Salisbury to Exeter if it had not been singled

[devon_belle]

I'm interested in hearing some opinions about how the line would be operated, for example where trains would pass and what sort of services might have been possible.

Disclaimer: crayons are well and truly out for this thread - I know that wholesale redoubling of the line isn't worth talking about for a very long time. Instead, I am speculating about how the line may have operated had it never been singled in the first place. I feel that this would be an interesting project for someone to try out in a simulator.

The historic timetable was quite clustered and irregular, which would probably not have lasted through modernisation.

Here are some thoughts I had:

• Broad Clyst, Seaton Junction, Chard Junction, Sutton Bingham, Milborne Port, Semley, Dinton, Wilton would still have been closed.
• Presumably Yeovil Town and all the other branches would have been closed as well.
• Yeovil Junction configured as two island platforms, for overtaking but with all trains stopping (if this is a good location for passing?)
• Brighton/Portsmouth to Cardiff trains would still run, as semi-fasts.
• Waterloo would have kept its express service, which must be somewhat competitive with Paddington (~2.5 hrs?)
• Could they have constructed the Clifton Maybank southern curve for a service to Weymouth? Requires keeping double track on Heart of Wessex line too I suppose.
• Axminster's bay potentially kept for reversing trains.
• 'Local' trains would presumably cover Exeter to Salisbury only. Unless they went beyond to Barnstaple. See next point.
• Unsure how Exeter Central and St Davids would have coped with so much extra traffic. Perhaps both bays retained at Central?
• The elephant in the room: would NSE have electrified instead of ordering 159s?

 

[yorksrob]

Would services to Lyme Regis and Seaton have been retained in this scenario ?

 

[randyrippley]

Little point in keeping both islands at Yeovil Junction.
Platform 1 was only used for the town shuttle. If the track had been revised to allow access to P1 from the west, then with the stopping trains gone following the minor stations closures, platforms 3 & 4 would have been redundant so would have been closed.
But that then has implications for the Clifton Maybank south curve, as that aligned with the goods transfer line, not the platforms. It could probably have been slewed to reach P4, but if P4 was closed then it would have been pointless......
The angles and gradients are wrong to try to slew it to P2 - and doing so would have cut access to the engineers sidings

 

[devon_belle]

Would services to Lyme Regis and Seaton have been retained in this scenario ?

I think as the branches closed before singling they would still have closed in this universe. But if our scenario is that the SR never lost the line, maybe the branches would have survived?

Little point in keeping both islands at Yeovil Junction.
Platform 1 was only used for the town shuttle. If the track had been revised to allow access to P1 from the west, then with the stopping trains gone following the minor stations closures, platforms 3 & 4 would have been redundant so would have been closed.

I am working on the assumption that a passing place is useful at roughly the midpoint of a ~90 mile section, if there is to be a varied service pattern. I don't see Seaton Junction being retained without the Seaton branch, as no one lives there and it wouldn't even make a good parkway. I would see expresses stopping at Yeovil Junction, but if they didn't then I suppose it could lose the branch platform and avoid converting the other platform face, keeping the through lines.

But that then has implications for the Clifton Maybank south curve, as that aligned with the goods transfer line, not the platforms. It could probably have been slewed to reach P4, but if P4 was closed then it would have been pointless......
The angles and gradients are wrong to try to slew it to P2 - and doing so would have cut access to the engineers sidings

Hadn't considered the gradients, although if it was to happen and a major bit of engineering was required then the engineers sidings could have been retained on the up side instead. I do not know how trains would access this curve from P2, though, especially if they needed to cross the through lines. These sorts of considerations are probably why it never happened in reality either!

Yeovil Junction is definitely a head scratcher in this scenario.

 

[30907]

1. If all trains are going to call at YVJ then the through lines are redundant.
2. If you have closed most of the smaller stations East of Honiton what local services would there be? Honiton-Exeter certainly, but wouldn't you serve Tisbury and Templecombe with a semi-fast?

I suspect the initial pattern would be an hourly service alternating fast (Yeovil and Axminster) and semi-fast, though I wonder whether Andover would have gone hourly at some stage as it grew.
By now you might have 3 per 2h or even half-hourly to Yeovil, hourly beyond there; without the traffic figures it's difficult to judge how eg Crewkerne would be served.

 

[Irascible]

I think as the branches closed before singling they would still have closed in this universe. But if our scenario is that the SR never lost the line, maybe the branches would have survived?

I am working on the assumption that a passing place is useful at roughly the midpoint of a ~90 mile section, if there is to be a varied service pattern. I don't see Seaton Junction being retained without the Seaton branch, as no one lives there and it wouldn't even make a good parkway.

Even retained by the SR ( and I don't believe the WR singled out ex-SR lines at all, they closed an enormous amount of GWR mileage too ) I can't see the Lyme branch staying, and although the junction faces Exeter for the Seaton line & there's an obvious place to turn round locals off the main line like that as well as providing a service, that one seems highly unlikely too. I can tell you as a resident of the area I'd love to not have to traipse to Axminster or Honiton to get the train ( and generally don't, because it ends up faster just to go direct by road now ), but even with more recent growth it's not amazingly busy. Seaton Jct as a parkway is a pretty amusing thought there was a dairy there for some time, maybe if the railways had retained milk traffic quite a few possibilities in the SW would still be open.

 

[brad465]

Would services to Lyme Regis and Seaton have been retained in this scenario ?

Lyme Regis in particular I think could do with its branch today, given how congested the roads around Lyme Regis are and its popularity. I suppose the main issues with the branch were its very curvy nature due to the topography of its route and the station being high above a large part of the town, including the sea front. The Seaton branch however would need Seaton Jct at least to remain open and probably isn't as popular a town in comparison.

I think double track remaining would have meant a Devon Metro would already be in place, with many key towns seeing development and good links into Exeter. Broad Clyst station may not only have remained open, but have been upgraded to do what nearby Cranbrook does in relation to Exeter Airport, perhaps the airport patronage would be higher too. If all of this happened then its possible that while the Seaton branch and Sidmouth branches would have still closed under Beeching, one or both could have reopened by now to feed into the Devon metro.

 

[30907]

Sidmouth station was almost as badly sited as Lyme, at 60m asl, sadly.

I could imagine Exmouth-Budleigh having survived (or reopened, if the trackbed had been protected), though it's rather off-route for this thread.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

The SR would have complied with Dr. B's proposals, closing all the E. Devon branches and the Withered Arm except Barnstaple and Okehampton. Exmouth and Gunnislake were subsequently reprieved - the latter would have to go the WR. Their proposal was for a regular interval DEMU service from Waterloo extending alternately to Barnstaple or Okehampton. Gerry Fiennes, as WR GM, wouldn't have done his worst in singling the line.

In the '80s there were firm proposals for third rail electrification Reading - Basingstoke - Salisbury but scuppered by the 1990 recession. One suggestion was to do a 'Weymouth' with push pull diesel haulage from Salisbury onwards for Exeter trains.

 

[Irascible]

Ironically Seaton is the place with track down right now! ( albeit not exactly main line compatible... ). The Lyme branch had some quite spectacular structures, I'd not care to take a guess at the maintenance bills.

At the risk of digressing, it's a bit odd that the stations from Barnstaple to Ilfracombe were in a higher passenger receipt bracket than pretty much anywhere else in Devon off the main lines. Maybe that's what prolonged it's life some years.

 

[Western Sunset]

I suspect that if the line hadn't been singled, it might've closed altogether.

 

[Irascible]

I suspect that if the line hadn't been singled, it might've closed altogether.

There are a couple of intermediate what-ifs:

* Singled east of Yeovil with a loop or two - provides for easier retention of local services to Exeter on the west end - which admittedly haven't been so important as the last decade or two - as well as less hassle during the inevitable WR diversions.
* Closed between Yeovil & Salisbury, just a more extreme version of above. As that one is now basically a branch unless there's some odd Exeter-Waterloo via Castle Cary-Westbury-Salisbury service, that would probably be singled a fair bit. That would have been quite amazingly annoying if you're just trying to get to somewhere further east on the south coast, it's bad enough as it is...

 

[devon_belle]

I suspect that if the line hadn't been singled, it might've closed altogether.

Perhaps. I think that digs into the reasons that it wasn't singled in this hypothetical. I.e. the metrics of economy on the railway were substantially different. If closed altogether it would probably have been in a similar way to the Great Central... at least it would be a more interesting place for a double track preserved line!

I am more interested in the alternate history if it stayed doubled, open.

1. If all trains are going to call at YVJ then the through lines are redundant.
2. If you have closed most of the smaller stations East of Honiton what local services would there be? Honiton-Exeter certainly, but wouldn't you serve Tisbury and Templecombe with a semi-fast?

I suspect the initial pattern would be an hourly service alternating fast (Yeovil and Axminster) and semi-fast, though I wonder whether Andover would have gone hourly at some stage as it grew.
By now you might have 3 per 2h or even half-hourly to Yeovil, hourly beyond there; without the traffic figures it's difficult to judge how eg Crewkerne would be served.

Agreed on 1, which was why I proposed any passing was done here via use of the two islands. This would be a very restricted alignment geometrically, though. If Yeovil Town stayed open, we could have seen the stoppers be overtaken by going there and turning, as per Littlehampton these days. Obviously requiring the Bradford Abbas curve to be reinstated.

For 2, either all trains stop at the likes of e.g. Crewkerne, Sherborne, and Tisbury, or some service variety is retained to give Exeter and beyond a better service to London. Are you suggesting then that the service would essentially be hourly? If so, that's not much different to our universe! I would have guessed hourly Exeter to London and then hourly to Salisbury, with extras Exeter-Axminster and Gillingham-Salisbury.
-------
Others, I think the branches would probably all have closed (my point about the economics being different probably broadens the scope so far to make speculation impossible), but I could see Seaton and Sidmouth being fair candidates for reopening under Devon Metro in this hypothetical.

Thanks everyone for your really interesting points so far.

 

[HSTEd]

Could early third rail electrification have improved timings enough to compete with the pre HST Western Region?

Would what a 4REP run to Exeter have looked like, timewise?

 

[Irascible]

That would surely depend where you stop, WR fasts don't have many places to stop... are you suggesting dragging TC units to Plymouth?

Sidmouth station was terribly placed, and I'm not sure the residents would lower themselves to making use of a *train*.

 

[yorksrob]

The SR would have complied with Dr. B's proposals, closing all the E. Devon branches and the Withered Arm except Barnstaple and Okehampton. Exmouth and Gunnislake were subsequently reprieved - the latter would have to go the WR. Their proposal was for a regular interval DEMU service from Waterloo extending alternately to Barnstaple or Okehampton. Gerry Fiennes, as WR GM, wouldn't have done his worst in singling the line.

In the '80s there were firm proposals for third rail electrification Reading - Basingstoke - Salisbury but scuppered by the 1990 recession. One suggestion was to do a 'Weymouth' with push pull diesel haulage from Salisbury onwards for Exeter trains.

I like the idea of regular DEMU services alternating between Okehampton and Barnstaple. This could have given the route a proper interval service. Scuppered by the geographical purists in BR meddling with regional boundaries.

I think as the branches closed before singling they would still have closed in this universe. But if our scenario is that the SR never lost the line, maybe the branches would have survived?


I am working on the assumption that a passing place is useful at roughly the midpoint of a ~90 mile section, if there is to be a varied service pattern. I don't see Seaton Junction being retained without the Seaton branch, as no one lives there and it wouldn't even make a good parkway. I would see expresses stopping at Yeovil Junction, but if they didn't then I suppose it could lose the branch platform and avoid converting the other platform face, keeping the through lines.

Hadn't considered the gradients, although if it was to happen and a major bit of engineering was required then the engineers sidings could have been retained on the up side instead. I do not know how trains would access this curve from P2, though, especially if they needed to cross the through lines. These sorts of considerations are probably why it never happened in reality either!

Yeovil Junction is definitely a head scratcher in this scenario.

It always strikes me as a bit bizarre that the route entirely by-passes the main resorts.

Lyme Regis in particular I think could do with its branch today, given how congested the roads around Lyme Regis are and its popularity. I suppose the main issues with the branch were its very curvy nature due to the topography of its route and the station being high above a large part of the town, including the sea front. The Seaton branch however would need Seaton Jct at least to remain open and probably isn't as popular a town in comparison.

I think double track remaining would have meant a Devon Metro would already be in place, with many key towns seeing development and good links into Exeter. Broad Clyst station may not only have remained open, but have been upgraded to do what nearby Cranbrook does in relation to Exeter Airport, perhaps the airport patronage would be higher too. If all of this happened then its possible that while the Seaton branch and Sidmouth branches would have still closed under Beeching, one or both could have reopened by now to feed into the Devon metro.

Yes, the station was a bit of a trek from the seafront. That said probably no further than Ramsgate station to the front.

Seaton looks to have been quite well sited for the resort though.

 

[The Ham]

Could early third rail electrification have improved timings enough to compete with the pre HST Western Region?

Would what a 4REP run to Exeter have looked like, timewise?

I don't know for sure, however given that is you delete several of the stops from the current service to create a near express from Yeovil to Exeter it makes Clapham Junction to Exeter a comparable journey time, my gut feel is that whilst possibly not faster from London Terminal to Exeter there would certainly be parts of London where the journey time was at least on a par.

For example not having to loop at Tisbury (due to single track) saves 5 minutes, running so it only calls at Clapham Junction, Woking, Basingstoke, Andover, Salisbury, Yeovil and Honiton on the London Exeter run would probably about 30 minutes faster, which would put London Exeter at just under 3 hours, maybe a little faster.

Also it's worth noting, if the Paddington service left at (say) xx:10 and the Waterloo service left at xx:35 then as long as the time difference was less than 25 minutes then people would use both services as the slower train would still leave later and arrive earlier - if there was a cost difference then even more would use the slower service.

Obviously competing against the Exeter, Taunton, Reading, Paddington service (current journey times 2:03) would be impossible, but offering direct services to Okehampton and Barnstaple could make it more attractive for some.

 

[Falcon1200]

Should the LSWR route have become the main line to the west? Trains would still leave from Paddington but then run via Basingstoke to Exeter, where of course a reversal would have been required, but most trains stopped there anyway, IIRC? And less of an issue with HSTs and their successors. Castle Cary/Cogload Jc could then have closed, completely.... Taunton would lose out but Salisbury, Yeovil etc would gain.

 

[Backroom_boy]

Slightly OT but does singling produce a *genuine* saving long term or is it more about reducing the 'book value' of maintenance liabilities? (Not saying the latter doesn't have its place)

 

[Western Sunset]

Castle Cary/Cogload Jc could then have closed, completely.... Taunton would lose out but Salisbury, Yeovil etc would gain.

I understand that was an option at the time and run all the West Country trains via Bristol.

 

[Irascible]

Seaton looks to have been quite well sited for the resort though.

It's rather off to one side of the town, especially since housing tends to build up the hill the other side of the town & inland, but at least the site was on the main road rather than up a cliffside somewhere. I don't think it'd make sense without direct services to Exeter, but if you could run any Honiton services on and Axminsters keep going to Axminster, then perhaps. Haven't sat down to see if that would have been practical.

 

[30907]

For 2, either all trains stop at the likes of e.g. Crewkerne, Sherborne, and Tisbury, or some service variety is retained to give Exeter and beyond a better service to London. Are you suggesting then that the service would essentially be hourly? If so, that's not much different to our universe! I would have guessed hourly Exeter to London and then hourly to Salisbury, with extras Exeter-Axminster and Gillingham-Salisbury.

I would reckon that by 2010 you would have half-hourly to Yeovil and from Honiton, with the hourly "fast" serving Crewkerne

It always strikes me as a bit bizarre that the route entirely by-passes the main resorts.

A look at a relief map makes it obvious
Seaton, the easiest to reach, was I think a bit of a latecomer as a resort, and feels slightly downmarket.

 

[fgwrich]

Sidmouth station was terribly placed, and I'm not sure the residents would lower themselves to making use of a *train*.

Having friends and relatives down there, it does come up from time to time and I reckon would have been useful had it been retained through to today - not least also as a place for the Devon Metro to terminate away from the Mainline.

 

[yorksrob]

It's rather off to one side of the town, especially since housing tends to build up the hill the other side of the town & inland, but at least the site was on the main road rather than up a cliffside somewhere. I don't think it'd make sense without direct services to Exeter, but if you could run any Honiton services on and Axminsters keep going to Axminster, then perhaps. Haven't sat down to see if that would have been practical.

The other thing looking at the geography, I've always thought that the Seaton line should have had a halt towards the north of Seaton station to serve the Northern part of the urban area.

A look at a relief map makes it obvious
Seaton, the easiest to reach, was I think a bit of a latecomer as a resort, and feels slightly downmarket.

It was more in the sense of no longer having any branch connections, rather than the geography of the line itself. I probably should have phrased it better

 

[30907]

The other thing looking at the geography, I've always thought that the Seaton line should have had a halt towards the north of Seaton station to serve the Northern part of the urban area.

Looking at the map archive, most of that area is post WW2 so developed too late.

 

[AngusH]

Slightly OT but does singling produce a *genuine* saving long term or is it more about reducing the 'book value' of maintenance liabilities? (Not saying the latter doesn't have its place)

There was a government scheme ("Surplus Track Grant") that offered grants for reducing track milage that was actually per mile of physical rail. So 1 mile of double track counted as 2 miles. Regions could get money for reducing double track to single track.

I'd suggest that the economic planning models were rather basic at the time and they struggled with accurately calculating costs.
(It's probably more book value than savings, but there probably were some savings too)

it's also discussed here on the forum

Edit: Though I realised that the timing wasn't quite right for the Exeter line as noted here:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...r-line-singling-so-poorly-carried-out.246278/

And here:

Double track line rationalisation cost/benefits

Evening all! Theoretical question, assume we have a 100km double track railway that is running well below it's operational capacity in terms of services. Assuming costs of making any changes are zero and paid for by a 3rd party, at what level of service does conversion to single line with...

www.railforums.co.uk

edited several times. (sorry)

 

[yorksrob]

Looking at the map archive, most of that area is post WW2 so developed too late.

The railway closed post WW2.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

The problem with Sidmouth - apart from the distance of the station from the town - was that branch trains were orientated around Waterloo connections rather than Exeter, the main local flow. It was rather circuitous too - far easier to hop on a Devon General bus along the direct A35 (now A3052)

 

[Xavi]

Sidmouth and Lyme Regis would be very popular today, despite the location of the stations high above the towns. The same can be said for the station location at Okehampton, which is very popular.

Double track on the mainline and use of the second bay at Exeter Central would have enabled a better service.

Seaton’s fortunes went downhill when the railway closed. A familiar story.

 

[MarkyT]

There was a government scheme ("Surplus Track Grant") that offered grants for reducing track milage that was actually per mile of physical rail. So 1 mile of double track counted as 2 miles. Regions could get money for reducing double track to single track.

I'd suggest that the economic planning models were rather basic at the time and they struggled with accurately calculating costs.
(It's probably more book value than savings, but there probably were some savings too)

it's also discussed here on the forum

Edit: Though I realised that the timing wasn't quite right for the Exeter line as noted here:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...r-line-singling-so-poorly-carried-out.246278/

And here:

Double track line rationalisation cost/benefits

Evening all! Theoretical question, assume we have a 100km double track railway that is running well below it's operational capacity in terms of services. Assuming costs of making any changes are zero and paid for by a 3rd party, at what level of service does conversion to single line with...

www.railforums.co.uk

edited several times. (sorry)

Renewing double track with a single line saved significant capital cost, a major concern for governments of the time. It was often major track renewal jobs or resignalling schemes that determined the timing of such work. Singling sometimes allows clearance to be improved through bridges and tunnels, on the Hastings line for example to avoid the need for special narrow bodied rolling stock. It might allow electrification without so much work on structures or allow track to be slewed to a new 'racing line' through a curve to improve speed a bit. Singling can also create more space with better maintenance access for trackside signalling equipment and cabling.