Petition launched to demand re-opening of Dumfries-Stranraer railway line

[najaB]

There's a fair bit of England north and east of Heysham, why would traffic from Newcastle or Sunderland for instance travel south west to take a longer distance route and a longer crossing ?

The fact that there's an extant rail connection at Heysham makes all the difference.

 

[Philip Phlopp]

I'm not disputing the quantities of materials needed, im saying that the line is juts over twice the length of the Borders line , and therefore would be approximately twice the cost. As I said previously, it would be far more likely to cost LESS per mile than the Borders route as there is no City bypass to divert, no tunnels to refurbish, land acquisition /re aquisition will be cheaper, (certainly than the northern section of the Borders line) and there will be less stations per mile than the Borders line.

You're arguing with people who would be tasked with running the project, who are qualified to run this type of project, and they're telling you the costs.

The type of terrain, accessibility, drainage requirements, geophysical issues, worksite formation, materials delivery and dozens of other factors can cause one project to cost £1m per mile and a similar project to cost £20m per mile.

 

[Bald Rick]

You're saying a line twice the length will cost 3 times the price, which is clearly not true, even allowing for time-related cost increases.
Galloway is no more or less accessible than the Borders, 2/3rds of the line will be within spitting distance of the A75 and all of the line will be within 6 miles of it, so getting construction materials to it will be no more costly than the Borders line, perhaps less costly.

No, I'm saying that a line slightly more than twice the length would cost around 2 1/2 times as much (ie 25% more by unit rate) when allowing for inflation and other factors. Given the out turn cost of the Borders railway is over £400m at 2015 prices* and this railway couldn't possibly be built for another decade, 2% pa compound inflation seems reasonable.

Don't deceive yourself about the differences between this and the Borders railway. Much of this railway would be on a brand new alignment, as the old is under roads - as you say, much is within spitting distance of the A75, rather too close in fact. But you miss the point about accessibility. It's not how close to the nearest road that's the problem. It is how close to the nearest significant logistics railhead it is, and the nearest base of employment. A project like this will need several thousand people to build it, including hundreds of specialist engineers. You will need to feed, water and entertain this small army. Where is the capacity for this? More to the point where are they? There's not that many of these specialist people within 100 miles of the line, even if you took them all out of their existing jobs. So you will have to ship them in, and they will want paying extra - a lot extra - for that.

Finally, unless I'm mistaken, it will need 3km of new viaduct and embankment across the flood plain of the tidal Cree. That's £100m before you've laid a rail. I'm thinking a billion is looking cheap.


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As for the Borders costs, you can dispute with Transport Scotland and Network Rail, which is where I got the figures from.

*Please read my earlier posts. The figures you quote are 2012 budget at 2012 prices. Not 2015 project completion costs at 2015 prices.

 

[me123]

Stow has a low service frequency ? Twice that of Dumfries. and that is not because of lack of demand at Dumfries, it because many drive or bus to Lockerbie, which is still quicker than the Nith Valley line, so there is loads of suppressed demand at Dumfries.

Stow has a relatively low service frequency. It's the only station on the line that half of the trains do not call at.

I have long argued that an hourly Glasgow-Kilmarnock-Carlisle service would be beneficial.

Of the 57,000 population of Galloway, 28, 000 would have stations directly on the line, and another 11,000 no more than 3 miles from it. If you want the breakdown of that, its long winded but i'll do it.

Please do. You'll find that the settlements are small and dispersed. There is not a huge demand for travel to Dumfries or Carlisle. People will continue to drive, because driving is the best way to get about in rural areas.

Re Killie diversion, simple. Time is money.

If time was a huge issue, you wouldn't use a combination of rail freight and shipping to get to NI. You'd use roads and/or air. The new route would be a relatively modest time saving for a small amount of traffic that probably isn't going to hugely benefit from it.

 

[47271]

Before all of these I would prefer to see:

An hourly Glasgow-Dumfries-Carlisle service, or at least hourly Dumfries-Carlisle.
A much improved Sunday service as there is only 5 trains to/from Carlisle, 2 to/from Glasgow and nothing at all before 1 in the afternoon.
Improved bus connections at Lockerbie would be great too, especially on Sunday, improving access to/from Edinburgh from D&G. Many Doonhamers I know prefer to use Lockerbie as a railhead for Dumfries whether going to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

Fair enough, I was talking about capital investment. If you're not even getting an adequate service with the infrastructure you've got then that's got to move further up the list still.

 

[Sandy R]

I will throw in some of my ex career comments on freight into that part of the world - we used to move cider , beer and cars (+ some sensitive MOD traffic) into Stranraer for export to Northern Ireland. I am talking about my days as a Customer Service and Plannig Manager for Speedlink.

The volumes were quite decent - the rates seemed OK - BUT - on analysis it was found that the railway got (a) no back traffic - so all the wagons came back empty (b) we only got the traffic that road hauliers did not want - i.e they got the regular flows and the back loads (c) the tranship and port costs were so high - the net revenue was embarasingly low (d) the movement costs by rail were very high.(e) traffic was seasonal.

Now in good old BR , we paid avoidable track costs and direct costs for shunters , locomotive , fuel etc .....when the "Network 90" study was done , surprise , surprise - long feeder trips to this part of the world from Carlisle and Mossend were triple flagged "red" .....

However , if anyone can prove to me - in my retirement - you can cover all these costs AND fund new infrastructure - I will happily come and wave off the first train. Old school style. (green flag)

As for Holyhead - where we have still good infrastructure etc - I am amazed (Welsh Government please have a hard look) - how we can not justify the cheapest bit of concrete and a reach stacker to get some of the port traffic to rail and off the A55..the loss of Freightliner traffic to and from Holyhead was really down to the penal costs of what was Sealink and the operational costs of the crossing ,the terminal and port. (against vicious competition for RO/RO etc from other ports....

Very interesting and informative. I have no doubt there are many challenges to be overcome for this scheme to proceed, but where there is a will there is a way. The Borders line was a basket case financially, has no freight and little potential for such traffic, but was still built, and is proving popular despite the infrastructure limitations. The Port Road is just as viable a scheme.
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Stow has a relatively low service frequency. It's the only station on the line that half of the trains do not call at.

I have long argued that an hourly Glasgow-Kilmarnock-Carlisle service would be beneficial.




Please do. You'll find that the settlements are small and dispersed. There is not a huge demand for travel to Dumfries or Carlisle. People will continue to drive, because driving is the best way to get about in rural areas.



If time was a huge issue, you wouldn't use a combination of rail freight and shipping to get to NI. You'd use roads and/or air. The new route would be a relatively modest time saving for a small amount of traffic that probably isn't going to hugely benefit from it.

Parking in Dumfries is abysmal, if you think there is no demand for travel to Dumfries , come and have a look for yourself. And people here use roads because there is no alternative.
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No, I'm saying that a line slightly more than twice the length would cost around 2 1/2 times as much (ie 25% more by unit rate) when allowing for inflation and other factors. Given the out turn cost of the Borders railway is over £400m at 2015 prices* and this railway couldn't possibly be built for another decade, 2% pa compound inflation seems reasonable.

Don't deceive yourself about the differences between this and the Borders railway. Much of this railway would be on a brand new alignment, as the old is under roads - as you say, much is within spitting distance of the A75, rather too close in fact. But you miss the point about accessibility. It's not how close to the nearest road that's the problem. It is how close to the nearest significant logistics railhead it is, and the nearest base of employment. A project like this will need several thousand people to build it, including hundreds of specialist engineers. You will need to feed, water and entertain this small army. Where is the capacity for this? More to the point where are they? There's not that many of these specialist people within 100 miles of the line, even if you took them all out of their existing jobs. So you will have to ship them in, and they will want paying extra - a lot extra - for that.

Finally, unless I'm mistaken, it will need 3km of new viaduct and embankment across the flood plain of the tidal Cree. That's £100m before you've laid a rail. I'm thinking a billion is looking cheap.


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*Please read my earlier posts. The figures you quote are 2012 budget at 2012 prices. Not 2015 project completion costs at 2015 prices.

Dumfries is 60 miles from Gala , and you seem to think he same personnel who worked on that line cant work in D&G ?
As for the 3km viaduct, im afraid your just plain and simple talking bollocks. Look at a map.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

No, I'm saying that a line slightly more than twice the length would cost around 2 1/2 times as much (ie 25% more by unit rate) when allowing for inflation and other factors. Given the out turn cost of the Borders railway is over £400m at 2015 prices* and this railway couldn't possibly be built for another decade, 2% pa compound inflation seems reasonable.

Don't deceive yourself about the differences between this and the Borders railway. Much of this railway would be on a brand new alignment, as the old is under roads - as you say, much is within spitting distance of the A75, rather too close in fact. But you miss the point about accessibility. It's not how close to the nearest road that's the problem. It is how close to the nearest significant logistics railhead it is, and the nearest base of employment. A project like this will need several thousand people to build it, including hundreds of specialist engineers. You will need to feed, water and entertain this small army. Where is the capacity for this? More to the point where are they? There's not that many of these specialist people within 100 miles of the line, even if you took them all out of their existing jobs. So you will have to ship them in, and they will want paying extra - a lot extra - for that.

Finally, unless I'm mistaken, it will need 3km of new viaduct and embankment across the flood plain of the tidal Cree. That's £100m before you've laid a rail. I'm thinking a billion is looking cheap.


--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


*Please read my earlier posts. The figures you quote are 2012 budget at 2012 prices. Not 2015 project completion costs at 2015 prices.

And you price for the Borders line is ??? at 2015 prices ? Perhaps you can tell us rather than just saying 'somewhere in the'4's ' ?

 

[najaB]

The Borders line was a basket case financially, has no freight and little potential for such traffic, but was still built, and is proving popular despite the infrastructure limitations.

Why the obsession with freight on the Borders railway? It was built on the basis that it would primarily be a passenger railway.

The Port Road is just as viable a scheme.

Image shows Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride saying 'You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means'.

 

[Sandy R]

No, I'm saying that a line slightly more than twice the length would cost around 2 1/2 times as much (ie 25% more by unit rate) when allowing for inflation and other factors. Given the out turn cost of the Borders railway is over £400m at 2015 prices* and this railway couldn't possibly be built for another decade, 2% pa compound inflation seems reasonable.

Don't deceive yourself about the differences between this and the Borders railway. Much of this railway would be on a brand new alignment, as the old is under roads - as you say, much is within spitting distance of the A75, rather too close in fact. But you miss the point about accessibility. It's not how close to the nearest road that's the problem. It is how close to the nearest significant logistics railhead it is, and the nearest base of employment. A project like this will need several thousand people to build it, including hundreds of specialist engineers. You will need to feed, water and entertain this small army. Where is the capacity for this? More to the point where are they? There's not that many of these specialist people within 100 miles of the line, even if you took them all out of their existing jobs. So you will have to ship them in, and they will want paying extra - a lot extra - for that.

Finally, unless I'm mistaken, it will need 3km of new viaduct and embankment across the flood plain of the tidal Cree. That's £100m before you've laid a rail. I'm thinking a billion is looking cheap.


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*Please read my earlier posts. The figures you quote are 2012 budget at 2012 prices. Not 2015 project completion costs at 2015 prices.

The figures I quoted are from Network Rail in 2015.
Project completion cost £294 million.
Transport Scotland 2015, total other costs , including all 3 local authorities' costs and Scottish government costs, £60 million.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Why the obsession with freight on the Borders railway? It was built on the basis that it would primarily be a passenger railway.

Image shows Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride saying 'You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means'.

I mean no less viable than the Borders line. I made that quite clear.

 

[Altfish]

Stations would probably be at Stranraer (Pop 10851), Newton Stewart (pop 4092), (Pop Gatehouse of Fleet (Population unknown) and Castle Douglas (Pop 4174). Dumfries of course has a population just shy of 50,000.

Don't forget Dalbeattie (pop c4000)
However the station at Gatehouse of Fleet would nowadays be known as Gatehouse of Fleet Parkway as it is some 6miles from the town.

I think there may be more mileage trying to reopen to Castle Douglas and the branch to Kirkcudbright (pop c 3500)

As someone who visits the area regularly I regret never having travelled on it. It would be a most scenic route, especially between Castle Douglas to Gatehouse of Fleet, where the Loch Ken viaduct, Stroan Loch and Loch Skerrow in quick succession. I've walked the track bed from Mossdale to Stroan Loch many times, lovely.

 

[najaB]

I mean no less viable than the Borders line. I made that quite clear.

I guess you're standing by the truthiness of your argument.

 

[Sandy R]

You're arguing with people who would be tasked with running the project, who are qualified to run this type of project, and they're telling you the costs.

The type of terrain, accessibility, drainage requirements, geophysical issues, worksite formation, materials delivery and dozens of other factors can cause one project to cost £1m per mile and a similar project to cost £20m per mile.

The factors you list are applicable to new-build projects mostly. If the Victorians could build a line here, surely we can in the 21st century.Most of those factors have already been taken into consideration between 1859 and 1862, and the hard work one then. Most of the line is on pre existing formation, so the costs will not vary wildly from , say the Borders line.

 

[najaB]

Most of the line is on pre existing formation, so the costs will not vary wildly from , say the Borders line.

Not if, as Philip Phlopp has pointed out already, the Victorians didn't build to a standard that would support RA8 at 75mph. I'm going to guess that they didn't.

 

[Sandy R]

Don't forget Dalbeattie (pop c4000)
However the station at Gatehouse of Fleet would nowadays be known as Gatehouse of Fleet Parkway as it is some 6miles from the town.

I think there may be more mileage trying to reopen to Castle Douglas and the branch to Kirkcudbright (pop c 3500)

As someone who visits the area regularly I regret never having travelled on it. It would be a most scenic route, especially between Castle Douglas to Gatehouse of Fleet, where the Loch Ken viaduct, Stroan Loch and Loch Skerrow in quick succession. I've walked the track bed from Mossdale to Stroan Loch many times, lovely.

There was a route surveyed in 1856 thus

 

[najaB]

There was a route surveyed in 1856 thus

I'm getting lost now by your constant change of position. In post #101 the railway was going to be cheap due to using an existing alignment, now in #103 you are looking at a new route.

 

[Sandy R]

Not if, as Philip Phlopp has pointed out already, the Victorians didn't build to a standard that would support RA8 at 75mph. I'm going to guess that they didn't.

You may be right, but its , as you say yourself, a guess. As far as I have read the line was built to a fairly high standard. Its fair to surmise it would have had a higher rating than the Girvan line, which is twisty and slow, ad would therefore be more suitable for heavy axle loads.
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I'm getting lost now by your constant change of position. In post #101 the railway was going to be cheap due to using an existing alignment, now in #103 you are looking at a new route.

I said 'mostly existing'. And the new route , if that route was chosen, covers less than a 5th of the mileage.

 

[najaB]

I said 'mostly existing'. And the new route , if that route was chosen, covers less than a 5th of the mileage.

But that is new alignment so, depending on structures, is likely to be significantly more expensive than your 'cheap' option of reusing the extant alignment (where it hasn't been obliterated by subsequent road construction).

 

[Bevan Price]

There's not enough foot passengers on the Cairnryan-Larne or Loch Ryan-Belfast routes to justify passenger trains to Cairnryan. That's not really a big factor in the case for reopening the line.
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Kilmarnock is a 65 mile diversion, that is why there is no freight at present.
The fact 'most lorries are heading to the M6'. Correct, and that's why freight would have enough volume to be viable ,because its going to large conurbations, without a 65 mile detour.
The line links Scotland, England and Ireland. Fact. look at a map.
The A75 is called the 'Gretna-Stranraer' Euroroute. Fact.
Stranraer to Dumfries would be 1 hour 15-20 minutes on a modern line, not 2 hours, and I never suggested people would commute the entire length of the line.
.

No chance of that on the former alignment. You would need many miles of totally new railway, including expensive tunnels to avoid lots of curved / steep sections. All adding many (£ billions) to the cost. The old line had many miles of gradients as steep as 1 in 60 to 1 in 75.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

The old line had many miles of gradients as steep as 1 in 60 to 1 in 75.

Which by all accounts in the glory days of the late 19thC and early 20thC was badly maintained and ballasted , causing some expensive and disruptive derailments ....see David A Smith's books on the Glasgow and South Western. Even then - there was little traffic usage or potential....

 

[Bald Rick]

Dumfries is 60 miles from Gala , and you seem to think he same personnel who worked on that line cant work in D&G ?

As for the 3km viaduct, im afraid your just plain and simple talking bollocks. Look at a map.


And you price for the Borders line is ??? at 2015 prices ? Perhaps you can tell us rather than just saying 'somewhere in the'4's ' ?

Of course the same people can work on the project. But you need at least twice as many of them. And whilst Galashiels is 60miles from Dumfries (actually 67 by the fastest route), Stranraer is 125miles from Newcraighall. Neither are a reasonable commute, given the state of the roads on the way. Even so, I don't suppose either are particularly well stocked with civil, electrical and signalling engineers. They will come from The Central belt and much further afield.

The River Cree - I did look at a map, and I said embankment and viaduct. The tidal estuary is wide there - are you suggesting you don't need 3km of embankment and viaduct to cross it? How else would you get across that, and the A75 and A714? How else would you protect the line from a 1 in 200 year flood event as per design codes for new railway civil engineering?

The cost for Borders at February 2015 prices is at least £340m for the construction, plus your £60m for all the other costs (which I believe to be light as stated before). I don't have a source for £340m, but I do have a source for £330m, which was more than a year before the official project completion; the cost went up again I'm told.

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=30064794503

Let's be generous and say it stayed at £330m (it didn't) and your £60m is right (I have grave doubts) and add in the 2.5% RPI since Feb 2015 (ONS figures) and you have £400m.


The £294m is clearly 2012 prices, as per Transport Scotland project page.

http://www.transport.gov.scot/project/borders-railway

 

[HSTEd]

You're right, but wrong at the same time.

HS1 is capable of carrying HGV tractor and trailer units upto 4.0 metres in height, which is all you really want to convey over to continental Europe given that's the height restrictions you'll find on other piggyback routes such as SBB's RAplin service (and the Gotthard Base Tunnel). The Channel Tunnel itself only allows 4.2m high trailers.

With drop centre wagons for TOFC you could probably get quite a bit more through the channel tunnel, it does have 5.595m of clearance after all.

If SBB aren't going crazy for higher vehicles, given their strategic role in the freight industry, I'd doubt it's worth it for us to try something outrageous.

Well the journeys they are running are so short they tend to have whole lorries aboard which have to be driven off at the destination - if you accept the use of a crane for unloading you can use drop wagons.

You would need a gauge of around 6.2m to support the 5m high trailers, and you've got to do something about strong crosswinds because you'll have flat top or open piggyback wagons having the tallest vehicles being blown clean off them, you'll end up looking at partially covered wagons ballasted to stop them from blowing over themselves and I can see a forest of trees disappearing for the paperwork for all of that mess.

Since this is a new build line the simple solution to that would probably just lay the track in a trench.
Also don't we live in the paperless future

 

[Philip Phlopp]

You may be right, but its , as you say yourself, a guess. As far as I have read the line was built to a fairly high standard. Its fair to surmise it would have had a higher rating than the Girvan line, which is twisty and slow, ad would therefore be more suitable for heavy axle loads.
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I said 'mostly existing'. And the new route , if that route was chosen, covers less than a 5th of the mileage.

You guess the route was built to a high standard - there are routes all over the country built to high standards which were closed after Beeching, many of these routes are now about ready to collapse in a heap.

Network Rail pulls out dozens of structures which were spectacularly built - there's the old bridge coming at for Ordsall Chord which won't need much cutting up to get it removed from site, as an example, it's just life expired.

What's worse is with an old, existing alignment with extant structures, you need civil engineering to come and assess the structure, work out loading capacities and life expectancies, and when structures need to be removed, it's more civil engineers on site to plan a demolition, work out the removal, remove the structure and materials from the site, and then rebuild the new structure.

The costs for that become biblical in quick time.

The survey work is bad too - you have to be absolutely certain you've found every drain, ditch, culvert and underpass, you have to be absolutely certain you know what's holding each retaining wall and embankment together, do the drawings (if they still exist) actually match what's on the ground or did the original engineers back fill with sand, ballast or rubble rather than the agreed fill stone fill ?

If you miss any one of those, you leave the route open to engineering, reliability and ultimately safety problems. If you miss drains, it can be the difference between the route flooding or not during stormy weather, if you don't check what the retaining walls are, can you be sure it's safe to run RA8 trains at 75mph, and so on.

There's also the issue with bridges and whether the structure is suitable for current rail and sleeper/bearer standards, whether you want to rebuild a structure for track purposes and so it goes on.

And there's always work to do - 50 years since Beeching closed such routes, many were run into the ground during WW2, some were bombed and most were never properly repaired and overhauled in the 1950s. They closed in a state that was close to that which would have forced the cessation of rail services in any case.

To get the railway back into the state it was when it closed will be expensive, to then bring it up to modern standards suitable for heavy freight traffic will be yet more expense. The costs are absolutely biblical and could easily spiral well out of control if anything untoward is found or any issues occur which fall outwith the control of the project management.

 

[najaB]

Thanks for that post Philip, very informative. I fear though that, again, truthiness will outweigh facts.

 

[tbtc]

Edinburgh - Galashiels has had a long established half hourly bus service (not including the three/ hour via Peebles).

Whilst Stagecoach have turned a lot of interurban services in "rural" areas into decent coach services (including the X76 to Cumnock, the X74 to Dumfries), they've never managed to built Dumfries - Stranraer into a busy frequent service.

What does that tell us about this relatively unpopulated corner of the country?

This is about Dumfries to Stranraer, not Belfast to Heysham. Start another thread about that if you so desire. Its totally irrelevant to this thread because it serves a different market.

...yet you seem fairly obsessed with mentioning the Tweedbank route at every opportunity, which is equally relevant/ irrelevant to a Dumfries - Stranraer line (depending on your viewpoint). Which way do you want it?

An improved Belfast - Heysham ferry could solve a lot of the "problems" that you are trying to "solve" (by taking a lot of lorries off the A75).

Re flying, taxis etc, we are living in a greener world now, rail reopenings will happen because Beeching went too far with his cuts.

You will regularly find the Port Road listed in railway press as 'one of Beeching's 10 worst cuts in Britain'. These are railway experts writing these words, not trainspotters or boffins

Forget about Beeching. It was fifty years ago. Some basket cases lines were kept open, some borderline cases were closed.

Water under the bridge now - you'd be starting from scratch using modern construction methods - misty eyed recollections about the good old days are irrelevant.

Kilmarnock is a 65 mile diversion, that is why there is no freight at present.
The fact 'most lorries are heading to the M6'. Correct, and that's why freight would have enough volume to be viable ,because its going to large conurbations, without a 65 mile detour.
The line links Scotland, England and Ireland. Fact. look at a map.
The A75 is called the 'Gretna-Stranraer' Euroroute. Fact.
Stranraer to Dumfries would be 1 hour 15-20 minutes on a modern line, not 2 hours, and I never suggested people would commute the entire length of the line.
In that regard though im sure Dumfries and Galloway College will be interested as it would shorten their student's days by over 2 hours.

Saying "fact" a lot just makes you sound like David Brent. Opinion.

There are plenty of places where freight takes a longer route to get to its destination - which is why some uses the GSW and S&C to get from the Central Belt to Yorkshire/ beyond. Opinion.

As it's going to be waiting for a ferry etc, it's not like we are talking about excessively time critical stuff anyway - a diversion via Ayrshire isn't the end of the world. Opinion.

 

[Penmorfa]

As for Holyhead - where we have still good infrastructure etc - I am amazed (Welsh Government please have a hard look) - how we can not justify the cheapest bit of concrete and a reach stacker to get some of the port traffic to rail and off the A55..the loss of Freightliner traffic to and from Holyhead was really down to the penal costs of what was Sealink and the operational costs of the crossing ,the terminal and port. (against vicious competition for RO/RO etc from other ports....

The reason there is no rail freight traffic at Holyhead is that virtually no containers pass through the port anymore. The Freightliner container traffic moved to Ellesmere Port and then Liverpool. Nowadays most still travels via Liverpool but an increasing proportion travels via feeder services from Dublin and Belfast to Rotterdam/Antwerp etc where it transfers to deep sea services.

The market nowadays is vastly different to what it was in 1991 when Freightliner finished.

Traffic to Northern ireland via Cairnryan will almost all be in lorry trailers and not containers and any chance of that moving to rail is nil.

 

[47271]

No disrespect to Sandy G, but it's pretty amazing that this left field subject has reached 111 posts when it fizzled out at 54 this time last year.

What's changed?

If available spend was Rail UK posts x £10m then we'd be away...

 

[MarkyT]

With regard to unaccompanied trailers I found the new Cargobeamer system being used in Europe which uses drive on pallets that can be slid into place on the dedicated wagons using their special ground level equipment or lifted at conventional intermodal terminals. I suggest watching the video at http://www.cargobeamer.eu/ I wonder if these are narrow enough to pass UK platform, assuming a W10 or W12 gauge could provide sufficient height for some trailers.

 

[Sandy R]

But that is new alignment so, depending on structures, is likely to be significantly more expensive than your 'cheap' option of reusing the extant alignment (where it hasn't been obliterated by subsequent road construction).

Yet more doom and gloom.
Reasons for avoiding the old route via Parton are numerous.
1 .Its 1 1/2 miles longer.
2.There is virtually no population, therefore no revenue earning potential on the old 23 1/2 mile section between Creetown and Castle Douglas.
3. 4 major bridges /viaducts on that section, 2x Water of Fleet *Little demolished) Stroan and Boat of Rhone (Ken) requiring replacement or upgrade.
4. Sections of embankment missing/eroded around Crossmichael, also low lying close to the Ken/Dee water/loch.
5 . Level (almost) crossing of the A75 Castle Douglas bypass.

Its arguable that a new section would produce more revenue, require much less long-term maintenance, shorten the journey time and avoid extra crossings of the A75.

 

[najaB]

Yet more doom and gloom.

You say doom and gloom, I say reality.

Its arguable that a new section would produce more revenue, require much less long-term maintenance, shorten the journey time and avoid extra crossings of the A75.

It's arguable that I'm better looking than Idris Elba. Unfortunately I don't live in that fantasy world...

 

[Sandy R]

No, I'm saying that a line slightly more than twice the length would cost around 2 1/2 times as much (ie 25% more by unit rate) when allowing for inflation and other factors. Given the out turn cost of the Borders railway is over £400m at 2015 prices* and this railway couldn't possibly be built for another decade, 2% pa compound inflation seems reasonable.

Don't deceive yourself about the differences between this and the Borders railway. Much of this railway would be on a brand new alignment, as the old is under roads - as you say, much is within spitting distance of the A75, rather too close in fact. But you miss the point about accessibility. It's not how close to the nearest road that's the problem. It is how close to the nearest significant logistics railhead it is, and the nearest base of employment. A project like this will need several thousand people to build it, including hundreds of specialist engineers. You will need to feed, water and entertain this small army. Where is the capacity for this? More to the point where are they? There's not that many of these specialist people within 100 miles of the line, even if you took them all out of their existing jobs. So you will have to ship them in, and they will want paying extra - a lot extra - for that.


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*Please read my earlier posts. The figures you quote are 2012 budget at 2012 prices. Not 2015 project completion costs at 2015 prices.

There are so many holes in this its like Swiss cheese.

Why couldnt it be built for a decade ?

'Much of this railway would be on a brand new alignment'. Utter hogwash. the vast majority of it would be built on the old formation.

'As the old is under roads'
More hogwash. There are a few short sections of the A75, totalling no more than 2 miles built on the old route. A short section just east of CD on the Dalbeattie road (A745), a section at Cairntop, and another 2 tiny sections of 200 m each approx. at Shennanton and Benfield farms. You clearly have no local knowledge and are wildly exaggerating what you are looking at on Google maps.

While your inflation prediction is probably reasonable, neither you or I know the inflation rate for the next few years, so that makes your 'billion' speculative to say the least.

'3km viaduct'. There is a short section of missing embankment just west of the Cree, no more than 300 metres. so you've exaggerated that by a factor of 10.

And i'll repeat what things you continue to ignore because they don't suit your agenda.

1.No city bypass to temporarily realign/burrow through at massive cost. Less 'stations on a 65 mile route than on a 31 mile route, saving millions in station construction costs.
Lower land prices.
Less river crossings than the Borders route despite being much longer.

Even if the Borders line cost £400 million, that is still only £13 million per mile.
That still only makes this line £845 million at 2015 prices. And I repeat yet again the differing costs I mention in the above paragraph ensure that this line would cost less per mile. The only way it would cost a billion is if it wasnt built until the 2030s. This is 2016. You keep quoting 2012/2015 prices for the Borders line, so it is fair enough for me to quote current prices.
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You say doom and gloom, I say reality.


It's arguable that I'm better looking than Idris Elba. Unfortunately I don't live in that fantasy world...

Look at a map. Look at the position of the A75. Look at the 1856 survey of a route from Drummore. to CD.
NO fantasy.
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You say doom and gloom, I say reality.


It's arguable that I'm better looking than Idris Elba. Unfortunately I don't live in that fantasy world...

If a line is 1 1/2 miles shorter, the journey time is shorter .Fact.
If you don't have 4 major viaducts to maintain maintenance costs are less. Fact.

In you realty nothing would have ever been built, we'd all be on horses and carts because everything would have been too much of a risk.
Don't cross the road tomorrow. Far too risky.
No ambition.
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You say doom and gloom, I say reality.


It's arguable that I'm better looking than Idris Elba. Unfortunately I don't live in that fantasy world...

Reasons for avoiding the old route via Parton are numerous.
1 .Its 1 1/2 miles longer.
2.There is virtually no population, therefore no revenue earning potential on the old 23 1/2 mile section between Creetown and Castle Douglas.
3. 4 major bridges /viaducts on that section, 2x Water of Fleet *Little demolished) Stroan and Boat of Rhone (Ken) requiring replacement or upgrade.
4. Sections of embankment missing/eroded around Crossmichael, also low lying close to the Ken/Dee water/loch.
5 . Level (almost) crossing of the A75 Castle Douglas bypass.
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Edinburgh - Galashiels has had a long established half hourly bus service (not including the three/ hour via Peebles).

Whilst Stagecoach have turned a lot of interurban services in "rural" areas into decent coach services (including the X76 to Cumnock, the X74 to Dumfries), they've never managed to built Dumfries - Stranraer into a busy frequent service.

What does that tell us about this relatively unpopulated corner of the country?



...yet you seem fairly obsessed with mentioning the Tweedbank route at every opportunity, which is equally relevant/ irrelevant to a Dumfries - Stranraer line (depending on your viewpoint). Which way do you want it?

An improved Belfast - Heysham ferry could solve a lot of the "problems" that you are trying to "solve" (by taking a lot of lorries off the A75).



Forget about Beeching. It was fifty years ago. Some basket cases lines were kept open, some borderline cases were closed.

Water under the bridge now - you'd be starting from scratch using modern construction methods - misty eyed recollections about the good old days are irrelevant.



Saying "fact" a lot just makes you sound like David Brent. Opinion.

There are plenty of places where freight takes a longer route to get to its destination - which is why some uses the GSW and S&C to get from the Central Belt to Yorkshire/ beyond. Opinion.

As it's going to be waiting for a ferry etc, it's not like we are talking about excessively time critical stuff anyway - a diversion via Ayrshire isn't the end of the world. Opinion.

'misty eyed recollections about the good old days are irrelevant.'
I wasn't even born when the Beeching cuts happened , how can it be a recollection?

Freight formerly went via the Nith Valley and the S&C to keep it away from VWC services on the WCML, the extra distance is irrelevant in this case..

Re Kimarnock diversion,Would you drive 135 miles in your car to get.75 miles along the road,? Of course you wouldn't.

If the Belfast-Heysham ferry is the panacea to all the world's ills, why hasn't it been improved already ??
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Of course the same people can work on the project. But you need at least twice as many of them. And whilst Galashiels is 60miles from Dumfries (actually 67 by the fastest route), Stranraer is 125miles from Newcraighall. Neither are a reasonable commute, given the state of the roads on the way. Even so, I don't suppose either are particularly well stocked with civil, electrical and signalling engineers. They will come from The Central belt and much further afield.

The River Cree - I did look at a map, and I said embankment and viaduct. The tidal estuary is wide there - are you suggesting you don't need 3km of embankment and viaduct to cross it? How else would you get across that, and the A75 and A714? How else would you protect the line from a 1 in 200 year flood event as per design codes for new railway civil engineering?

The cost for Borders at February 2015 prices is at least £340m for the construction, plus your £60m for all the other costs (which I believe to be light as stated before). I don't have a source for £340m, but I do have a source for £330m, which was more than a year before the official project completion; the cost went up again I'm told.

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=30064794503

Let's be generous and say it stayed at £330m (it didn't) and your £60m is right (I have grave doubts) and add in the 2.5% RPI since Feb 2015 (ONS figures) and you have £400m.


The £294m is clearly 2012 prices, as per Transport Scotland project page.

http://www.transport.gov.scot/project/borders-railway

The Network Rail link is dead.
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You guess the route was built to a high standard - there are routes all over the country built to high standards which were closed after Beeching, many of these routes are now about ready to collapse in a heap.

Network Rail pulls out dozens of structures which were spectacularly built - there's the old bridge coming at for Ordsall Chord which won't need much cutting up to get it removed from site, as an example, it's just life expired.

What's worse is with an old, existing alignment with extant structures, you need civil engineering to come and assess the structure, work out loading capacities and life expectancies, and when structures need to be removed, it's more civil engineers on site to plan a demolition, work out the removal, remove the structure and materials from the site, and then rebuild the new structure.

The costs for that become biblical in quick time.

The survey work is bad too - you have to be absolutely certain you've found every drain, ditch, culvert and underpass, you have to be absolutely certain you know what's holding each retaining wall and embankment together, do the drawings (if they still exist) actually match what's on the ground or did the original engineers back fill with sand, ballast or rubble rather than the agreed fill stone fill ?

If you miss any one of those, you leave the route open to engineering, reliability and ultimately safety problems. If you miss drains, it can be the difference between the route flooding or not during stormy weather, if you don't check what the retaining walls are, can you be sure it's safe to run RA8 trains at 75mph, and so on.

There's also the issue with bridges and whether the structure is suitable for current rail and sleeper/bearer standards, whether you want to rebuild a structure for track purposes and so it goes on.

And there's always work to do - 50 years since Beeching closed such routes, many were run into the ground during WW2, some were bombed and most were never properly repaired and overhauled in the 1950s. They closed in a state that was close to that which would have forced the cessation of rail services in any case.

To get the railway back into the state it was when it closed will be expensive, to then bring it up to modern standards suitable for heavy freight traffic will be yet more expense. The costs are absolutely biblical and could easily spiral well out of control if anything untoward is found or any issues occur which fall outwith the control of the project management.

Undoubtedly true. But these engineering factors affect every railway built, and we are rebuilding them. There is nothing particularly unique to Galloway to suggest building a line here would cost more per mile than anywhere else as Bald rick is claiming. As I have said there are several factors here that show a line in this area would be cheaper to build per mile than elsewhere in the country.
Ps There was no Nazi bombs here....
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No chance of that on the former alignment. You would need many miles of totally new railway, including expensive tunnels to avoid lots of curved / steep sections. All adding many (£ billions) to the cost. The old line had many miles of gradients as steep as 1 in 60 to 1 in 75.

Look at the gradient profile of the line.

 

[Bald Rick]

Why couldnt it be built for a decade ?

While your inflation prediction is probably reasonable, neither you or I know the inflation rate for the next few years, so that makes your 'billion' speculative to say the least.

Even if the Borders line cost £400 million, that is still only £13 million per mile.
That still only makes this line £845 million at 2015 prices.

The Network Rail link is dead.

1) because that's how long it takes to plan major new railway construction from concept to commissioning. 5 years to do feasibility, develop, consult the public, refine, outline design, get consent, get funding. Another year or two to do detail design, mobilise and buy the land off people who don't want to sell. 3-4 years to build. Up to a year to test. That's 10-12 years, but some can overlap. It was the same for Borders, major parts of the WC upgrade, ELL, Airdrie - Bathgate, HS1, HS2 etc etc.

2) correct. That is why you are required to use official government forecasts.

3) £845m at 2015 is already £858m at 2016. Guess what it would be, at 2% a year, by 2024 (likely mid point of construction, as required for assessment in business cases).

4) it works for me. Unlike this proposal. *out*