Certainly according to the maps in the Beeching report it received a decent amount of freight traffic at the time, seemingly comparable to the Marches line.
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Should some longer rural routes be sacrificed and the money spent elsewhere on the network?
- Thread starter Nicholas Lewis
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Checking my copy of "Holding the Line", Dick Crossman's diaries are quoted as robustly stating that the retention was political. My copy of Gourvish suggests that BR had two bits of the cherry at closing the line, and that the Beeching numbers understated the cost savings from closures by only attributing passenger costs, even if passenger closure would be accompanied by freight closure (the example is given of the Far North Line).
Indeed. There were plenty of railways at the time that were closed to passengers but retained for freight.
There's also the inflation problem at play with the OP concept.
You close a long rural railway linking several settlements then find that the savings will only buy half a platform somewhere. And before someone says "but savings over time....." no ones ever going to save savings over time for a rail project some vague time in the future.
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The point was that ministers blocked closures because the cases were "marginal", but that with the freight closure, the costs (and losses) of the freight would also go. For the Far North Line, that was (in 1960s values) £200k/yr of costs that would drop out, on top of the £9k/yr savings due to stopping passenger workings. Those were large numbers, equivalent to over £3m today.
I don't want to see lines shut either, but the argument that these lines are valuable only works if it can be evidenced - and that also means demonstrating that the savings in one place (e.g. subsidy) would actually be sustainable, and not reappear somewhere else.
Rail accounts for 10% of travel in the UK, is she if you were saying it's a minority travel mode, however I'd disagree that is niche.
Given pre COVID coach passenger numbers were about 500 million compared to the current (national) rail numbers of 1,700 million it's clear that there's quite a noticeable difference between the two.
Although they will mostly be long distance journeys, a fairer comparison would be against long distance only rail travel. Comparing all bus and coach travel to rail would be a lot less favourable.
We can do buses reasonably well: the 28 from Taunton to Minehead has through ticketing, is listed on the departures board at Taunton and stops right outside the station door. It runs from 7am to 1030pm. It's why we can't do that everywhere that is odd.
MatthewHutton
Member
If shutting the far north line really only saves £4m/year or maybe a little more if costs have risen more than inflation then shutting it really isn’t worth it.
Especially as these things won’t exactly be bringing in no fare revenue.
Certainly it’s worth single digit millions for the national security advantages and having a second way of getting to Orkney if the A9 is shut.
To be honest, every country has the core subsidising periphery phenomenon. The UK is relatively blessed in that most of the population live in 'core' settlements and there's little that's properly remote.
In terms of proper long rural routes serving places that'll never have big populations (not even tourists in big numbers) that are losing big money, I can't really think of anything other than the Far North line and the Heart of Wales line. In that case as UK PLC we can probably manage it. I can't think of any other line where the bus would be decidedly quicker.
In terms of proper long rural routes serving places that'll never have big populations (not even tourists in big numbers) that are losing big money, I can't really think of anything other than the Far North line and the Heart of Wales line. In that case as UK PLC we can probably manage it. I can't think of any other line where the bus would be decidedly quicker.
It’s a lot, lot more than that, as discussed previously.
The North Coast 500 route was (at least partly) responsible for bringing in 29,000 more tourists to far-northern Scotland in its first year; I think Inverness to all the Far North stations combined, including those shared with Kyle of Lochalsh services, is currently less than 100,000 passengers per year. I don't know if that level of tourism is big enough though.
MatthewHutton
Member
If it cost ~£4m in total in the 1960s in today’s money or ~£8m adjusted for today’s wages it seems very doubtful a line that was always marginal costs meaningfully more than that today.
Doubt sll you like. It costs a lot more than £8m in marginal cost.
MatthewHutton
Member
So share the evidence to back up the claim.
If each of the 100,000 passengers spends £100 in the region* then that would be adding £10m to the economy.
* Probably on the low side - but then it’s presumably 50k people going return plus some will be local - plus presumably interrail pass holders etc who aren’t counted properly.
Obviously, it’s confidential, so if I did have the detail I wouldn’t share it.
However I am aware of other branch lines with infrequent services where the average marginal cost of operation for the TOC only (ie excluding Network Rail’s costs) is in the region of £50 per train mile for a 2 car unit. The crew arrangements for that are quite efficient, whereas I expect for the far North they are not.
So, as they say in the US, “Do the Math”
MatthewHutton
Member
I suspect the highlands rail lines have different rules to be honest - that’s how it works in lots of other ways.
So probably one of the drivers with a lighter schedule is a manager for the others and they have very low central costs - no advertising and few timetable changes.
Outside of the railways they have lower fuel taxes in certain counties for example - and Lewis and Harris are excluded from the lorry driving time restrictions as another example.
HSTEd
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 14 Jul 2011
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- 18,697
Ayr-Girvan is 34km and gets you Girvan (57k) and Maybole (35k).
Girvan-Stranraer is 60km and gets you Barhill (3.9k) and Stranraer (32k)
The passenger density on the section north of Girvan is 2.7k/km vs 600/km south of Girvan.
Girvan and Maybole are the tail end of Glasgows surburban belt, after that is basically nothing until Stranraer in urban terms. Girvan also holds (and will continue to hold) the ferry traffic.
Electrifying to Girvan and closing the rest allows the diesel island to be dealt with and is likely to drive additional traffic from through trains to Glasgow from Girvan. I wouldn't be surprised if overall traffic increased!
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Uncle Buck
Member
I have to second this. The Far North Line does not “serve” its area in the way that most lines do, because in the rural far north of Scotland almost everyone will learn to drive as soon as they turn seventeen and ensure that they have access to a car- because they are so severely constricted otherwise. The railway therefore only serves a tiny minority of the population. Compare this to major cities where the presence of a large public transport infrastructure allows many to do without cars and therefore promotes public transport. Consider the closure of, to pick a random example, the Paisley Canal Line in central Scotland. A significant number of people would be most adversely affected by this; the closure of the Far North Line would, bluntly, be of little bother to anyone.
No doubt someone will now object that “well, that just goes to show that rural areas need better public transport so they’re not car-dependent”. Leaving aside the fact that an electric coach running every hour would be far better public transport than a very slow elderly diesel train taking a very circuitous route at random times, how much investment are we looking to have here in one of the most rural regions of Europe befit can do without cars?
It does strike me that a lot of commenters on this forum have an extreme emotional investment in reverting to some form of pre-Beeching idyll where every village had two stations. Better save a fortune closing these lines, replace them with proper coach services, and use the money to improve the network where it needs it.
They don‘t when it comes to railway costs.
The cost I quoted is the marginal operating cost; ie what is avoidable if the trains were to stop. That excludes all the ‘central’ costs, and fixed infrastructure costs.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
I wouldn't think number of passengers divided by length of that segment of line is a very meaningful statistic.
Killingworth
Established Member
The Far North line via Invergordon to Wick probably serves as many individual tourists and rail enthusiasts (many contributors to this forum) as local users. Retention may be justified by potential strategic reasons, but the Royal Navy left Scapa Flow and Invergordon a long time ago and the Dounreay sites are winding down with no other significant freight traffic. (Assuming the Altnabreac timber project isn't activated.) Rail charter companies largely avoid using the line. Getting marooned up there would be quite a challenge to resolve.
Closure would be final. Nature would very quickly reclaim the land, although a long distance footpath and cycle track could be popular.
I first travelled the Kyle line in 1958. Corridor stock with a compartment for my rail enthusiast father and myself. Getting in as many miles as possible in a week was his aim. In the next compartment there was a loud conversation in a language we couldn't understand - Gaelic. Fellow travellers were heading for the Stornaway steamer moored at the end of the Kyle pier. We were able to get a good lunch aboard before our connecting boat from Mallaig arrived and we took that to Portree where it stayed overnight. This was integrated transport that clearly worked, although passenger numbers in August weren't great. We took the boat down to Mallaig the following morning for the West Highland line. No road bridge to Skye, it was a totally different world from today.
A scenic line, but today many of the views are more obscured by trees. No quaint car ferry to Skye. The once top quality Localsh Hotel still dominates the shore line by the station but appeared to be closed last weekend. See passenger numbers taken from the Railway Data website; https://www.railwaydata.co.uk/loadings/gbr/?TLC=KYL
Emotively I'd want the line to remain open but passenger numbers make that hard to justify. It wouldn't be the same by bus.
Closure would be final. Nature would very quickly reclaim the land, although a long distance footpath and cycle track could be popular.
I first travelled the Kyle line in 1958. Corridor stock with a compartment for my rail enthusiast father and myself. Getting in as many miles as possible in a week was his aim. In the next compartment there was a loud conversation in a language we couldn't understand - Gaelic. Fellow travellers were heading for the Stornaway steamer moored at the end of the Kyle pier. We were able to get a good lunch aboard before our connecting boat from Mallaig arrived and we took that to Portree where it stayed overnight. This was integrated transport that clearly worked, although passenger numbers in August weren't great. We took the boat down to Mallaig the following morning for the West Highland line. No road bridge to Skye, it was a totally different world from today.
A scenic line, but today many of the views are more obscured by trees. No quaint car ferry to Skye. The once top quality Localsh Hotel still dominates the shore line by the station but appeared to be closed last weekend. See passenger numbers taken from the Railway Data website; https://www.railwaydata.co.uk/loadings/gbr/?TLC=KYL
Emotively I'd want the line to remain open but passenger numbers make that hard to justify. It wouldn't be the same by bus.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
On a quick check, for 2023-4
38K passengers at Beauly
52K Muir of Ord
13K Conon Bridge
So that's already over 100K from just 3 stations, and Dingwall adds another 64K! (Minus there's probably a small amount of double counting from people not travelling all the way to Inverness)
I did a quick mental check of the stations North of Dingwall to Thurso/Wick, but just adding up the numbers in my head, not writing them down, and that came to somewhere between 150K and 160K (again minus some double counting for people not travelling to Inverness). Interestingly, I noticed that Thurso (38K passengers) is used much more than Wick (17K)
Killingworth
Established Member
Check loadings for individual stations as recorded on the Railway Data website; https://www.railwaydata.co.uk/loadings/gbr/?TLC=WCK
Click on train numbers to get an idea of how many board and leave at each station.
Revert would be reopening surely? We’re talking about an extant line.
There has to be a compromise between the wistful Railway Children vibe you reference, and treating the railway like a cold-ass P&L.
Nobody (reasonable) expects the NHS to make a profit, or recover costs - and appreciates the notion of a public service and environmental (and social) benefit.
HSTEd
Veteran Member
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- Messages
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Why not?
Two thirds of the line generates not much more than a quarter of the passenger traffic.
According to the last Origin Destination Matrix, Stranraer and Girvan are both dominated by trains to Ayr and Glasgow. Very few people make journeys between Girvan and Stranraer, with almost all journeys involving Ayr or stations north of there, which means entries and exits are largely proportional to trafic that would be shed if the line is truncated.
The fare increment for heading south of Girvan to Stranraer is only £7.70 from Ayr and £3.40 from Glasgow.
It's a lot of track to maintain for a small flow that isn't even particularly renumerative.
Axing the line south of Girvan, electrifying the stub and fully integrating it into the suburban Glasgow timetable would reduce operaitng costs on the line and likely result in the same or more revenue.
Has everyone noticed how the cancellation of HS2 made potholes vanish overnight?
Volunteering rail sacrifices to politicians is self-flagellation. Any idea that saving a few million in one place will give noticeable benefits elsewhere is the stuff of dreams.
Protect what’s there now because no greater good will come from it’s loss.
Volunteering rail sacrifices to politicians is self-flagellation. Any idea that saving a few million in one place will give noticeable benefits elsewhere is the stuff of dreams.
Protect what’s there now because no greater good will come from it’s loss.
Indeed, whilst for most people £10 million would be a lot of money, it needs to be remembered just how much the UK government spends.
For each tax payer the amount spent is about £32,000 the savings from cutting £1bn from government spending would allow that cost to reduce by about £27!
Also please note that it is highlight unlikely that many of us are actually paying out £32,000 in taxes (for a lot of tax payers they're not even earning that much, and for many more their not that after the tax free threshold).
Killingworth
Established Member
Thurso for Scrabster and the Orkney ferry. Thurso for a scenic bus ride along the north coast to John O'Groats.
From Wick you travel in a northerly direction to Thurso (through Georgemas Junction twice) making the journey to Inverness half an hour longer than for those starting from Thurso.
renegademaster
Established Member
Surely for some of the quieter lines, if NR are truly desperate, the first step would be force DOO, and tell the unions if they don't get on board their will be no line. Possibly you could even go the other way, automate the trains and only keep the gaurds as a safety/accessibility role
To be honest, not repeating the same mistakes as the closure programme would be a big start. You may or may not have noticed that since that time, the network hasn't recovered by much, even in areas where the route would be useful. Are we to accept another round of potentially short sighted closures at the whim of one generation ?
I also find your argument that "everyone drives anyway" supremely unconvincing. I should imagine that there are many motorists in the far north who wouldn't relish the long slog down to Inverness, or even further by car.
Also I can imagine that there are many households who aren't multi-car households. Supposing Doris needs to visit Aunt Flo down South but her hubby needs the car for work. So many commentators on these forums seem to forget that just because people can drive, doesn't necessarily mean that they have access to a car all of the time.
And also what if Aunt Flo decides to visit from Inverness ? She might not need to run a car at home, but she'll need public transport to get to Thurso.
I think the more sensible option would be to electrify the commuter section and have some battery trains serve the quieter section of the route.
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After spending how much to make those lines meet DOO requirements. And who does ticket sales and revenue protection without a guard??