Trivia: Reopenings that have been "Proposed" the longest.

[Djgr]

If this is also the thread for which no proposals have been made for reopening, how about Claytonwest to the Huddersfield-Penistone line? I apologise if it has been raised previously in this thread.

I travelled on it in BR days in the 1970s and struggled to understand how it had survived until then!

 

[WesternBiker]

Thanks. Most helpful. Can't imagine that there's now any need for a "new" Holborn Viaduct station to ever re-open?

City Thameslink is the replacement - just underground (or rather under a huge office block) rather than up above!

 

[Bald Rick]

Just to clarify, was the arrangement shortly before closure in early 1990 that some workings (from the South?) terminated at Holborn Viaduct and others were through Thameslink workings?

Yes that’s right. Although wha terminated at HV was, generally, inner suburban slam door services.

And did the through Thameslink workings in the late 1980s run through / above / below / parallel to the about to be permanently closed Holborn Viaduct station?

As the picture linke to above shows, the Thameslink route stayed ‘up high’ a little longer than it does now. That picture is taken, very roughly, about 10-12metres above where the track is now. The bridge under the railway in the immediate foreground is over Ludgate Hill, whereas now the railway runs beneath the same road in the station box for City TL.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

If this is also the thread for which no proposals have been made for reopening, how about Claytonwest to the Huddersfield-Penistone line? I apologise if it has been raised previously in this thread.

It already reopened in the 1990s... just with a significantly narrower gauge!

I travelled on it in BR days in the 1970s and struggled to understand how it had survived until then!

It survived because the pits were still open, and there was no secondary school in the area until the late 1970s so kids had to travel to Honley. Once the pit closed it wasn't worth keeping the line just for the schools traffic, especially once Shelley High School (now College) opened and fewer families chose to send their kids to Honley.

 

[Brush 4]

Poor old Portishead. Decision due Oct 19, now April 2022. It certainly is in the vice like grip of GRIP.
Home: Portishead Railway Group

Okehampton started later but, will reopen so much earlier.

 

[tavistock]

Leamside line in County Durham, been various proposals for that over the years but nothing comong to fruition.

I’ve heard disturbing reports that this has been put on the back burner yet again. Hope I’m wrong

 

[swt_passenger]

I’ve heard disturbing reports that this has been put on the back burner yet again. Hope I’m wrong

[Leamside]
Nobody has ever successfully worked out what it would be needed or used for, that’s probably why.

 

[Bald Rick]

I’ve heard disturbing reports that this has been put on the back burner yet again. Hope I’m wrong

I didn’t know it was on the front burner, or indeed on any burner.

 

[zwk500]

I didn’t know it was on the front burner, or indeed on any burner.

I think the local council put it in the microwave fairly recently.

 

[mlambeuk]

Malton to Pickering line.
York to Beverley line.

 

[willgreen]

I think the local council put it in the microwave fairly recently.

They haven't actually turned the microwave on yet.

 

[zwk500]

They haven't actually turned the microwave on yet.

Didn't they get another report done? Or did they just have a photo op and hopeful statement asking for cash?

 

[billio]

Not advocating these but the ones that I'm surprised don't get more call for re-opening are those joining up nearby biggish places/commuter towns on radial routes into London with each other. eg Didcot-Newbury-Winchester, Hereford-Gloucester-Oxford. Not necessarily putting many new places on the map, just filling in a few gaps to create a better network and creating more non-London commutable journey opportunities. Maybe enough regional planners realise the economics of rail for such trips don't stack up, the desirability of land in those places means the key bits linking into the existing network are built over and the enthusiasts have already done those stations.

East-West rail will be an interesting case study in establishing the benefits of 'joining bits up', as would more 'bus links on rails' - ie services in the timetables and fares systems with all the integration benefits of being part of the 'railway network'. But that's for a different thread...

Outside of London I am surprised there is no interest in opening such lines as Rochdale - Bury - Bolton and running services on Castleford - Church Fenton, allowing journeys from places like Barnsley and Calder Valley through Wakefield to York.
The former could provide a direct route for freight from Liverpool to Yorkshire and a passenger service linking 3 large towns and connecting or through services to Liverpool, Southport and Blackpool that would take pressure off travel via Manchester.

 

[willgreen]

Didn't they get another report done? Or did they just have a photo op and hopeful statement asking for cash?

I don't think there's even been a report. Every six months the story comes up in local media and then disappears again. The only way a reopening of any of the route is likely to happen is as a Metro route by my reckoning but Nexus won't be pursuing it until the new trains are bedded in.

 

[MadMac]

The Edinburgh Sub was being repeatedly championed when I was at university there in the 1970s!

When the Solari departure indicators were installed in Waverley in 1976, they had “Suburban Circle“ as an available option. Someone presumably told the manufacturer to put it there…..

 

[Kingston Dan]

When the Solari departure indicators were installed in Waverley in 1976, they had “Suburban Circle“ as an available option. Someone presumably told the manufacturer to put it there…..

 

[A0wen]

Outside of London I am surprised there is no interest in opening such lines as Rochdale - Bury - Bolton and running services on Castleford - Church Fenton, allowing journeys from places like Barnsley and Calder Valley through Wakefield to York.
The former could provide a direct route for freight from Liverpool to Yorkshire and a passenger service linking 3 large towns and connecting or through services to Liverpool, Southport and Blackpool that would take pressure off travel via Manchester.

The fact the local authorities aren't interested in these should give you a clue as to why these aren't beimg lobbied for - i.e. they aren't solving problems which need to be solved.

 

[option]

I reckon there would be a case for a Morningside - Waverley via Haymarket service - it would be about 12 mins by train, but it would need to have a metro style frequency of 3/4 trains per hour to make the journey competitive with bus once waiting times were taken into account. There isn't the capacity on the western approaches to Haymarket/Waverley for anything like that. I suspect there never was - even in the railway's heyday it was never more than hourly (unlike the Leith service from the Caley which ran at that sort of frequency in peak times).

or extend the tram. Ok it runs north of the main tracks & you need to get over to the south side to get to Morningside, but easier to do that with a tram than a train.

 

[61248]

Part of the Greater Nottingham Area Rail Development of the early 90s was to reopen the line to Gedling Colliery and in the longer term to Calverton & Cotgrave
This was altered to the South Notts Rail Network in 2003 and we are still waiting

From the document https://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/DMS/Document.ashx?czJKcaeAi5tUFL1DTL2UE4zNRBcoShgo=kBKDSlgvcivhNzY6fAQpcbsxeEa3FyKlagMfbRxj3BbLwgpkpM8EgA==&rUzwRPf+Z3zd4E7Ikn8Lyw===pwRE6AGJFLDNlh225F5QMaQWCtPHwdhUfCZ/LUQzgA2uL5jNRG4jdQ==&mCTIbCubSFfXsDGW9IXnlg===hFflUdN3100=&kCx1AnS9/pWZQ40DXFvdEw===hFflUdN3100=&uJovDxwdjMPoYv+AJvYtyA===ctNJFf55vVA=&FgPlIEJYlotS+YGoBi5olA===NHdURQburHA=&d9Qjj0ag1Pd993jsyOJqFvmyB7X0CSQK=ctNJFf55vVA=&WGewmoAfeNR9xqBux0r1Q8Za60lavYmz=ctNJFf55vVA=&WGewmoAfeNQ16B2MHuCpMRKZMwaG1PaO=ctNJFf55vVA=

3. The current SNRN strategy was formulated in the early 1990s when it was known as the Greater Nottingham Area Rail Development Strategy (GNARDS). The strategy envisaged the provision of two new main routes, for cross-conurbation shuttle services
Ilkeston – Nottingham Station (via the Trowell-Radford route) and thence to either Gedling (using the former colliery line) or Bingham;
2 Sandiacre – Nottingham Station (via Long Eaton, Attenborough and Beeston) and thence to either Gedling or Bingham.
4. The strategy included the upgrading of the Gedling colliery line for passenger purposes and the possible reinstatement of a curve at Long Eaton.
Lack of Progress 9. The strategy however has made little progress to implementation since its formulation a decade ago. This reflects a combination of local and national circumstances including:
the fragmentation of the rail industry as a result of privatisation and the consequent difficulties of achieving a co-ordinated response from the rail industry to progress projects;


i.e. privatisation put the mockers on things,progress was being made until then,the Robin Hood line being the 1st part of the plan

As of at least 2017 the route is protected but I don't see any progress being made
At that time the cost was put at £10-15m,goodness knows how much that would be today

 

[Taunton]

The fact the local authorities aren't interested in these should give you a clue as to why these aren't beimg lobbied for - i.e. they aren't solving problems which need to be solved.

Actually, "local authorities" also gives a clue. Barnsley is in South Yorkshire, Calder Valley and Castleford are in West Yorkshire, and York is on its own. This leads to balkanisation of local authority desires. Barnsley wants employment, shopping etc to go to Sheffield, not York. Likewise the West Yorkshire Combined Auithority (the old Metropolitan County with a new name) looks at links into Leeds.

 

[Bald Rick]

Outside of London I am surprised there is no interest in opening such lines as Rochdale - Bury - Bolton

There is ... it got initial funding in the first round of the Restoring Your Railway programme. Initial Business case has been done (Rochdale - Bury, at least).

 

[option]

I see there's an attempt to reopen the Sharpness Branch by the local authority as part of a housing development (effectively a third proposal, after a failed attempt to reopen it as a heritage line, and a local volunteer group still trying to do the same).

Surely better to have those 5000 houses built in Stroud/Stonehouse/Chalford, & open a new station for the Chalford area?

 

[WesternBiker]

Surely better to have those 5000 houses built in Stroud/Stonehouse/Chalford, & open a new station for the Chalford area?

Presumably, the land is cheaper at Sharpness…?

 

[billio]

There is ... it got initial funding in the first round of the Restoring Your Railway programme. Initial Business case has been done (Rochdale - Bury, at least).

I didn't know that, but Rochdale - Bury is the easy bit as a major part of it it already an operational railway and it figures as a long-term Metrolink extension.
The difficult bit will be Bury - Bolton which includes places where the track-bed has housing and commercial property built on it and a couple of viaducts which after nearly 50 years probably could not support a train.
Developing the Rochdale - Bolton link requires a much broader look at heavy rail services apart from the direct link. For example if using the Drax wood-pellet flow this route would be the shortest and avoid major points of congestion, Manchester and Leeds. Tough on Colne - Skipton but it's only 6 miles of new railway via Bury.

 

[Bald Rick]

I didn't know that, but Rochdale - Bury is the easy bit as a major part of it it already an operational railway and it figures as a long-term Metrolink extension.
The difficult bit will be Bury - Bolton which includes places where the track-bed has housing and commercial property built on it and a couple of viaducts which after nearly 50 years probably could not support a train.
Developing the Rochdale - Bolton link requires a much broader look at heavy rail services apart from the direct link. For example if using the Drax wood-pellet flow this route would be the shortest and avoid major points of congestion, Manchester and Leeds. Tough on Colne - Skipton but it's only 6 miles of new railway via Bury.

Bury - Bolton got initial funding in round 2 of Restoring your railway. Their initial business case is nearly finished, I gather.

 

[Shimbleshanks]

As recently discussed elsewhere, The Anglesey Central branch (Gaerwen-Llangefni-Amlwch) has had serious proposals for reintroducing passener services since the 1980s (i.e. before freight dried up and the line was mothballed).

I remember reading about a proposal in the local paper in the early to mid-1970s - I think it was a local council scheme. BR did give them a cost assessment, which came in at the then stupendous sum of about £1m, including reinstating the passing loop at Llangwyllog. The council evidently said: 'Thanks, we'll let you know...'

 

[thenorthern]

Willenhall and Darlaston apparently both have funding confirmed now with the new budget this week. Both have been mentioned for reopening since the Walsall to Wolverhampton reopened to services in 1998 and continue to be mentioned after the line closed in 2008.

 

[The Planner]

Willenhall and Darlaston apparently both have funding confirmed now with the new budget this week. Both have been mentioned for reopening since the Walsall to Wolverhampton reopened to services in 1998 and continue to be mentioned after the line closed in 2008.

They are being built, along with the Camp Hill stations.

 

[tavistock]

[Leamside]
Nobody has ever successfully worked out what it would be needed or used for, that’s probably why.

I thought the local MPs envisaged opening part of it for conversion to a loop line for the metro in order to get Washington onto the system

 

[swt_passenger]

I thought the local MPs envisaged opening part of it for conversion to a loop line for the metro in order to get Washington onto the system

Yes but other locals want it as a heavy freight line to Pelaw Jn, or a local passenger line bypassing Durham to
Pelaw, then Network Rail have suggested a partial diversionary route just to bypass Durham at higher speed, but rejoining the ECML south of Chester-le-street.

Anything you can possibly think of gets proposed and they all conflict with each other as far as I can see…