Sounds like Manchester Metrolink - the trams go slow over points, especially facing ones.The 15mph limit over the hydro-pneumatic points has been in place since they were first installed in1984.
Sounds like Manchester Metrolink - the trams go slow over points, especially facing ones.The 15mph limit over the hydro-pneumatic points has been in place since they were first installed in1984.
The ORR station usage figures suggest that stations are relatively well-used as far north as Tain, but after that only Thurso and Wick have significant numbers (and it's 110 miles from Tain to Thurso).Economic Case for the Far North Line - none! it wouldn't get built today. However by the same token i don't think it is worth the faff to close it!
Economic Case for the Far North Line - none! it wouldn't get built today. However by the same token i don't think it is worth the faff to close it!
Nothing involving sleepers and rail would get built to day in your book. Roads on the other hand..........
whereas in the fantasy world you seem to live in the sky is purple and money runs out of the taps..............................
Money's always available...given the political will.
Austerity for the plebs but tax cuts for the rich? £1bn for 10 MPs just to keep a discredited and hopeless prime minister in power? £6bn for aircraft carriers that won't have any aircraft? £60bn and counting for HS2?
No problem at all.
Governments spend money when they want to.
I despair at the "economic case" argument in terms of railways. Railways cost more than they make and lose money in this very restricted view of the world. The same is true for many public services such as health and education. They do not make money.
However, a country is not a company. It is much more than that and exists to do many things. Even a complex company is incredibly simple relative to a governmental system. Oh dear.
I despair at the "economic case" argument in terms of railways. Railways cost more than they make and lose money in this very restricted view of the world. The same is true for many public services such as health and education. They do not make money.
However, a country is not a company. It is much more than that and exists to do many things. Even a complex company is incredibly simple relative to a governmental system. Oh dear.
Money's always available...given the political will.
Austerity for the plebs but tax cuts for the rich? £1bn for 10 MPs just to keep a discredited and hopeless prime minister in power? £6bn for aircraft carriers that won't have any aircraft? £60bn and counting for HS2?
No problem at all.
Governments spend money when they want to.
We are keeping around a hundred and twenty five miles of track open for the sake of around a hundred and twenty five passengers per day.
If I'm getting you tone correctly, you are proposing closing the line north of Tain.
Firstly, how much money would this save? Money would be saved on maintanence and day-to-day running, but a significant amount would be spent on closure and providing alternative transport. (Buses.) Also, don't forget that the capacity of a bus is 50% or less that of a 158, meaning that one would need at least 8 additional services in each direction. As I have said on either this or another thread, there would also be a need to improve road infrastructure north of Helmsdale and the provision of actual roads to some stations. This all costs money and nullifies any savings.
Secondly, if you propose closing the line and not providing any additional public transport then you a ignoring the needs of a large area of the country. The impact on people's lives would be significantly detrimental.
Thirdly, the islands further north would also feel the adverse effects due to the ferry connections that the railway provides for services to/from Scrabster.
Fourthly, it has been proven that if one invests money, the patronage of the line increases. When service levels were improved, patronage doubled. Currently, the patronage is falling because of serious reliability issues that lead to frequent cancellations and significant delays until a few months ago.
Finally, 125 people per day is perfectly reasonable for the level of service provided.
OK, this is a wild idea but given the recent weather as global worming takes effect perhaps there will be a drift of population northwards over the years and then at last this line will come into its own, even a Dornoch crossing, Even French wine makers are buying up land in Kent and Sussex so there is a movement north !
Well loading a handful of two car units a day is not really a great achievement or a resounding endorsement of the usefulness of the service.
Inverness to THurso by rail takes variously 3hr38-4h00 depending on the service.
The X99 bus Inverness to Thurso takes approximately 3hr28 according to the published timetable.
And no, the bus doesn't serve everywhere the railway does, the bus serves place where people actually live.
(There is even a bus service in Lairg that could easily be extended to Tain to connect with the X99)
Irrelevant, the stations that generate substantial quantities of traffic are ones served both by the bus and the railway.
Just because the railway has a terrible routing should not be counted against the bus - because there is not going to be money available to correct the mistake of the railway's builders.
Between Helmsdale and Georgemas Junction (the nearest station to Halkirk) the stations are:
Kildonan - 76 passengers
Kinbrace - 464 passengers
Forsinard - 2160 passengers
Altnabraec - 356 passengers
Scotscalder - 200 passengers.
So apart from possibly Forsinard the stations will produce one or so passengers per day on average.
Even Forsinard only manages a half dozen.
And there is a road between Helmsdale and Forsinard so if the loss of Forsinard is such a disaster you could have an Optare Solo run up and down between those villages and connect to the X99.
But even so when you can only produce 3200 passengers per year over many miles of track, there is something of an issue.
Buses cover Tain to Inverness 25 minutes faster than the railway can.
50 minutes versus ~76.
EDIT:
To make it clear, I am not anti railway as such.
But as it stands the railway really doesn't justify the resources required to keep it open.
It needs a journey time that is easily faster than the coach to be worthwhile at all.
Sub 3 hours or we might as well go home.
Perhaps tilting units or somesuch, and closing or gating every level crossing.
On my return journey from Wick last Saturday, I noted that the CIS at Georgemas Junction showed the following -
“1st 1618 Inverness, 2nd 1645 Inverness”.
This was strictly correct but misleading as both refer to the same train making two visits, before and after its trip to Thurso and back. A more useful version would have been “1st 1618 Thurso, 2nd 1645 Inverness” but I suppose these are generated automatically from a database and cannot be altered manually. This must happen whenever a train calls at the same station twice but I'm struggling to think of another example. Any ideas? I thought it used to happen at Haymarket.
I'm fairly sure that a York - Harrogate - Leeds train is shown on the CIS at York as going to Burley Park, and likewise Poppleton at Leeds, so there must be a manual intervention, but this is a different situation and is getting off the subject.
It is a bit getting off the subject, but you can add a false destination to trains such as circular or slower services like you said.
However it depends, if someone turns up at 1600 for Inverness, it's not as if they will get there any later by getting on the train at 1618!
If it was cold, windy, rainy... (in this weather I wish it was!) - it might stop someone freezing on a platform for half an hour. It does them no harm to get on the train earlier if they are already at the station, and if they are reading the board we can assume that they are
If I'm getting you tone correctly, you are proposing closing the line north of Tain.
It strikes me a bit arrogant for posters based in England to be calling for lines in rural Northern Scotland to be closed.
however, was one of the reasons for this Far North railway being to help supply Scapa Flow and other military bases? Thus the railway has/had a significant strategic value.
No one is suggesting the line close. Please out away the anti Scottish conspiracy hat! I am simply saying that IF someone were to propose such a line today it would not be built. The business case ( that is business case in the real world not the RUK fantasy world) simply would not meet any objective test associated with spending public money.
Agreed - when built. Scapa Flow was the main Royal Navy fleet anchorage. Today it is not.
Possibly not over the current route, but a more direct route to Wick, Thurso and Scrabster could be argued to benefit much more people than just Highlands residents (increase tourism, ferry connections at Scrabster etc.) meaning that there is a better case than one might think.
This is an interesting thread covering many differing aspects of rural railways - however, was one of the reasons for this Far North railway being to help supply Scapa Flow and other military bases? Thus the railway has/had a significant strategic value.
In terms of economics, something that frustrates me about reopening schemes, but which is relevant to net loss-making routes like the FNL, is the benefit to the wider economy through the impact of visitors to that area.
On top of that, the route absolutely IS a lifeline for locals and it would be politically unacceptable to close it. Case in point, an oil rig worker got on the train at Invergordon during our trip after a few weeks at sea (a great fella with an Alsatian who bought everybody chocolate then proceeded to get hammered by ordering a dram every time the trolley came by!) travelling home to Thurso. He simply wouldn't be able to do his job without the railway, and I'm sure there are many others like him who would be sat on the dole in Wick, Thurso and so forth without the FNL.
And, realistically, very very few people would bother to visit by road with the exception of a handful travelling to John 'O Groats.