A handful of people - and it's always the same handful - will mention Dr. Beeching in any discussion. They don't want a debate however: they just want to vilify him . . . and jeer at anyone who refuses to do likewise.
Withrington has. He died.
Probably true enough, but better to check first than to just rock up with ballast and sleepers only to find the world's most aggressive plant right where you don't want it 3 weeks later. I have a good idea how this board would react if a line was closed less than 6 weeks after opening because they rushed through the process and missed a clanger.
The farce would be to just get on with it only to find yourself in the middle of the problem with no way out.
No, we will be operating 40 year old DMUs.
That article talks about the last trains in the 1960s, so how did the specials after this date get along the line, fly over it?
(link).
Will be a miracle if there isn’t, I suspect.
Absolutely bonkers that they just can’t get on and get this line open. I have just driven through the area and the road traffic is incredible. At least the Welsh Government are cracking on with the South East Wales Metro. Some of the new Swiss built FLIRT trains have already arrived at Canton (Cardiff) and the depot at Taffs Well for the tram-trains is work in progress along with electrifying the valleys. How can a few self seeded trees be an excuse not to crack on with the Portishead line?
A few self seeded trees? Or a few people who want to whinge about the railway but still drive cars everywhere? Without a closer look at 'behind the scenes', I suspect more the latter than the former!
What do you mean by the bit in bold? Project SPEED doesn't let you break the law. The law says major projects must demonstrate they have considered their impact on the environment and how that impact will be managed.
From the statuory bodies such as the environment Agency that have no comments to make.
The answer is that SPEED is already being used on Portishead
Out of interest, what do you think project SPEED is?
Now here’s a question.
I'm afraid I don't have the answers to any of those questions, although I'd be fascinated to hear them if anybody else does!
The line has been cut in at least two places between Portbury and Portishead - one where an access road for the port’s car storage area crosses, and the other for the new power lines that are being installed in the area. Not sure where that leaves things from an official standpoint.
That’s staggering. Electric cars aren’t going to link all the mainlines heading north/south out of London. The great thing about EW rail is the number of new connections it creates.
If there are any laws which serve no other purpose than to prevent railways from reopening and allow cars to continue damaging the environment and ruin the lives of the residents of Portishead, Pill and Ashton Gate (where there should also be a station) then they simply need to be repealed immediately. That is Project SPEED.
The line to Okehampton which I went on on the opening day still has self seeded trees under 50 years old along it’s length. While it is obvious that tree felling has taken place at several locations, I suspect these may have actually been infringing on the loading gauge more than anything else.
Having passed Parson Street Junction on my way to Okehampton, it is obvious that from there as far as the 2002 Pill junction is an operational (goods only) railway and any necessary redoubling work on that section would be permitted development. All that needs to be built is 3 miles of single track on which the last train ran presumably at some point in the 1980s if not a few years later and a couple of basic stations. Surely this can be accomplished at some point this century if the needless bureaucracy is done away with. Most people in the West Country and some elsewhere who are particularly interested are aware that the road traffic congestion on the Portbury Hundred, the sole road (and therefore the sole route of any mode) is absolutely extraordinary and that all of these drivers are absolutely desperate for alternatives, the most obvious of these being a GWR branch line.
In addition to the EWR line to Oxford (and thence Reading, Guildford, Redhill, Tonbridge and Ashford International thus linking ALL main lines out of London) Cambridgeshire also requires a heavy rail line from Huntingdon to Cambridge (if not Kettering) as opposed to the lethal guided busway and for the Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Railway to provide a link from St Ives to March and Spalding largely as a freight bypass of virtually the entire length of the ECML as far as Doncaster, a perfect place for it to end because northbound traffic is of course split between Leeds and Edinburgh.
Before anyone thinks differently, I'm very much in favour of Portishead reopening (almost in the jfdi camp!). However, as far as I know there are no protected plant species that are unique to any location along the Okehampton branch - unlike the Avon Gorge, where there are apparently several. I suspect the issue in terms of these may not be so much the existing trackbed - which should have been kept reasonably clear - nor even any bits of former trackbed required for doubling, but land which might need to be cleared for access for heavy plant. There would an awful lot of egg on various faces if it turned out that half of the world's examples of Sorbus bristoliensis had been wiped out to create a turning circle needed for 3 weeks when research beforehand could have led to careful uprooting and replanting.
