£50m has been spent upgrading Market Harborough reverse curves increasing linespeed from 65 to 85mph to save about 20 seconds of running time for non-stop passenger trains and nil for freight trains. That is about £2m per second!
There are closed railways crying out for reinstatement where this money would have more impact. For an example as I have study figures at hand, reinstating a line between Harrogate and Ripon, 10 miles by rail, 11 miles by road, at £100m would reduce journey time by 20 minutes not 20 seconds. That is £83,300 per second! Reinstating from Ripon to Northallerton, 15 miles by rail, 4 miles longer by road , would reduce journey time by 45 minutes from Ripon, that is £55,800 per second and a saving of 55 minutes for Harrogate passengers using a through train to the North and Scotland instead of travelling via York and a change of trains there.
Footfall from Harrogate to the north and south is low for a settlement of 100,000 because of this inconvenience of having to change at York or Leeds. Footfall is similar to Ilkley, a town of only 12,000 residents. Through trains would increase usage at Harrogate as we shall see when seven through trains to Kings Cross are introduced in December 2019 that could have been extended north through Ripon if the line was there.
There are closed railways crying out for reinstatement where this money would have more impact. For an example as I have study figures at hand, reinstating a line between Harrogate and Ripon, 10 miles by rail, 11 miles by road, at £100m would reduce journey time by 20 minutes not 20 seconds. That is £83,300 per second! Reinstating from Ripon to Northallerton, 15 miles by rail, 4 miles longer by road , would reduce journey time by 45 minutes from Ripon, that is £55,800 per second and a saving of 55 minutes for Harrogate passengers using a through train to the North and Scotland instead of travelling via York and a change of trains there.
Footfall from Harrogate to the north and south is low for a settlement of 100,000 because of this inconvenience of having to change at York or Leeds. Footfall is similar to Ilkley, a town of only 12,000 residents. Through trains would increase usage at Harrogate as we shall see when seven through trains to Kings Cross are introduced in December 2019 that could have been extended north through Ripon if the line was there.