Tavistock Re-opening: how should the line be served and could the line be extended beyond Tavistock?

[D6130]

Routes I can think of which could be blocked by a single failure include:

Plus:

1. Anywhere East of Sleaford. (Boston/Skegness)
2. Anywhere North of Ely. (Kings Lynn)
3. Anywhere North of Norwich (Cromer/Sheringham)
4. Anywhere South/East of Middlesbrough (Whitby)
5. Anywhere South of Ayr (Girvan/Stranraer)

While none of the above routes serve anywhere nearly as big as Plymouth, they would cut off a fair chunk of rail mileage and population if severed.

 

[yorksrob]

Agreed. And your point about defeatism is pertinent too. I recognise that just having Oke to Plym as a relief line isn't beneficial in and of itself but how about the North Dartmoor/North Devon/Cornwall communities as well, and just the general fact that having a secondary line is a wise idea for future proofing and network expansion? It is a delicate balance I know, because we are beholden to financial structures that mean it has to be economically viable to run....but then, with roads, we have the A30 and A38 running through Devon and Cornwall, yet upgrades to one don't negate the other, because they serve different cohorts and communities (I recognise comparing different modes is not helpful but easiest way to get my point across).

Sorry....this is a bit off topic now so I will leave it there!

You're quite right of course. The Okehampton reopening has amply shown how beneficial that railway is to more distant communities in North Devon

There isn’t a case. It was studied following the Dawlish washout nearly a decade ago. The report showed that the BCR for a line via Okehampton was ‘very poor’, as was the case for any other option for diverting the line. Given that the existing line needs to be retained to access Torbay (and of course Dawlish and Teignmouth), it seems to me a very sensible use of money to spend a rather smaller amount on keeping it open, rather than trying to build a new railway through a national park.

That, of course, is what has been done.

The report is here (too much to quote)

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/West-of-Exeter-Route-Resilience-Study.pdf

It‘s a fairly defeatist attitude for the railway if we must expect an existing railway to be closed in an unplanned manner often enough to require a whole new railway to be built. (rather than doing something to stop it being closed in the first place)

For the passenger, their railway being closed in a "planned" manor is as bad as it being closed in an unplanned maner. It's still closed and all railways have to be closed periodically.

Routes I can think of which could be blocked by a single failure include:

• Everywhere west of Llanelli (Carmarthen, Pembroke Dock, Milford Haven, Fishguard)
• Everywhere west of Shrewsbury (Aberystwyth, Pwllheli)
• Everywhere west of Shotton (Llandudno, Holyhead)
• Everywhere west of Dalmuir (Helensburgh, Oban, Fort William, Mallaig)
• Everywhere north or west of Inverness (Kyle of Lochalsh, Wick, Thurso)

as well as various smaller branches.

None of those include anywhere close to the size of Plymouth, but neither are they insignificant, especially as many of them link to essential ferry services.

Indeed, and west of Plymouth is an entire county at risk of being cut off.

Plus:

1. Anywhere East of Sleaford. (Boston/Skegness)
2. Anywhere North of Ely. (Kings Lynn)
3. Anywhere North of Norwich (Cromer/Sheringham)
4. Anywhere South/East of Middlesbrough (Whitby)
5. Anywhere South of Ayr (Girvan/Stranraer)

While none of the above routes serve anywhere nearly as big as Plymouth, they would cut off a fair chunk of rail mileage and population if severed.

They would do, but none are of the same scale as Plymouth plus Cornwall.

 

[Irascible]

To be fair, Dawlish is something of a unique case due to vulnerability to the elements. Thankfully the new and improved sea defences and wall should keep it in good shape for a while at least.

I would think the residents of Dawlish are hoping for a bit more than "a while"! the sea wall is primarily there to keep the water out of their houses, the railway just happens to go along it. There'd be a better case for a Dawlish bypass than going round the moors with the eyewateringly expensive viaduct needed - but this has all been discussed at length here, about every 6 months or so.

There'd still be a single point of failure at the Tamar - I don't think anyone's suggested reopening Okehampton to Wadebridge as a backup to that yet!

 

[zwk500]

Routes I can think of which could be blocked by a single failure include:

• Everywhere west of Llanelli (Carmarthen, Pembroke Dock, Milford Haven, Fishguard)
• Everywhere west of Shrewsbury (Aberystwyth, Pwllheli)
• Everywhere west of Shotton (Llandudno, Holyhead)
• Everywhere west of Dalmuir (Helensburgh, Oban, Fort William, Mallaig)
• Everywhere north or west of Inverness (Kyle of Lochalsh, Wick, Thurso)

as well as various smaller branches.

None of those include anywhere close to the size of Plymouth, but neither are they insignificant, especially as many of them link to essential ferry services.

And the list gets longer if you consider freight restrictions and so forth. W12 to Scotland, for instance.

You're quite right of course. The Okehampton reopening has amply shown how beneficial that railway is to more distant communities in North Devon

As a local Branch line. But if you had to fit non-stop passenger in between, would you be able to run the same useful local service?

For the passenger, their railway being closed in a "planned" manor is as bad as it being closed in an unplanned maner. It's still closed and all railways have to be closed periodically.

It's categorically not. Annoying and a pain, but something that can be worked around. An railway that might fail at any moment is far more off-putting than a railway that is shut on advertised dates for passengers to plan around.

Indeed, and west of Plymouth is an entire county at risk of being cut off.

The M5, A30, A38 and A303 say hello.

They would do, but none are of the same scale as Plymouth plus Cornwall.

Blackpool is of course on a single point of failure at Preston, and plenty of other places have only 1 primary rail connection with any others being effectively useless as diversionary capability - Swansea/Cardiff/Newport, Hull and Norwich fall into that category.

 

[BayPaul]

The M5, A30, A38 and A303 say hello

Quite... If you want to spend hundreds of millions making sure that Devon and Cornwall aren't cut off, perhaps an Exeter Northern Bypass would be a better use of money - the M5 Exe viaduct is a massive single point of failure that carries far more traffic than Dawlish, and is basically the only road to Cornwall, Plymouth, South and Mid Devon with significant capacity. Just a thought...

 

[yorksrob]

And the list gets longer if you consider freight restrictions and so forth. W12 to Scotland, for instance.


As a local Branch line. But if you had to fit non-stop passenger in between, would you be able to run the same useful local service?

It's categorically not. Annoying and a pain, but something that can be worked around. An railway that might fail at any moment is far more off-putting than a railway that is shut on advertised dates for passengers to plan around.

The M5, A30, A38 and A303 say hello.

Blackpool is of course on a single point of failure at Preston, and plenty of other places have only 1 primary rail connection with any others being effectively useless as diversionary capability - Swansea/Cardiff/Newport, Hull and Norwich fall into that category.

I don't think you would have non-stop trains on the central Devon route to Plymouth (except perhaps for disruption on the coast). I would envisage maybe some faster inter-regional services maybe stopping at Okehampton and Tavistock.

Yes, individual centres are on single points of failure, however they don't then have an entire county relying on them as well.

A planned closure is still a closure. Yes, you know how long it will take but it's still a major inconvenience to the passenger.

 

[zwk500]

I don't think you would have non-stop trains on the central Devon route to Plymouth (except perhaps for disruption on the coast). I would envisage maybe some faster inter-regional services maybe stopping at Okehampton and Tavistock.

So you'd build a brand new railway line to then run nothing of real value over it? Exeter to Plymouth is going to be quicker via the main line anyway, and Okehampton or Crediton to Tavistock isn't exactly going to be unlocking an economic powerhouse?

Yes, individual centres are on single points of failure, however they don't then have an entire county relying on them as well.

Take out East Croydon and you'd take out 90% of TWO (more populated and busier) counties.

A planned closure is still a closure. Yes, you know how long it will take but it's still a major inconvenience to the passenger.

I didn't say it had no effect. I said it had less impact than unplanned delay.

 

[yorksrob]

So you'd build a brand new railway line to then run nothing of real value over it? Exeter to Plymouth is going to be quicker via the main line anyway, and Okehampton or Crediton to Tavistock isn't exactly going to be unlocking an economic powerhouse?

Take out East Croydon and you'd take out 90% of TWO (more populated and busier) counties.

I didn't say it had no effect. I said it had less impact than unplanned delay.

Actually I consider (and find) inter-regional express services to be of considerable value. The idea that any service that stops between Exeter and Plymouth is of no "real value" seems preposterous.

The East Croydon point is a pertinent one. One only has to compare the paralysis of most of Sussex when the BML goes down to the resilience of Kent with several main lines.

 

[zwk500]

Actually I consider (and find) inter-regional express services to be of considerable value. The idea that any service that stops between Exeter and Plymouth is of no "real value" seems preposterous.

In the context of a railway costing likely near £20m a mile (Borders railway cost c.£10m/mile about 8 years ago, and that had less structures issues) they are not good value. You're not making use of something lying dormant as Okehampton was. I'm all for connecting Tavistock into Plymouth as a small town into it's nearest big city on a branch line. That makes good socio-economic sense if you can get the costs down. But a service on this through line is of no benefit to places other than those directly on the line. Crediton, Bow, Okehampton, Tavistock etc are all fairly small towns and the demand to the further city is never going to be vast. It might be a different story if it had been kept on life support long enough to reach the re-emergence of rail like other secondary routes, but it didn't and we are where we are.

The East Croydon point is a pertinent one. One only has to compare the paralysis of most of Sussex when the BML goes down to the resilience of Kent with several main lines.

Paralysis? Services are usually moving again within an hour or two. Absolute nightmare for the people caught up in it all (both been in it and been advising people how to get out of it several times) but it's rare for people to not get home that night. It takes rather a lot to put a railway out of action for several days, and at Dawlish it'll take even more now the new sea wall's finished.

 

[Bald Rick]

Borders railway cost c.£10m/mile about 8 years ago, and that had less structures issues)

£15m/mile, and (on average) 10 years ago. Would be double that now

 

[zwk500]

£15m/mile, and (on average) 10 years ago. Would be double that now

Blimey, costs climb fast! I try to remain optimistic for some schemes, but even so...

 

[Bald Rick]

Blimey, costs climb fast! I try to remain optimistic for some schemes, but even so...

Borders was, frankly, a special case. Many people use it as a benchmark, but it is an outlier.

EWR is in the region of £50m a mile. The Watford Croxley link would have been £150m a mile.

 

[zwk500]

Borders was, frankly, a special case. Many people use it as a benchmark, but it is an outlier.

EWR is in the region of £50m a mile. The Watford Croxley link would have been £150m a mile.

I was deliberately using it as one of the cheaper schemes to be favourable to the discussion tbh.

 

[Dave Beeching]

I do wonder (engineering, financial and planning challenges aside) and this is wrapped in a lot of baked pastry while floating high in the clouds, how operation could improve and what the time penalty would be if the line was extended from Gunislake to Tavistock rather than use the former track bed from Bere Alston.

Never going to happen (until I become a benevolent dictator ) but got me thinking nonetheless that it could be better for local connectivity and would solve the problem of two branchlines....

 

[D6130]

I do wonder (engineering, financial and planning challenges aside) and this is wrapped in a lot of baked pastry while floating high in the clouds, how operation could improve and what the time penalty would be if the line was extended from Gunislake to Tavistock rather than use the former track bed from Bere Alston.

Never going to happen (until I become a benevolent dictator ) but got me thinking nonetheless that it could be better for local connectivity and would solve the problem of two branchlines....

The incredibly sharply-curved and steeply-graded single line of the Gunnislake branch would impose a big time and pathing penalty on a through service. In the unlikely event of an Okehampton-Tavistock-Bere Alston double track reopening, I should think that Calstock and Gunnislake would be served by a shuttle from Bere Alston....as was the case before closure.

 

[yorksrob]

In the context of a railway costing likely near £20m a mile (Borders railway cost c.£10m/mile about 8 years ago, and that had less structures issues) they are not good value. You're not making use of something lying dormant as Okehampton was. I'm all for connecting Tavistock into Plymouth as a small town into it's nearest big city on a branch line. That makes good socio-economic sense if you can get the costs down. But a service on this through line is of no benefit to places other than those directly on the line. Crediton, Bow, Okehampton, Tavistock etc are all fairly small towns and the demand to the further city is never going to be vast. It might be a different story if it had been kept on life support long enough to reach the re-emergence of rail like other secondary routes, but it didn't and we are where we are.

Paralysis? Services are usually moving again within an hour or two. Absolute nightmare for the people caught up in it all (both been in it and been advising people how to get out of it several times) but it's rare for people to not get home that night. It takes rather a lot to put a railway out of action for several days, and at Dawlish it'll take even more now the new sea wall's finished.

Borders Railway has exceeded expectations of passenger use compared to when it was planned, and those expectations were exceeded much more in the more remote rural areas of the line where the usual suspects of the forum say a passenger railway would never work.

£20m a mile ? I bet that's not so different from the costs of those by-passes that go round every one-horse town these days.

And yes, Sussex is in paralysis on the closure of the main line. There have been several completely essential long closures in recent years for engineering works and the lack of alternatives has been telling.

Borders was, frankly, a special case. Many people use it as a benchmark, but it is an outlier.

EWR is in the region of £50m a mile. The Watford Croxley link would have been £150m a mile.

The only remotely special aspect of Borders rail was that it had a Government willing to pay for it.

 

[Bald Rick]

Borders Railway has exceeded expectations of passenger use compared to when it was planned

Not really. It is broadly in line with expectations.

£20m a mile ? I bet that's not so different from the costs of those by-passes that go round every one-horse town these days.

It’s about the same, which is hardly surprising as the work is broadly the same.

The only remotely special aspect of Borders rail was that it had a Government willing to pay for it.

Not so. It had all the route specifically reserved. There were almost no neighbours to worry about (albiet the few that there were made a hell of noise). There was a sizeable and experienced workforce in the area who had just built another new railway (Airdrie to Bathgate) looking for work. It’s timing was impeccable, in that the new Scottish Parliamentary processes needed to pass the enabling act needed testing, and this fell right into that window.

There is absolutely no way it would get built now if it was proposed.

 

[yorksrob]

Not really. It is broadly in line with expectations.




It’s about the same, which is hardly surprising as the work is broadly the same.



Not so. It had all the route specifically reserved. There were almost no neighbours to worry about (albiet the few that there were made a hell of noise). There was a sizeable and experienced workforce in the area who had just built another new railway (Airdrie to Bathgate) looking for work. It’s timing was impeccable, in that the new Scottish Parliamentary processes needed to pass the enabling act needed testing, and this fell right into that window.

There is absolutely no way it would get built now if it was proposed.

Well, the route might not be reserved, but Bere Alston to Tavistock is unoccupied. There can but be fewer noisy neighbours.

You mention the Airdrie-Bathgate workers.

Perhaps what the country really needs is a rolling reopening programme.

 

[Bald Rick]

Perhaps what the country really needs is a rolling reopening programme.

We’ve got one. The teams are currently in Northumberland. They will not be keen on walking 500 miles, Proclaimers notwithstanding.

 

[swt_passenger]

I would think the residents of Dawlish are hoping for a bit more than "a while"! the sea wall is primarily there to keep the water out of their houses, the railway just happens to go along it.

Allows for the expected tidal range increase over a 100 year design life, according to the planning application. So as you rightly say, more than a while…

 

[yorksrob]

We’ve got one. The teams are currently in Northumberland. They will not be keen on walking 500 miles, Proclaimers notwithstanding.

Good news. They need to be travelling around the country (albeit walking would be harsh).

 

[zwk500]

Good news. They need to be travelling around the country (albeit walking would be harsh).

Well given the timescales required they'll have time to stop and finish Portishead on their way down.

 

[The exile]

Not really. It is broadly in line with expectations

Isn’t it the case that the line overall is broadly in line with expectations - because the outer part’s “over performance “ is currently being dragged back by the underperformance of the inner section (some of the promised development is yet to happen etc)

 

[IanXC]

The previous discussion about signalling options at Bere Alston reminded me of two paragraph's from this month's Roger Ford Informed Sources email:

Signalling unit costs are calculated per Signalling Equivalent Unit (SEU). An SEU is an item of signalling equipment such as a signal post or point-end. So, the positive news is that the ‘hypothetical’ cost per SEU has come down to £423,000 compared with over £800,000 in my April analysis.

I conclude with an update on the European Train Control System (ETCS), widely seen, except in Scotland, as the way out of the cost per SEU trap. At this early stage the ECML (South) resignalling is seeing costs per SEU in the £220,000-£280,000 range, but is confident that this will fall, as contractor Siemens gets into its stride.

So if any of the options include adding a loop at Bere Ferrers (conventionally presumably being 6 SEUs? ETCS being 2?) and then whichever layout and arrangement is chosen at Bere Alston, presumably, subject to the cost of the overall system, it might be worth looking at ETCS for reintroducing signalling north of St. Budeaux Junction?

 

[The Planner]

The previous discussion about signalling options at Bere Alston reminded me of two paragraph's from this month's Roger Ford Informed Sources email:



So if any of the options include adding a loop at Bere Ferrers (conventionally presumably being 6 SEUs? ETCS being 2?) and then whichever layout and arrangement is chosen at Bere Alston, presumably, subject to the cost of the overall system, it might be worth looking at ETCS for reintroducing signalling north of St. Budeaux Junction?

Doubt you would do that unless Plymouth is being resignalled on a wider scale. I doubt anyone would want to hack into 1970s interlocking at this point.

 

[adrock1976]

There isn’t a case. It was studied following the Dawlish washout nearly a decade ago. The report showed that the BCR for a line via Okehampton was ‘very poor’, as was the case for any other option for diverting the line. Given that the existing line needs to be retained to access Torbay (and of course Dawlish and Teignmouth), it seems to me a very sensible use of money to spend a rather smaller amount on keeping it open, rather than trying to build a new railway through a national park.

That, of course, is what has been done.

The report is here (too much to quote)

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/West-of-Exeter-Route-Resilience-Study.pdf

It‘s a fairly defeatist attitude for the railway if we must expect an existing railway to be closed in an unplanned manner often enough to require a whole new railway to be built. (rather than doing something to stop it being closed in the first place)

I have a quick question for you regarding inland route Exeter - Plymouth:

Was there ever an alternative route via the former route of Exeter St Thomas, Chudleigh, and Heathfield between St Thomas and Newton Abbott?

 

[daodao]

I have a quick question for you regarding inland route Exeter - Plymouth:

Was there ever an alternative route via the former route of Exeter St Thomas, Chudleigh, and Heathfield between St Thomas and Newton Abbott?

Yes - there was such a route, but it was hardly a useful "alternative". However, further discussion would be "off topic".

 

[A0wen]

I have a quick question for you regarding inland route Exeter - Plymouth:

Was there ever an alternative route via the former route of Exeter St Thomas, Chudleigh, and Heathfield between St Thomas and Newton Abbott?

Some information here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathfield_railway_station_(Devon)

It was closed pre Beeching.

 

[Bald Rick]

Isn’t it the case that the line overall is broadly in line with expectations - because the outer part’s “over performance “ is currently being dragged back by the underperformance of the inner section (some of the promised development is yet to happen etc)

Broadly, yes.

So if any of the options include adding a loop at Bere Ferrers (conventionally presumably being 6 SEUs? ETCS being 2?) and then whichever layout and arrangement is chosen at Bere Alston, presumably, subject to the cost of the overall system, it might be worth looking at ETCS for reintroducing signalling north of St. Budeaux Junction?

No chance of ETCS for such a small project. The fleet figment costs would be astronomical. Uncle Roger’s analysis is based on the rolling stock already being ETCS equipped - which the ‘local’ trains in Devon and Cornwall are not (and unlikely to be).

 

[irish_rail]

I wander how many schemes such as Bere Alston to Okehampton and similar could have been afforded for the eventual price of HS2?