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Government rules out North Cotswold Line upgrade

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The Ham

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An unusual announcement for just before an election:

http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2015/04/09-government-rules-out-north-cotswold.html

THE government has ruled out upgrading the North Cotswold Line – linked with proposed restoration of the former route line between Stratford-on-Avon and Honeybourne – as a strategic alternative to the route in South Warwickshire recently closed by a 350,000-tonne landslip.

Transport minister Clare Perry has told Jeremy Wright, who is Attorney General and was Kenilworth and Southam’s MP until the pre-election period began, that redoubling 17km of the line between Charlbury and Wolvercott, near Oxford, would cost £160 - £200 million “before a diversionary route of sufficient capacity between Birmingham and Oxford could be created.”

This price range is around twice the reported cost of redoubling almost twice the distance of the Cotswold line further west five years ago, but is significantly less than the options being actively considered by the government to provide a strategic alternative to the Dawlish route after last year’s disruption.

Of the North Cotswold Line, Ms Perry stated: “There is no strategic case for this to be done” – adding that reopening the line from Stratford to Honeybourne (known as S2H) was “a matter for local authorities to consider”.

However, a report already commissioned by the local authorities from Arup has forecast that, with demand growing on the North Cotswold Line by 6.1 per cent a year, S2H reopening could have a benefit/cost ratio of up to 2:1.

Following the landslip-enforced six-week closure of the main line during February and March at Harbury, between Leamington Spa and Banbury, many freight services to between Northern England and the Midlands and the Port of Southampton had to be found alternative routes, mainly over the already-congested West Coast Main Line – where essential overnight maintenance work, and a major engineering project at Watford Junction, had to be postponed.

One of the campaigners for S2H re-opening, Fraser Pithie, proposed to Network Rail’s chief executive Mark Carne on 6 February that the restored Stratford-Honeybourne route and an upgraded North Cotswold line could provide a strategic alternative to the route through Harbury – which has been afflicted by poor ground conditions ever since it was built by Isambard Brunel 160 years ago.

In a reply on 23 February, signed by Network Rail’s Community Relations Executive Daniel Coles, Mr Pithie was told: “We did not foresee the situation we now face as a result of the landslip and we need to consider carefully if the value of the (Cotswold) route as an alternative in events such of [sic] this can be assigned a value. To that end I have been advised that our Group Strategy Team will look at this example and consider if these matters would make any material difference.”

He added: "This will form part of the West Midlands and Chiltern route study process that has just commenced.”

But Mr Pithie has now learnt that just a month later, on 27 March, Transport Minister Clare Perry replied to Jeremy Wright MP, saying: “I am afraid that doing this as a safeguard against future unforeseen unplanned blockages of the Chiltern Main Line is limited against very high costs.”
 
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route:oxford

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It's not a surprise really.

There has been considerable below-the-raider disquiet and lobbying about the risk of improved transport links on this route resulting in a considerable house-building exercise in rural Oxfordshire.

(Still a very good idea though.)
 

TheKnightWho

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It's not a surprise really.

There has been considerable below-the-raider disquiet and lobbying about the risk of improved transport links on this route resulting in a considerable house-building exercise in rural Oxfordshire.

(Still a very good idea though.)

Can't disappoint the upper-middle Chipping Norton set, can we?
 

Class 170101

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In terms of the blockage at Hartbury freight traffic could now be diverted via the south Cotswolds and Cheltenham
 

The Planner

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Is it W10 via Kemble now?

Just checked, no it isnt, so it wouldnt have helped all that much.
 
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jimm

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All the government has done, unless I am misreading the story, is ruled out doing work to create a diversionary route for freight traffic to go this way.

So not ruling out any prospect of improvements on the Cotswold Line generally, which are most certainly on the radar - the headline rather misses the point of what the minister seems to have been trying to say in her letter. Nor Stratford-Long Marston, where the official line has always been that reopening is a matter for the local authorities - something which is a stock DfT line for pretty much any reopening proposal going and was used for years about East West Rail until the Government suddenly jumped on that bandwagon after the local authorities had done all the groundwork with precious little help from Whitehall.

The sum of money mentioned seems utterly fantastical anyway in the context of both the previous redoubling in 2009-11 (£70m for 20 miles of track and lots of work on Chipping Campden tunnel), estimates in the £60m range to reopen Stratford-Long Marston and the £70m it cost to gauge clear the entire route from Southampton to Birmingham - maybe it includes a whole new Chipping Campden tunnel, as the existing structure is unlikely to be capable of being cleared for W10 or anything near it anyway and has just seen a lots of work at the north entrance to avoid a Hartpury-style landslip so perhaps not the best place to start digging out the tunnel floor.

And nothing whatever to do with supposed fears about housebuilding, which has been going on merrily in West Oxfordshire (the MP is some chap called Cameron) for 40 years (Witney's population is double the size it was in the mid-1970s) and will carry on for some years to come - there are plenty of consents already approved and more in the pipeline, including to the north-east of Witney - lots more potential traffic at Hanborough - and up to 500 homes on the eastern side of... Chipping Norton, where none of the so-called set live anyway.
 
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67018

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Seems a bit of a non-story: confirmation that it's not worth the money purely as a diversionary route and, by implication, would have to be viable in its own right. Pretty much the conclusion the debate reached on here recently if I remember right.
 

swt_passenger

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An unusual announcement for just before an election...

Looking at the dates within the article they are reporting something that was normal correspondence that happened on 27th March, so prior to 'purdah' rather than an 'announcement'; so I don't think it is significant in terms of the election.
 

Class 170101

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Is it W10 via Kemble now?

Just checked, no it isnt, so it wouldnt have helped all that much.

Can W10 Boxes be diverted this way on low floor wagons though? Insofar as passengers services go the line is now double track throughout of course so I can imagine it would have weakened the case for North Cotswold doubling rather than strengthened it.

However more Houses around the route - hmm Section 106?
 

Taunton

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Not generally realised that in steam locomotive days a lot of Birmingham-Oxford freight, especially the slower stuff, went this way from Tyseley via Honeybourne, to keep it off the double track main Paddington line through Leamington and Warwick. Likewise any freight deemed "Western" between the West Midlands and Bristol etc went through Stratford and Honeybourne as well, instead of down the Lickey.
 
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jimm

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Can W10 Boxes be diverted this way on low floor wagons though? Insofar as passengers services go the line is now double track throughout of course so I can imagine it would have weakened the case for North Cotswold doubling rather than strengthened it.

However more Houses around the route - hmm Section 106?

Flaw in that idea is the low-floor and pocket wagons that used to be used on Southampton-Birmingham and Manchester services have been redeployed by Freightliner to other services to places like Leeds and Wakefield to allow it to carry more 9ft 6in boxes where W10 clearance is not available. And they seem to have just about coped with diversions via the WCML, which probably doesn't help make the case for alterations to clearances on either route through the Cotswolds anyway, which will presumably have to wait until they are considered for electrification.

That the Kemble route is now double throughout really doesn't affect potential for further redoubling of the Cotswold Line. They serve different areas of the region, so local factors, such as all those new houses in West Oxfordshire, will be a far more important consideration.
 

BantamMenace

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Flaw in that idea is the low-floor and pocket wagons that used to be used on Southampton-Birmingham and Manchester services have been redeployed by Freightliner to other services to places like Leeds and Wakefield to allow it to carry more 9ft 6in boxes where W10 clearance is not available. And they seem to have just about coped with diversions via the WCML, which probably doesn't help make the case for alterations to clearances on either route through the Cotswolds anyway, which will presumably have to wait until they are considered for electrification.

That the Kemble route is now double throughout really doesn't affect potential for further redoubling of the Cotswold Line. They serve different areas of the region, so local factors, such as all those new houses in West Oxfordshire, will be a far more important consideration.

They just about coped by running services 24 hours and cancelling maintenance work, that situation cannot be put forward as long term solution as you'll have a railway in need or more maintenance than currently (due to the increase in traffic) receiving less than at current.

I know it appeared that the industry coped but i can assure you some customers took a big hit, the only one i can speak for for certain is Jaguar Land Rover who missed sailings in Southampton and had a back log of cars for export.
 

jimm

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They just about coped by running services 24 hours and cancelling maintenance work, that situation cannot be put forward as long term solution as you'll have a railway in need or more maintenance than currently (due to the increase in traffic) receiving less than at current.

I know it appeared that the industry coped but i can assure you some customers took a big hit, the only one i can speak for for certain is Jaguar Land Rover who missed sailings in Southampton and had a back log of cars for export.

Like I said - just about coped. I didn't say it was ideal and I'm aware that a lot of people put in a lot of time and effort to make the diversions work as well as they did, but it was an emergency situation caused by the closure of Banbury-Leamington, where a long-term solution will hopefully be found to solve the problems with that cutting.

I don't think anyone believes it is a good idea to try to path that amount of freight via the WCML and on the GWML to Reading on a regular basis but whether the cost of gauge-clearing/reopening other routes 'just in case' is justified is another matter. DfT clearly doesn't, if that letter is anything to go by
 
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