they can call on to augment seasonal services.

They are also, quite rightly in my view, concerned that using sub standard, older vehicles to duplicate main line routes would devalue their product. Imagine duplicating a Stagecoach Gold, or Arriva Sapphire bus with a 20 year old ‘school’ bus.

This is probably the reason why when last minute rail replacement vehicles are required it tends to be the smaller, independent coach operators that come to the rescue.

 

[tbtc]

Your attempt to portray the Colne branch as a basket case is rather disingenuous:

• In addition to the those three stations, the branch also serves Burnley Barracks and Burnley Central, which I imagine provide substantial additional footfall (Burnley also has Manchester Road on the other line, but that is in a different part of the town)
• The branch is not self contained - the service is Preston - Colne not Gannow Junction - Colne, and provides the only calls at many of the intermediate stations between Burnley and Blackburn and between Blackburn and Preston
• As the service passes through urban areas, it no doubt carries commuter traffic - in the peaks loadings west of Burnley are likely well above the capacity of a single 153, let alone a bus
• The single track branch is only 6.5 miles long and operates on a "one engine in steam" basis, so infrastructure operating and maintenance costs must be quite low.

While it is unlikely that pre-Covid farebox revenue covered the operating costs of this service, the subsidy level is not comparable with rural branches that have much higher infrastructure costs and a less frequent service, e.g. the Conwy Valley and the HoW.

This example shows that closure proposals should look at the overall cost saving versus the lost benefits of withdrawing/curtailing a particular service or service group, not attempt to look at the economics of each branch line in isolation from the rest of the network.

The problem here is that excuses will be made for any and every quiet branch will have some excuses made for it. Very few branches are operationally independent, other than the Thames Valley and Cornwall, so it's hard to split things out (since we don't know full fare data for stations)

I know that the service runs through to Preston etc but if you terminated Preston stoppers at Burnley then you'd be able to use the same unit/staff elsewhere - e.g. the busier bit of line from Burnley - Blackburn - Preston

I didn't include the Burnley stations since some of those passenger numbers will for people doing journeys from Colne (etc) to Burnley, which would mean double counting (since a Colne - Burnley return would count as a departure at Colne, an arrival at Burnley, a departure at Burnley and an arrival at Colne). If I had more passenger data then I'd try to be a bit more detailed. But we don't have the information required to do the kind of "holistic" stuff that you are talking about.

I appreciate that no line is as much of a basket case as the Conwy Valley but any suggestion of closing these kind of routes (Heart of Wales, Kyle etc) brings about the emotional stuff (isolated rural communities that rely on rail, even though the passenger numbers are tiny - you'd be depriving them of tourists, much harder politically to close something scenic/rural). Not the case at Colne (which doesn't serve anywhere that doesn't have a regular bus service nearby).

There's also the argument that a higher proportion of passengers on a scenic rural route are doing longer distance journeys than a relatively "urban" one like Colne (e.g. if I suggest we close the Newquay branch then someone would point out that a lot of people who use it are coming from London/ Birmingham, so the overall loss to the railway would be much higher than just the cost of a Par - Newquay return ticket. However, I think that most passengers on the Colne branch will be relatively "local" in comparison.

There are other lines with low passenger numbers that do see some freight, e.g. I could suggest closing the stations between Knottingley and Goole but I'd be told that there's no point in doing that since the line needs to remain open for freight, so the marginal costs of keeping the intermediate stations open is fairly low.

There are some lines with very low passenger numbers at intermediate stations that I didn't suggest because there's always the argument that the trains are full of longer distance passengers (e.g. the stations between Settle and Carlisle don't have big numbers but someone would argue that there are hundreds of passengers who use the line to get from Nottingham to Glasgow - same with the Bentham lines here the low passenger numbers can be excused by the fact that it's a line that people might use from West Yorkshire to the Lake District. Not the case with Colne (as it's a dead end).

...hence going for Colne - there's not a lot of passengers, there's no "through" passengers, there's not a major tourist market and what passengers there are are fairly "local" (e.g. if I'd mentioned Whitby then someone would bring up the fact that it's the only way that some kids can get to school).

Signalling/ maintenance costs will be hot/cold - fairly minimal until the time that things need renewed, at which case they are disproportionally expensive, and then fairly minimal until the next renewal, so maybe this is something that we'd need to discuss next time we have to spend millions of pounds on bringing the line up to standard. Cars can be pretty cheap to run until the point that they suddenly aren't - I know people who keep their car until it needs it's next expensive repair, at which time it gets binned off - same can be true of railway lines, given the way that infrastructure costs can be cyclical. Similarly, the cost of using an old DMU on the line may be fairly cheap until the point that new/newer stock is required, at which case it becomes disproportionately expensive when spread amongst the passengers who use the line.

If we need an average subsidy of forty pence per passenger mile across the Northern franchise then there must be some routes/ services where the subsidy is significantly higher than that, but without access to more detailed revenue it's hard to have these kind of arguments. But I've tried to pick a line that doesn't have as many justifications for keeping open as other ones (tourists, school traffic, freight trains, isolated communities with no bus services, through passengers, long distance passengers)- yet still come up against arguments like "ah, but if we doubled the frequency then...".

The flaw in that logic is that many of these remote lines have very variable demand. Colne is not a tourist destination and I daresay it gets the same amount of traffic at any time of year, but somewhere like Whitby will have virtually empty trains on cold winter weekdays and heaving trains on summer Saturdays. You can't just consider the average number of passengers per service - how passengers are distributed throughout the day, week, and year is crucial.

...which is why I deliberately chose a non-tourist route - if I'd picked Whitby then there'd be the argument that "each passenger is a tourist who spends hundreds of pounds when they visit, so closing the line would be a false economy because it'd hurt the tourist industry" etc etc

Similarly I didn't choose heavily subsidised rural route which is so quiet that there's no parallel bus service (Kyle, Heart Of Wales etc), since there's the argument that "this would leave communities isolated" (even if the number of journeys made by people in those villages is a fairly low number)

Problem is most of the large bus operators in the UK no longer run school contracts, preferring to stick with commercial and tendered stage carriage bus operations so they don’t have a surplus of buses and drivers they can call on to augment seasonal services.

They are also, quite rightly in my view, concerned that using sub standard, older vehicles to duplicate main line routes would devalue their product. Imagine duplicating a Stagecoach Gold, or Arriva Sapphire bus with a 20 year old ‘school’ bus

However the opposite is sometimes true - Stagecoach are currently using high spec 62-plate "Oxford Tube" double decker coaches on school services around Dunfermline - which must be nice for the kids, used to a "twenty" year old bus!

 

[Greybeard33]

The problem here is that excuses will be made for any and every quiet branch will have some excuses made for it. Very few branches are operationally independent, other than the Thames Valley and Cornwall, so it's hard to split things out (since we don't know full fare data for stations)

I know that the service runs through to Preston etc but if you terminated Preston stoppers at Burnley then you'd be able to use the same unit/staff elsewhere - e.g. the busier bit of line from Burnley - Blackburn - Preston

I didn't include the Burnley stations since some of those passenger numbers will for people doing journeys from Colne (etc) to Burnley, which would mean double counting (since a Colne - Burnley return would count as a departure at Colne, an arrival at Burnley, a departure at Burnley and an arrival at Colne). If I had more passenger data then I'd try to be a bit more detailed. But we don't have the information required to do the kind of "holistic" stuff that you are talking about.

I appreciate that no line is as much of a basket case as the Conwy Valley but any suggestion of closing these kind of routes (Heart of Wales, Kyle etc) brings about the emotional stuff (isolated rural communities that rely on rail, even though the passenger numbers are tiny - you'd be depriving them of tourists, much harder politically to close something scenic/rural). Not the case at Colne (which doesn't serve anywhere that doesn't have a regular bus service nearby).

There's also the argument that a higher proportion of passengers on a scenic rural route are doing longer distance journeys than a relatively "urban" one like Colne (e.g. if I suggest we close the Newquay branch then someone would point out that a lot of people who use it are coming from London/ Birmingham, so the overall loss to the railway would be much higher than just the cost of a Par - Newquay return ticket. However, I think that most passengers on the Colne branch will be relatively "local" in comparison.

There are other lines with low passenger numbers that do see some freight, e.g. I could suggest closing the stations between Knottingley and Goole but I'd be told that there's no point in doing that since the line needs to remain open for freight, so the marginal costs of keeping the intermediate stations open is fairly low.

There are some lines with very low passenger numbers at intermediate stations that I didn't suggest because there's always the argument that the trains are full of longer distance passengers (e.g. the stations between Settle and Carlisle don't have big numbers but someone would argue that there are hundreds of passengers who use the line to get from Nottingham to Glasgow - same with the Bentham lines here the low passenger numbers can be excused by the fact that it's a line that people might use from West Yorkshire to the Lake District. Not the case with Colne (as it's a dead end).

...hence going for Colne - there's not a lot of passengers, there's no "through" passengers, there's not a major tourist market and what passengers there are are fairly "local" (e.g. if I'd mentioned Whitby then someone would bring up the fact that it's the only way that some kids can get to school).

Signalling/ maintenance costs will be hot/cold - fairly minimal until the time that things need renewed, at which case they are disproportionally expensive, and then fairly minimal until the next renewal, so maybe this is something that we'd need to discuss next time we have to spend millions of pounds on bringing the line up to standard. Cars can be pretty cheap to run until the point that they suddenly aren't - I know people who keep their car until it needs it's next expensive repair, at which time it gets binned off - same can be true of railway lines, given the way that infrastructure costs can be cyclical. Similarly, the cost of using an old DMU on the line may be fairly cheap until the point that new/newer stock is required, at which case it becomes disproportionately expensive when spread amongst the passengers who use the line.

If we need an average subsidy of forty pence per passenger mile across the Northern franchise then there must be some routes/ services where the subsidy is significantly higher than that, but without access to more detailed revenue it's hard to have these kind of arguments. But I've tried to pick a line that doesn't have as many justifications for keeping open as other ones (tourists, school traffic, freight trains, isolated communities with no bus services, through passengers, long distance passengers)- yet still come up against arguments like "ah, but if we doubled the frequency then...".



...which is why I deliberately chose a non-tourist route - if I'd picked Whitby then there'd be the argument that "each passenger is a tourist who spends hundreds of pounds when they visit, so closing the line would be a false economy because it'd hurt the tourist industry" etc etc

Similarly I didn't choose heavily subsidised rural route which is so quiet that there's no parallel bus service (Kyle, Heart Of Wales etc), since there's the argument that "this would leave communities isolated" (even if the number of journeys made by people in those villages is a fairly low number)

I was not "making excuses", rather pointing out that Burnley to Colne cannot be considered in isolation from the rest of the Preston to Colne route.

I believe that a substantial proportion of the journeys from Colne, Nelson and Brierfield are to destinations beyond Burnley, and you have now admitted you have no evidence to the contrary. There is a frequent bus service between Burnley and Colne, with journey times comparable to the train and stops more conveniently sited than the stations, so it would be surprising if many passengers use the train for local journeys.

If the Preston service was terminated at Burnley as you propose, some of the existing passengers to Blackburn/Manchester/Preston would switch to bus or car for the whole journey, rather than change modes at Burnley. This would reduce passenger numbers on the Burnley to Blackburn section of the route, so you could then make the case to cut back the service to just Blackburn to Preston, which would save the cost of a unit and crew, enable Burnley Central and Barracks to be closed and Gannow Junction to be plain lined, saving more maintenance costs (termination at Burnley would only save the maintenance costs of a few miles of single track - the unit and crew would be sitting at Burnley for half an hour instead of running to Colne and back).

But you would then find that passenger loads were unacceptably low between Blackburn and Preston, so the conclusion would be that the service should be withdrawn completely, leaving just the hourly semi-fast to Leeds on the line. The minor stations between Preston and Burnley could be served by a weekly "parliamentary" - the small number of passengers would have to use the buses instead.

And so on and so on.... Do you now see why the branch cannot be considered in isolation from the wider network?

 

[backontrack]

The problem here is that excuses will be made for any and every quiet branch will have some excuses made for it. Very few branches are operationally independent, other than the Thames Valley and Cornwall, so it's hard to split things out (since we don't know full fare data for stations)

I know that the service runs through to Preston etc but if you terminated Preston stoppers at Burnley then you'd be able to use the same unit/staff elsewhere - e.g. the busier bit of line from Burnley - Blackburn - Preston

I didn't include the Burnley stations since some of those passenger numbers will for people doing journeys from Colne (etc) to Burnley, which would mean double counting (since a Colne - Burnley return would count as a departure at Colne, an arrival at Burnley, a departure at Burnley and an arrival at Colne). If I had more passenger data then I'd try to be a bit more detailed. But we don't have the information required to do the kind of "holistic" stuff that you are talking about.

I appreciate that no line is as much of a basket case as the Conwy Valley but any suggestion of closing these kind of routes (Heart of Wales, Kyle etc) brings about the emotional stuff (isolated rural communities that rely on rail, even though the passenger numbers are tiny - you'd be depriving them of tourists, much harder politically to close something scenic/rural). Not the case at Colne (which doesn't serve anywhere that doesn't have a regular bus service nearby).

There's also the argument that a higher proportion of passengers on a scenic rural route are doing longer distance journeys than a relatively "urban" one like Colne (e.g. if I suggest we close the Newquay branch then someone would point out that a lot of people who use it are coming from London/ Birmingham, so the overall loss to the railway would be much higher than just the cost of a Par - Newquay return ticket. However, I think that most passengers on the Colne branch will be relatively "local" in comparison.

There are other lines with low passenger numbers that do see some freight, e.g. I could suggest closing the stations between Knottingley and Goole but I'd be told that there's no point in doing that since the line needs to remain open for freight, so the marginal costs of keeping the intermediate stations open is fairly low.

There are some lines with very low passenger numbers at intermediate stations that I didn't suggest because there's always the argument that the trains are full of longer distance passengers (e.g. the stations between Settle and Carlisle don't have big numbers but someone would argue that there are hundreds of passengers who use the line to get from Nottingham to Glasgow - same with the Bentham lines here the low passenger numbers can be excused by the fact that it's a line that people might use from West Yorkshire to the Lake District. Not the case with Colne (as it's a dead end).

...hence going for Colne - there's not a lot of passengers, there's no "through" passengers, there's not a major tourist market and what passengers there are are fairly "local" (e.g. if I'd mentioned Whitby then someone would bring up the fact that it's the only way that some kids can get to school).

Signalling/ maintenance costs will be hot/cold - fairly minimal until the time that things need renewed, at which case they are disproportionally expensive, and then fairly minimal until the next renewal, so maybe this is something that we'd need to discuss next time we have to spend millions of pounds on bringing the line up to standard. Cars can be pretty cheap to run until the point that they suddenly aren't - I know people who keep their car until it needs it's next expensive repair, at which time it gets binned off - same can be true of railway lines, given the way that infrastructure costs can be cyclical. Similarly, the cost of using an old DMU on the line may be fairly cheap until the point that new/newer stock is required, at which case it becomes disproportionately expensive when spread amongst the passengers who use the line.

If we need an average subsidy of forty pence per passenger mile across the Northern franchise then there must be some routes/ services where the subsidy is significantly higher than that, but without access to more detailed revenue it's hard to have these kind of arguments. But I've tried to pick a line that doesn't have as many justifications for keeping open as other ones (tourists, school traffic, freight trains, isolated communities with no bus services, through passengers, long distance passengers)- yet still come up against arguments like "ah, but if we doubled the frequency then..."

Awww do people keep raining on your parade with their pesky counterarguments

Maybe I'm being uncharitable here, but this reads as though you have a general grievance with the fact that, whenever you propose closing a line, somebody will always disagree with you. "But they'll say X! But they'll say Y! Why can't I find one example that I can advocate for the closure of without anyone glowering?" There's something insidious about your search for a palatable example that betrays this.

I will say that the Conwy Valley does have an outstandingly poor business case going forward, as you point out.

 

[tbtc]

I was not "making excuses", rather pointing out that Burnley to Colne cannot be considered in isolation from the rest of the Preston to Colne route.

I believe that a substantial proportion of the journeys from Colne, Nelson and Brierfield are to destinations beyond Burnley, and you have now admitted you have no evidence to the contrary. There is a frequent bus service between Burnley and Colne, with journey times comparable to the train and stops more conveniently sited than the stations, so it would be surprising if many passengers use the train for local journeys.

Well, yes, I admit that I don't have a comprehensive breakdown of where all of the average twenty eight passengers are travelling to/from - I don't think anyone on the Forum has that information (or would be able to disclose it even if they did have access) I'm just trying to find one example of a group of stations where there's not the usual excuses about tourists/ isolated rural communities/ school kids/ freight services/ through passengers/ "diversionary resilience" etc, so that we could at least have a theoretical discussion about the merits of a lightly used line without the usual dismissals.

I'm sure that there are much quieter bits of route in the UK (where a replacement minibus would have plenty of spare seats) but these generally have some of the characteristics I've listed above which makes it harder to have a dispassionate discussion about their future.

Maybe that'd make an interesting thread - UK station with the lowest annual revenue - it may not correspond to actual passenger numbers. Shame we'll never have the data.

If the Preston service was terminated at Burnley as you propose, some of the existing passengers to Blackburn/Manchester/Preston would switch to bus or car for the whole journey, rather than change modes at Burnley. This would reduce passenger numbers on the Burnley to Blackburn section of the route, so you could then make the case to cut back the service to just Blackburn to Preston, which would save the cost of a unit and crew, enable Burnley Central and Barracks to be closed and Gannow Junction to be plain lined, saving more maintenance costs (termination at Burnley would only save the maintenance costs of a few miles of single track - the unit and crew would be sitting at Burnley for half an hour instead of running to Colne and back).

But you would then find that passenger loads were unacceptably low between Blackburn and Preston, so the conclusion would be that the service should be withdrawn completely, leaving just the hourly semi-fast to Leeds on the line. The minor stations between Preston and Burnley could be served by a weekly "parliamentary" - the small number of passengers would have to use the buses instead.

...are you forgetting about the hourly Blackburn - Burnley - Rochdale - Manchester service (which could pick up some local stops in your example)?

And so on and so on.... Do you now see why the branch cannot be considered in isolation from the wider network?

But, by what you're saying, there's no line that can be considered in isolation - even one with only a couple of passengers can be explained away on the grounds that "you need to look at the bigger picture" and all of that, everything can be explained away.

We need billions of pounds in subsidy to keep the railway functioning (even at times of record passenger numbers), but no cuts can be countenanced.

 

[yorksrob]

u're saying, there's no line that can be considered in isolation - even one with only a couple of passengers can be explained away on the grounds that "you need to look at the bigger picture" and all of that, everything can be explained away.

We need billions of pounds in subsidy to keep the railway functioning (even at times of record passenger numbers), but no cuts can be countenanced.

We shouldn't consider any railway route in isolation. We don't consider A or B roads in the network in isolation, so why the railway.

 

[Bald Rick]

We don't consider A or B roads in the network in isolation, so why the railway.

The highways guys very much do consider roads in isolation!