Study to investigate re-opening Gobowen to Welshpool line

[Railwaysceptic]

If we accept that a well patronised bus service means that the service is good enough (thus no need to reopen the railway), it becomes difficult to identify when a railway would be needed. If the bus service wasn't good enough, and thus not well patronised, how would one distinguish between a situation where the poor bus service suppresses demand, and a situation where there is little demand in the first place? The thrust of the argument is that the original assertion is wrong: a regular bus service doesn't necessarily mean that there is no need for a railway service.

I think you're making this more complicated than it needs to be. If a good bus service is over-subscribed, the question then is whether to make the service more frequent or to change to a rail service. If a bus service is lightly used, the question then is why. Is it because the area is lightly populated or because the service is poor? If the service is poor, then improve the service, but either way at that point there is no sense in thinking of the much more expensive option of a railway.

 

[Gareth Marston]

I think you're making this more complicated than it needs to be. If a good bus service is over-subscribed, the question then is whether to make the service more frequent or to change to a rail service. If a bus service is lightly used, the question then is why. Is it because the area is lightly populated or because the service is poor? If the service is poor, then improve the service, but either way at that point there is no sense in thinking of the much more expensive option of a railway.

Ignoring the wealth of evidence that car users will take a train service but not a bus service there Railwaysceptic?

 

[yorksrob]

I think you're making this more complicated than it needs to be. If a good bus service is over-subscribed, the question then is whether to make the service more frequent or to change to a rail service. If a bus service is lightly used, the question then is why. Is it because the area is lightly populated or because the service is poor? If the service is poor, then improve the service, but either way at that point there is no sense in thinking of the much more expensive option of a railway.

If the bus service is around 55 mins to Shrewsbury, it's never going to be as popular as an approx 30 min train service would be.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

If the bus service is around 55 mins to Shrewsbury, it's never going to be as popular as an approx 30 min train service would be.

If only it were as simple as that. Mind you, for some fanatics to whom reality is a stranger, it probably is so simple. In the real world, a lightly-used bus service requires a subsidy from taxpayers. A rail service requires a much bigger subsidy. As most tax payers don't use the railway, they might not be sympathetic to forking out extra money to give a small number of people a more attractive subsidised service they themselves would never use. Politicians, gormless in most other respects, are aware of this.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Let it not be forgotten the matter that was stated in the very first posting on this thread that was naught to do with an official ATW railway aspiration.

 

[Gareth Marston]

If only it were as simple as that. Mind you, for some fanatics to whom reality is a stranger, it probably is so simple. In the real world, a lightly-used bus service requires a subsidy from taxpayers. A rail service requires a much bigger subsidy. As most tax payers don't use the railway, they might not be sympathetic to forking out extra money to give a small number of people a more attractive subsidised service they themselves would never use. Politicians, gormless in most other respects, are aware of this.

Rail subsidy is tiny compared to that enjoyed by the road haulage sector who are magically exempt from paying their true costs. You often insist the railway must pay Its way and react against any suggestions that ant part of the country in what you deem rural should have any enhanced services but your silence about the real scandal of the road haulage industry's state subsidy is deafening.

If one sector has to pay its way why must the other be exempt?

 

[Gareth Marston]

Let it not be forgotten the matter that was stated in the very first posting on this thread that was naught to do with an official ATW railway aspiration.

No but it (Gobowen to Blodwell) already has a transport and works order to reopen it before the Councillor wanted the last 6 miles from Llanymynech to Buttington Junction added as well. A lot of posters against the idea didn't seem to realise the CHR are already a fair way down the track on this already.

 

[transmanche]

In the real world, a lightly-used bus service requires a subsidy from taxpayers.

On this specific instance, I believe that Arriva Midlands route 53 (which links Oswestry with Gobowen) and route 70 (which links Oswestry with Shrewsbury) are operated commercially. I believe route 2 (which also links Oswestry and Gobowen) may receive some subsidy from across the border - it's also the only route which runs on Sundays.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

No but it (Gobowen to Blodwell) already has a transport and works order to reopen it before the Councillor wanted the last 6 miles from Llanymynech to Buttington Junction added as well. A lot of posters against the idea didn't seem to realise the CHR are already a fair way down the track on this already.

One may enquire as to why that six mile line section referred to above was not included in the original Transport and Works Order.

 

[jayah]

Rail subsidy is tiny compared to that enjoyed by the road haulage sector who are magically exempt from paying their true costs. You often insist the railway must pay Its way and react against any suggestions that ant part of the country in what you deem rural should have any enhanced services but your silence about the real scandal of the road haulage industry's state subsidy is deafening.

If one sector has to pay its way why must the other be exempt?

The railway doesn't pay its way, not even close. There are £bn of subsidy as well as VAT exemption on fares and duty reduced diesel.

Road haulage on the other hands pays the highest diesel fuel duty in the EU, and total fuel duty raises around £30bn/yr for the government.

As almost everything you buy and sell is shipped by road, raising costs further will only make the economy less competitive and result in higher prices.

 

[6Gman]

Rail subsidy is tiny compared to that enjoyed by the road haulage sector who are magically exempt from paying their true costs. You often insist the railway must pay Its way and react against any suggestions that ant part of the country in what you deem rural should have any enhanced services but your silence about the real scandal of the road haulage industry's state subsidy is deafening.

If one sector has to pay its way why must the other be exempt?

Would just point out that bus operators pay fuel duty (albeit some is rebated); rail operators don't.

 

[Gareth Marston]

The railway doesn't pay its way, not even close. There are £bn of subsidy as well as VAT exemption on fares and duty reduced diesel.

Road haulage on the other hands pays the highest diesel fuel duty in the EU, and total fuel duty raises around £30bn/yr for the government.

As almost everything you buy and sell is shipped by road, raising costs further will only make the economy less competitive and result in higher prices.

Who said the railway pays it way? Railwaysceptic wants it to pay its way in all circumstance where a field may be past en route.

Fuel duty raised sounds as though it's sexy and highly beneficial to the Treasury but the reality is the external costs of mass road usage are borne by others notably the NHS, Police, congestion and environmental damage. Trying to find space to park 35 million vehicles that spend 90% ,of their time inactive is also a massive land usage/planning issue that's not been fully recognised. The road sector doesn't cover its external costs no matter how much you think fuel duty is higher than the rest of Europe.

Your final point is true to a point but we don't acknowledge we subsidy consumer costs by our environmentaliy damaging and inefficient congested method of transporting goods.

But suggest we try and do things differently we start screaming it has to pay its way? Utter hypocrisy.

 

[yorksrob]

If only it were as simple as that. Mind you, for some fanatics to whom reality is a stranger, it probably is so simple. In the real world, a lightly-used bus service requires a subsidy from taxpayers. A rail service requires a much bigger subsidy. As most tax payers don't use the railway, they might not be sympathetic to forking out extra money to give a small number of people a more attractive subsidised service they themselves would never use. Politicians, gormless in most other respects, are aware of this.

When the bus service was originally mentioned on this thread, it wasn't in the context of being "lightly used", it was in the context of being a decent bus service but which happenned to take considerably longer than the nearest equivalent rail route.

In this context Shrewsbury to Oswestry is a proven transport corridor which could be substantially enhanced with a small railway improvement.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

When the bus service was originally mentioned on this thread, it wasn't in the context of being "lightly used", it was in the context of being a decent bus service but which happenned to take considerably longer than the nearest equivalent rail route.

In this context Shrewsbury to Oswestry is a proven transport corridor which could be substantially enhanced with a small railway improvement.

No-one in this thread has disputed that bringing Oswestry back into the railway fold would bring advantages. The questions are how much would it cost, and are there better transport projects on which to spend taxpayers' money. Incidentally we've been discussing Oswestry to Gobowen and Chester, not to Shrewsbury.

 

[yorksrob]

No-one in this thread has disputed that bringing Oswestry back into the railway fold would bring advantages. The questions are how much would it cost, and are there better transport projects on which to spend taxpayers' money. Incidentally we've been discussing Oswestry to Gobowen and Chester, not to Shrewsbury.

If you have a rail link to Gobowen, it seems logical to me to use it to run a direct service to the main local town.

The benefits of such a limited physical reinstatement could well justify the costs, in the same way that reopenings such as Oxford to Bicester and Eastleigh to Chandlers ford were justified in the later BR era.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

If you have a rail link to Gobowen, it seems logical to me to use it to run a direct service to the main local town. The benefits of such a limited physical reinstatement could well justify the costs, in the same way that reopenings such as Oxford to Bicester and Eastleigh to Chandlers ford were justified in the later BR era.

The difference being the geographical areas of Britain in which Oxford to Bicester and Eastleigh to Chandlers Ford are so situated.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

If you have a rail link to Gobowen, it seems logical to me to use it to run a direct service to the main local town.

The benefits of such a limited physical reinstatement could well justify the costs, in the same way that reopenings such as Oxford to Bicester and Eastleigh to Chandlers ford were justified in the later BR era.

Creating a link to avoid needing to reverse at Gobowen would increase the costs of the project enormously. This thread has already pretty well established that re-opening the Gobowen/Oswestry section will never pay for itself. I can't imagine any public money will be found to facilitate a direct route to Shrewsbury.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

If you have a rail link to Gobowen, it seems logical to me to use it to run a direct service to the main local town.

The problem with that is that rail services usually justify their existence by linking lots of places, so that any one train diagram transports people making all sorts of different combinations of journeys. The current trains that call at Gobowen justify their existence because they carry passengers travelling to Shrewsbury, to Wrexham, to Chester, to Cardiff, and so on. And adding up all those different flows is what makes the train sufficiently loaded to be worth running.

But a Shrewsbury-Oswestry train can't do that: The only people it's going to carry are people travelling between Oswestry and Shrewsbury (perhaps with some changing to other trains to carry on their jouneys). There basically isn't the combination of destinations to give enough passengers: Almost noone will use such a train unless they are going specifically to Oswestry. And it's hard to see how that alone could give you enough passengers to justify the train service.

 

[B&I]

The problem with that is that rail services usually justify their existence by linking lots of places, so that any one train diagram transports people making all sorts of different combinations of journeys. The current trains that call at Gobowen justify their existence because they carry passengers travelling to Shrewsbury, to Wrexham, to Chester, to Cardiff, and so on. And adding up all those different flows is what makes the train sufficiently loaded to be worth running.

But a Shrewsbury-Oswestry train can't do that: The only people it's going to carry are people travelling between Oswestry and Shrewsbury (perhaps with some changing to other trains to carry on their jouneys). There basically isn't the combination of destinations to give enough passengers: Almost noone will use such a train unless they are going specifically to Oswestry. And it's hard to see how that alone could give you enough passengers to justify the train service.

That's a fair point for main line services. However, it doesn't mean that's the only model for railway lines in this country. We really seem to have no idea how to operate low cost branch line and local services outside a handful of our major cities

 

[Gareth Marston]

No-one in this thread has disputed that bringing Oswestry back into the railway fold would bring advantages. The questions are how much would it cost, and are there better transport projects on which to spend taxpayers' money. Incidentally we've been discussing Oswestry to Gobowen and Chester, not to Shrewsbury.

You've already seen the local Tory's road shopping list back in one of my earlier posts....they want a best part of a £ Billion spent on road projects across Shropshire and its boundary's. Reopening Gobowen to Oswestry is peanuts in comparison. If you think we've got a £ Billion to throw at roads in a rural county.......or have we got a couple of £tens of million to spend and a candidate for it?

 

[Gareth Marston]

Creating a link to avoid needing to reverse at Gobowen would increase the costs of the project enormously. This thread has already pretty well established that re-opening the Gobowen/Oswestry section will never pay for itself. I can't imagine any public money will be found to facilitate a direct route to Shrewsbury.

The road system we have doesn't pay for itself but that's OK? But not for anyone else, hypocrisy in action.

The shuttle was covering its operational costs and sharing tracks with freight when it was closed.It may not be a money spinner and the capital cost of reinstatement has to be taken into account but that's the price of poor decisions taken in previous decades by those who wanted the road fallacy. Cost should come out the Highways budget anyway.

 

[yorksrob]

The problem with that is that rail services usually justify their existence by linking lots of places, so that any one train diagram transports people making all sorts of different combinations of journeys. The current trains that call at Gobowen justify their existence because they carry passengers travelling to Shrewsbury, to Wrexham, to Chester, to Cardiff, and so on. And adding up all those different flows is what makes the train sufficiently loaded to be worth running.

But a Shrewsbury-Oswestry train can't do that: The only people it's going to carry are people travelling between Oswestry and Shrewsbury (perhaps with some changing to other trains to carry on their jouneys). There basically isn't the combination of destinations to give enough passengers: Almost noone will use such a train unless they are going specifically to Oswestry. And it's hard to see how that alone could give you enough passengers to justify the train service.

One could say the same about any number of destinations on the network, including Whitby, Windermere, any of the Thames branches, Bognor, North Berwick, Bicester Town (until recently) Sudbury, etc. These towns all generate rail traffic and benefit from the railway, in spite of being at the end of branches with no onward and little intermediate traffic.

Also, there could be considerable onward traffic as Shrewsbury is an ideal location to plug into the rest of the railway network.

If Oswestry had been on Network SouthEast, it would be open by now.

 

[Gareth Marston]

. As most tax payers don't use the railway,

A factually incorrect statement as we've come to expect from you, the National Travel Survey consistently states that 60% plus of population state they make use of rail during the year and those Taxpayers that don't use it benefit from it in less congested roads, less pollution etc

 

[yorksrob]

Creating a link to avoid needing to reverse at Gobowen would increase the costs of the project enormously. This thread has already pretty well established that re-opening the Gobowen/Oswestry section will never pay for itself. I can't imagine any public money will be found to facilitate a direct route to Shrewsbury.

Why would you bother with that ? We have far more severe reversals at places such as Castleford and Eastbourne which don't greatly hinder through travel. They also involve considerably more doubling back than at Gobowen, which would involve minimal time penalty, particularly if the bay platform were restored. A good link between Oswestry and Shrewsbury could be established without such extravagance.

 

[yorksrob]

The difference being the geographical areas of Britain in which Oxford to Bicester and Eastleigh to Chandlers Ford are so situated.

Well, quite !

 

[Gareth Marston]

One could say the same about any number of destinations on the network, including Whitby, Windermere, any of the Thames branches, Bognor, North Berwick, Bicester Town (until recently) Sudbury, etc. These towns all generate rail traffic and benefit from the railway, in spite of being at the end of branches with no onward and little intermediate traffic.

Also, there could be considerable onward traffic as Shrewsbury is an ideal location to plug into the rest of the railway network.

If Oswestry had been on Network SouthEast, it would be open by now.

Another thing to factor in is that the Shrewsbury to Chester line will be 2 trains per hour from December 2022, a shuttle would have no problems with connections and given the short length of the branch one unit can make two runs an hour. This would be quite attractive to people in the town.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Why would you bother with that ? We have far more severe reversals at places such as Castleford and Eastbourne which don't greatly hinder through travel. They also involve considerably more doubling back than at Gobowen, which would involve minimal time penalty, particularly if the bay platform were restored. A good link between Oswestry and Shrewsbury could be established without such extravagance.

So your idea is that instead of a service from Oswestry to Gobowen and Wrexham, it should be Oswestry to Gobowen and reversal towards Shrewsbury?

 

[yorksrob]

So your idea is that instead of a service from Oswestry to Gobowen and Wrexham, it should be Oswestry to Gobowen and reversal towards Shrewsbury?

Yes, that would be my thought. Obviously both options would be doable, however I was thinking about onward connections towards Birmingham and London as well.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Yes, that would be my thought. Obviously both options would be doable, however I was thinking about onward connections towards Birmingham and London as well.

That is a most sudden turn of events. Why not add Cardiff and Milford Haven whilst this matter is fresh in mind.

 

[Gareth Marston]

Yes, that would be my thought. Obviously both options would be doable, however I was thinking about onward connections towards Birmingham and London as well.

That would get the vote in Oswestry. The 2 tph plan will see 1 tph to Holyhead and 1 tph to Liverpool north of Gobowen with 1 tph to Cardiff, 0.5 tph to Birmingham INL and 0.5 tph terminating at Shrewsbury south of it.