In 1962 the Midland Pullman was allowed 72 minutes from leaving Manchester Central to passing Derby North Jn, including a 1½-minute stop at Cheadle Heath and 4 minutes recovery time.
Thanks Senex, that's very interesting information.
In 1962 the Midland Pullman was allowed 72 minutes from leaving Manchester Central to passing Derby North Jn, including a 1½-minute stop at Cheadle Heath and 4 minutes recovery time.
Thanks Senex, that's very interesting information.
It is indeed, if you suggested a new link of the M1 to the M6 across the North somewhere or a daft road tunnel under the Pennines you will get listened to. Suggest a railway to link significant populations and someone, even on here, will start whining about crayons! I don't think the Rio diversion people mentioned earlier in this thread tells you anything about long term possible trends for flows being only ever a temporary service.
Thanks Senex, that's very interesting information.
It is indeed, if you suggested a new link of the M1 to the M6 across the North somewhere or a daft road tunnel under the Pennines you will get listened to. Suggest a railway to link significant populations and someone, even on here, will start whining about crayons! I don't think the Rio diversion people mentioned earlier in this thread tells you anything about long term possible trends for flows being only ever a temporary service.
This proposal has litterally no sane business case for the foreseeable future. Any objective apart from reopening the line for the sake of it can be achieved through a much cheaper alternative or is not worth the enormous cost of reopening the line. There are some routes that are viable to reopen, this is not one of them.
There is clearly no alternative for getting decent public transport to within the Peak District national park. Like most civil servants (in England) you are solely thinking within the envelope of the existing railway.
By the way, please can someone get on with the routes that are judged to be viable for reopening. We're still waiting - twenty years and counting.
Yes there is a public transport alternative: buses. If an enhanced limited stop bus service cannot be introduced then reopening the line will never be viable. You are starting with the answer you want and then trying to think of any argument that could justify it rather than starting with problems and working out the most sensible solutions. Thats why a reopening list has not been written by the government. If a reopening is the best solution to a local or regional transport problem then it might be done but wont be done just for the sake of it even if it might have a decent business case, because it may not be the solution to the problem with the best business case.
Yes there is a public transport alternative: buses. If an enhanced limited stop bus service cannot be introduced then reopening the line will never be viable. You are starting with the answer you want and then trying to think of any argument that could justify it rather than starting with problems and working out the most sensible solutions. Thats why a reopening list has not been written by the government. If a reopening is the best solution to a local or regional transport problem then it might be done but wont be done just for the sake of it even if it might have a decent business case, because it may not be the solution to the problem with the best business case.
There is clearly no alternative for getting decent public transport to within the Peak District national park. Like most civil servants (in England) you are solely thinking within the envelope of the existing railway.
By the way, please can someone get on with the routes that are judged to be viable for reopening. We're still waiting - twenty years and counting.
It is. I was actually looking to see if I could find the Midland Pullman timings earlier. It's a bit faster than I was estimating too.
However, where does it get us? The Midland Pullman was a Class 1 plus train, with special operating conditions, like extra headways scheduled. It also only stopped the once.
It went to Central (not Piccadilly) - I don't know if the approach to Central was faster than to today's Piccadilly - I have a feeling it might have been.
But let's assume you could get 72 minutes on a one-stop schedule, on a reopened Derby-Man Picc today. You would in fact be stopping at least twice - Matlock and Bakewell, Millers DAle for Buxton? Probably Chinley too? That's going to push your 72 min timing towards 81-82 mins. Add 30 mins (?) Nottingham to Derby + Derby stop. You are talking about 111 - 112 minutes Nottingham - Manchester at a guess.
How would that compare to Nottingham-Dore South-Stockport-Man Picc today?
Is it really the case that there is a rail-based solution to the supposed inadequacies of public transport in the Peak District National Park? By their very nature national parks are relatively undeveloped areas with minimal prospects of increased population.
Not everybody may appreciate that Bakewell is the largest town in the Park but has a population of less than 4,000. (In contrast somewhere like Wisbech, often touted for a rail reopening, has a population of over 30,000.) The former station was nearly a mile from the town centre, up a hill (shades of Okehampton) and its reopening would add very little in terms of genuine connectivity.
Presuming that we are thinking in terms of through services that are intended to have attractive overall journey times there are surely no other stations that would justify reopening (unless Millers Dale was seen as an operational junction with shuttles/connections to and from Chinley or Buxton, etc.)
In terms of genuine 'access' to enjoy the Peak District the Monsal Trail (owned by the Park, not Sustrans or any other cycling group) allows almost everybody to enjoy a wide range of scenery, wildlife and so forth on foot, by bicycle, horse, scooter or wheelchair in conjunction with many other activities. This seems to me to be far more 'inclusive' than a single option of chugging along in an air-conditioned tube on an hourly basis when you can't even take a decent photograph.
Such a service would provide minimal relief to the Hope Valley line, which was the original basis for the suggested reopening.
How would that compare to Nottingham-Dore South-Stockport-Man Picc today?
The quadding was done for the heavy freight flows, which aren't there any more. What would restoring it do that a reversible passenger loop in Chinley station would not do, in capacity terms?As to reinstating the quadruple track between New Mills South Junction and Chinley; why, can I ask?
:roll:
The comment about buses takes us back to the arguments put forward by Marples and Beeching. They were wrong then and they are wrong now.
Fast, Frequent and Reliable buses may work in London, Manchester and Birmingham, but not in connecting our regions.
So why is it that the so called "business cases" apparently stack up in other countries, but apparently not in the UK?
The quadding was done for the heavy freight flows, which aren't there any more. What would restoring it do that a reversible passenger loop in Chinley station would not do, in capacity terms?
I doubt that anywhere has buses that are "Fast, Frequent and Reliable" (although Edinburgh is pretty good - if not fast - in my experience.)
Bad news.Eight people have been hurt after a double-decker bus crashed into an overhead walkway at an Edinburgh hospital.
A road tunnel under the Pennines is not daft when the main roads between Manchester and South Yorkshire are single carriageways with no chance of being doubled due to crossing a national park. Its easy to see how a business case can (and probably will) be written that shows toll revanue would pay for the construction cost.
There are some routes that are viable to reopen, this is not one of them.
A third track leading to a third platform at Chinley could allow any Chinley terminators via Marple to operate independently of the fast Hope Valley trains. However this wouldn't be worthwhile (if at all) until there were significantly more of both types of train than currently proposed, which couldn't happen without enhancements elsewhere on the Hope Valley.
:roll:
The comment about buses takes us back to the arguments put forward by Marples and Beeching. They were wrong then and they are wrong now.
Fast, Frequent and Reliable buses may work in London, Manchester and Birmingham, but not in connecting our regions. The future has to be rail. HS2 will enable people to commute to London from Chesterfield. Try doing that by bus. Try telling someone in Derby they could get a job in Manchester and commute by bus. It won't work will it? We all know that there are huge economic benefits from having a more mobile and flexible workforce, and the railways are the best way of doing that. We have it in London, we don't in the Midlands and North. This is where the rail re-opening business cases are failing us, as they fail to take into account suppressed demand and these wider economic benefits.
Our obsession with business cases makes us extremely cautious.
As a result, rail re-openings in the UK rarely happen....and when they do, the passenger numbers exceed demand by so much they we wonder why we didn't build the line with more capacity. Unlike in many other countries.
So why is it that the so called "business cases" apparently stack up in other countries, but apparently not in the UK?
Oh please - buses ? They hardly represent an adequate solution for people travelling longer distances, particularly along congested roads.
If there is sufficient demand then limited stop bus services and joint ticketing with Manchester-Buxton and Matlock-Derby train services would test the demand. Or if you want an alternative to the existing rail network how about a regular coach service stopping just at Manchester, Stockport, Buxton, Bakewell, Matlock and Derby? The answer is it doesn't involve turning back the clock.
And we all know what the answer would be if we test the demand and find that the said bus service is extremely popular.
"Oh, we don't need to install a railway because there's a bus service there".
Unfortunately the "anything but rail" mindset is alive and kicking.
Incidentally, I've often wondered why no one's ever come up with through train-bus ticketing to Padstow. Fine ideas but no one ever seems to put them into practice.
Fast, Frequent and Reliable buses may work in London, Manchester and Birmingham, but not in connecting our regions. The future has to be rail. HS2 will enable people to commute to London from Chesterfield. Try doing that by bus. Try telling someone in Derby they could get a job in Manchester and commute by bus. It won't work will it? We all know that there are huge economic benefits from having a more mobile and flexible workforce, and the railways are the best way of doing that. We have it in London, we don't in the Midlands and North. This is where the rail re-opening business cases are failing us, as they fail to take into account suppressed demand and these wider economic benefits.
I think any case for reopening the route should be based on its intrinsic traffic potential (ie Leicester/Loughborough/Derby - an let's not forget the sizeable town of Belper) and not include plans to divert Norwich - Liverpool trains this way. Unless, for any reason, EMT were screaming to do so, I get the impression that service works quite well.
Huh? XC runs hourly Voyagers between Manchester and Bournemouth. Never heard it called an exotic journey before!London to Manchester was available from Marylebone, St Pancras and Euston. Inter Regional journeys spurred in and out along the way allowing all sorts of exotic journeys such as Bradford to Paignton, Manchester to Bournemouth, the Harwich Boat Train etc. Suggest that now and you get some bean counter telling you what is affordable - result - half of the Borders line built single track - madness!!!here on earth is there clear blue sky thinking on this topic please? We are into the minutiae of line speeds, loops, line capacity etc when we haven't even got a route.
Where on earth is there clear blue sky thinking on this topic please? We are into the minutiae of line speeds, loops, line capacity etc when we haven't even got a route.
Perhaps we need to stand back and remember what we had seventy years ago, on nationalisation when effectively the GNR and the LNWR got their own back on the Midland and the Great Central - by closing them down.
London to Manchester was available from Marylebone, St Pancras and Euston. Inter Regional journeys spurred in and out along the way allowing all sorts of exotic journeys such as Bradford to Paignton, Manchester to Bournemouth, the Harwich Boat Train etc. Suggest that now and you get some bean counter telling you what is affordable - result - half of the Borders line built single track - madness!!!
The few miles of line from Millers Dale to Matlock must re-open and the negotiations there are with PPPB and Haddon Hall. We should hear no more about congested WCML. No wonder the poor thing is full - its trying to carry the capacity of three lines and more- see above.
Woodhead needs to follow - with a triangular junction at Penistone and a curve where the current tram depot is at Sheffield to access Midland. No need to electrify Standege. We have an electric tunnel but Network Rail would prefer you forget about it!
Now you have three routes from the Great Wen to civilisation again, plus renewed capacity to the North and North East again, choices of inter regional, diversionary routes, and multifarious reasons why HS2 is not the answer - I know it won't happen - so do you - but at least someone is thinking out of the box!