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My idea: Replace Worcester Foregate with cable car to Shrub Hill

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jimm

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Such ropeways have been completed in urban environments for something about €20m or so, if you look at places like Koblenz with the Rheinseilbahn.

Which runs over the River Rhine and up a hillside that is covered in trees, as opposed to across the rooftops of a city centre...

Planning permission is an irrelevance, such a project would almost certainly be approved by a TWA.
Which means you can do whatever the hell you want.

You still have to have a public inquiry and get the Transport Secretary's consent in order to secure a TWA Order, plus address local planning requirements on details and conditions set by the inquiry inspector - just ask Chiltern Railways and Network Rail about Oxford. The idea that no one would bat an eyelid about such a contraption marching across the rooftops of Worcester and ruining views of the cathedral and its spire is silly - even if you could find places on the ground at the appropriate distances for pylons to stand on in the first place. Maybe a magic carpet would work better...

People are often eager to flaunt the legal immunity from planning permission that railways enjoy, but not unless it simply consists of more of the same.

What does this have to with anything?

When the franchise(s) that serve Worcester are all in net contribution we have to accept that, until then it exists because the taxpayer is willing to spend money, but why should the taxpayer be forced to subsidise an overcomplicated irrelevance?

The only overcomplicated irrelevance in all this is people going on about ropeways or people movers that would take up the trackbed and prevent the reinstatement of the double line chord between Shrub Hill and Foregate Street.

What is relevant is that the annual station usage figures speak for themselves - 2.1 million at Foregate Street and 800,000 at Shrub Hill - people find Foregate Street convenient for, er, the city centre, despite its limitations. Unlike Shrub Hill, which isn't. Shutting Foregate Street for some silly fantasy is only likely to result in people seeking alternative ways to get to central Worcester that do not involve a train at all.

And those footfall figures do not take account of the high level of ticketless travel in the area due to the lack of barriers at either Worcester station and short journey times from nearby unstaffed/part-staffed stations - though needless to say, all that would do is further boost the numbers using Foregate Street.
 

AndrewE

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The only overcomplicated irrelevance in all this is people going on about ropeways or people movers that would take up the trackbed and prevent the reinstatement of the double line chord between Shrub Hill and Foregate Street.
Actually I suggested not encroaching on the chord trackbed at all specifically to allow re-doubling of the line if needed. MarkyT felt it wouldn't do any harm to take a bit of it so I pointed out that the saving by doing so would be relatively minor.
p.s. also meant to say that I haven't heard anyone ever call the Gatwick people-mover "an over-complicated irrelevance." The Emirates airline thing in London, yes!
 

takno

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Actually I suggested not encroaching on the chord trackbed at all specifically to allow re-doubling of the line if needed. MarkyT felt it wouldn't do any harm to take a bit of it so I pointed out that the saving by doing so would be relatively minor.
p.s. also meant to say that I haven't heard anyone ever call the Gatwick people-mover "an over-complicated irrelevance." The Emirates airline thing in London, yes!
I've always regarded the entire north terminal at Gatwick an over-complicated irrelevance. If you didn't have that the people-mover would be a rather decadent folly
 

DynamicSpirit

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There has been some suggestion mooted that TfL might sell the London cablecar thingy once the construction costs have been paid off in a couple of years. If I recall correctly there was an article in the London Evening Standard a couple of days ago (although I can't find a link to it). Guess there aren't enough people living in London to make that sort of thing work.

Perhaps we have a ready buyer in Worcester :)
 
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squizzler

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There have been times when I have arrived in Birmingham (from Glasgow), with it then being nearly 3 hours before I get home to Evesham (30 miles south) due to the utterly pathetic connections through Worcs .... I am hoping that Parkway might help, but not confident. Reopening Honeybourne to Stratford and instigating a circular service would be better.

I maintain that Worcester Shrub hill (WOS), as the first station in Worcester and with sufficient space for expansion beyond its current size, should have developed into an important interchange hub as did Shrewsbury, had it not attracted the parasitic Foregate Street which ever since has stunted the city as an interchange. Yes, the Bristol - Birmingham line missed the city, but with its own importance as a destination and a number of radiating lines I believe there was still scope for Worcester to be an interchange point as at Shrewsbury. The failure of WOS to reach its potential as a hub would have disadvantaged Worcester ever since.

Those who propose closing Shrub Hill in favour of Foregate would put the final nail in Worcester as a hub. With only two platforms to play with, Foregate Street would likely become a stop on a couple of routes. One being the Hereford - Malverns - Birmingham axis and the other on the Hereford - Malverns - Cotswolds - London axis. Direct routes to Bristol and the Southwest? Fuggeddaboudit. People from Worcester would forever be cursed to interchange at Parkway.

Whilst having 2 separate stations near the city centre is not ideal - it is a fact of history and people just have to accept that.

We are not beholden to historical mistakes. May I offer here my own poser for the history buffs? Having already mentioned that other settlement on the river Severn, Shrewsbury, we might wonder what would have happened if Worcester had also developed into a rational hub station. With two effective hubs along the River Severn, would the current Severn Valley Railway have remained part of the national network, developing into a sort of outer orbital for the West of Birmingham and Black Country? An effective interchange hub within Worcester would almost certainly have also drawn more of the Birmingham - Bristol trains through the city rather than them all taking bypass route. My proposal to redevelop Shrub Hill into the hub Worcester never had, which would require the closure of Foregate, may yet attract this traffic.
And that suggests that you have never been to Worcester and know nothing about the people who live there!
I lived at Lower Ronkswood, Tolladine and Warndon Villages and quite happily used Shrub Hill as it was convenient and easy to use. Ditto plenty of people who lived on the eastern parts of the City.
Which runs over the River Rhine and up a hillside that is covered in trees, as opposed to across the rooftops of a city centre...
Might I suggest we see here the classic signs of Not Invented Here Syndrome. Students will observe the subject’s offhand assertion that a proposed solution used elsewhere cannot possibly be applied to their situation, that the proposed solution is invalidated by the proposer not residing in the subjects’s community, or the subject's assertion there is no need/possibility to improve matters in the first place.
 
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pemma

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Guess there aren't enough people living in London to make that sort of thing work.

I don't think it relates to the number of people living in London. Cable cars are most viable when ground transport or walking would be difficult e.g. London isn't in the shadows of Mount Teide!
 

MarkyT

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I don't think it relates to the number of people living in London. Cable cars are most viable when ground transport or walking would be difficult e.g. London isn't in the shadows of Mount Teide!

As a tourist ride and occasional novelty for Londoners, the Emirates Airline has its place. As a regular mode of travel it is expensive compared to other options available for the journey, especially if a passenger has already reached a daily tube cap on Oyster or has a travelcard loaded. With a similar journey time, taking the Jubilee to Canning Town then DLR to Royal Victoria could save our passenger £3.30 one way.
 

Unixman

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Might as well be done with it and construct a boat lift from the canal past Wickes to Shrub Hill & then run a shuttle boat service from Lowesmoor wharf ( I doubt that Viking boats would mind) ...... about as sensible as the original idea !
 

HowardGWR

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I thank you for this thread, as if nothing else, we have discussed the problems of the railway layouts through and around Worcester, which are not dissimilar in their inadequacies to those around Yeovil.

Both situations came about through competition, which illustrates one of the drawbacks of it, namely duplication.

Some interesting ideas have come forward and I am now convinced that the north south XC route has to be compulsorily diverted into Shrub Hill in the next XC ITT, for at least half the services.

Update: I also think there should be a Glos Parkway with a PPM to Central.
 

MarkyT

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Update: I also think there should be a Glos Parkway with a PPM to Central.

Some sort of shuttle would be a very good idea indeed. It would be about 1200m long. See the image below for a suggested route and site for the new station:
gloucester.jpg
 

jimm

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Might I suggest we see here the classic signs of Not Invented Here Syndrome. Students will observe the subject’s offhand assertion that a proposed solution used elsewhere cannot possibly be applied to their situation, that the proposed solution is invalidated by the proposer not residing in the subjects’s community, or the subject's assertion there is no need/possibility to improve matters in the first place.

Might I suggest we stick to the facts here. My comment was in response to a claim made by HSTEd that the Koblenz cablecar was in an urban setting, as though it sailed over rooftops like your fantasy would have to in Worcester.

Except it doesn't. It starts very close to one bank of the Rhine, then crosses the river and a hillside covered in trees to reach the top station. Nothing like the area between Worcester Shrub Hill and any part of the city's central core.

In your initial post, you asked

What do others think?

We told you. Just because you don't like the answers doesn't mean that asserting the idea's brilliance over and over is going to change others' views.
 

tbtc

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Both GWR and WMR are well aware of the overload in services between Worcester and Malvern at certain points in the day, but with trains converging at Worcester from three directions then running on up the hill, it's probably not entirely surprising.

Both TOCs are waiting for big timetable rewrites to address it - in the case of GWR next January and in WMR's case as they develop plans for a second Birmingham-Hereford service each hour.

However, there are still likely to be some short intervals between services, given the need to path trains to and from Hereford along the single-line sections west of Malvern, which limit the room for manoeuvre of timetable planners.

In addition, the Henwick turnback siding is now pretty much ready for use again and has been extended to take a 2x5 IET formation, which will offer an extra way to get terminating trains out of the platforms at Foregate Street by means other than doing a quick about-turn to Shrub Hill or Drotivwich or carrying on to Great Malvern.

I appreciate that it'll be on the "to do" list of both TOCs, and also that they both have bigger problems - I'm just suggesting that it'd be more of a priority than trying to solve a non-existent problem with a non-standard cable car.

It looks like an interesting problem to try to "solve", how you co-ordinate services from Birmingham/ Bristol/ London to Malvern/ Hereford, being mindful of limited/fixed paths at the Birmingham/ Bristol/ London end, the single track sections etc etc... one worthy of more focus than cable cars IMHO.

As you say, the single track may mean it's better to have two trains in a short period of time (with a long gap afterwards) to make efficient use of the bottleneck - I know not everything can be perfectly co-ordinated.
 

AndrewE

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A couple of old Routemaster buses running a heritage service would fit that purpose better. Cable cars exist all over the world, Routemasters don't.
The benefit of a people-mover of some sort on railway infrastructure is that it isn't affected by traffic congestion, and doesn't rely on polluting old diesel engines (and stays within railway ticket validities.) I like RMs, but they are not the right tool for a quick transfer between stations relatively close to each other!
Some sort of shuttle [at Gloucester too] would be a very good idea indeed. It would be about 1200m long. See the image below for a suggested route and site for the new station:
View attachment 44006
Maybe we should start a new thread? I look forward to a UK TaktFahrPlan, but in the meantime there might be a lot of useful improvements that could be made to allow additional network connections or entry/exits without affecting the heavy rail infrastructure (which we know can't be altered without exorbitant cost.) If "they" could standardise on one design that worked it would save a lot of money on failed prototypes, training contractors on new systems, parts inventories etc etc...
 

jimm

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I appreciate that it'll be on the "to do" list of both TOCs, and also that they both have bigger problems - I'm just suggesting that it'd be more of a priority than trying to solve a non-existent problem with a non-standard cable car.

It looks like an interesting problem to try to "solve", how you co-ordinate services from Birmingham/ Bristol/ London to Malvern/ Hereford, being mindful of limited/fixed paths at the Birmingham/ Bristol/ London end, the single track sections etc etc... one worthy of more focus than cable cars IMHO.

As you say, the single track may mean it's better to have two trains in a short period of time (with a long gap afterwards) to make efficient use of the bottleneck - I know not everything can be perfectly co-ordinated.

Agreed - when it comes to the Worcester area there is a list a mile-long of things that could and should be done to improve the railway generally.

And this list does not include using part of the trackbed between Foregate Street and Shrub Hill for a people mover that would prevent reinstatement of a double railway track on the chord as part of the full resignalling and track layout update that Worcester desperately needs - which would also assist in improving timetabling in the wider area.
 

DavidGrain

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If Foregate Street were to revert to being a conventional double track station by doubling the tracks on two sides of the triangle it would take some pretty smart timetabling and good time keeping to prevent conflicting movements at the junction. This is presumably why the junction was moved over the river. Having a turnback siding for terminating trains would reduce the dwell time in the station for terminating trains
 

DavidGrain

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Some years ago I was on a XC train from Bristol to Birmingham. When I suddenly saw semaphore signals I realised that we were being diverted via Worcester. We were held outside Shrub Hill for several minutes because there was a FGW train at the platform in Shrub Hill. I wondered why we could not have run through one of the centre lines in the station instead of having to run through on the platform line. This made me wonder if Shrub Hill ever had more than two platforms as there is such a big gap between the two platforms.
 

MarkyT

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Some years ago I was on a XC train from Bristol to Birmingham. When I suddenly saw semaphore signals I realised that we were being diverted via Worcester. We were held outside Shrub Hill for several minutes because there was a FGW train at the platform in Shrub Hill. I wondered why we could not have run through one of the centre lines in the station instead of having to run through on the platform line. This made me wonder if Shrub Hill ever had more than two platforms as there is such a big gap between the two platforms.

There are no through lines today between the platforms at Shrub Hill, only a dead end siding. There are goods avoiding lines around the east side of the station but these have non interlocked hand points on them and are not suitable for use by passenger trains.
 

MarkyT

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If Foregate Street were to revert to being a conventional double track station by doubling the tracks on two sides of the triangle it would take some pretty smart timetabling and good time keeping to prevent conflicting movements at the junction. This is presumably why the junction was moved over the river. Having a turnback siding for terminating trains would reduce the dwell time in the station for terminating trains

A conventional up and down line layout through Foregate Street, even with a single track remaining on one leg of the triangle, would be easier to manage than the existing arrangement which was conceived to allow cost effective closure of an intermediate signal box between Shrub Hill and Henwick at a time of low and falling traffic. However as Jimm has pointed out a layout with double track on all legs of the triangle would be the optimum realistic solution. Note an APM between the stations does not need to block the second track on the WOS-WOF axis as Andrew E explains above.

Here's an interesting paper from the Stourbridge line users group: http://www.stourbridgelineusergroup.info/Newsletter Article (17).pdf
The Importance Of Rainbow Hill Junction by Roger Davis
If passengers on the Stourbridge Line have no idea where Rainbow Hill Junction is, it is not surprising as it no longer exists - Rainbow Hill divergence would be a more appropriate description of that section of track these days. However, with the new Worcestershire Parkway station due to open in about two years time, it is important that Rainbow Hill Junction is reinstated to enable Stourbridge line trains to serve both Worcester City Centre and the new station...

The paper argues for Stourbridge trains to be able to serve Foregate Street then reverse back via Shrub Hill to the new parkway station. That got me thinking that the widened embankment we discussed earlier in connection with the APM might alternatively be used for a third terminating platform at Foregate Street. That would clearly be a more substantial construction than required for a small shuttle vehicle, and I still don't like the reversal they propose as it represents operation risk as well as lengthening journey times. The APM would allow such trains to call at Shrub Hill alone between Droitwich and the parkway while allowing passengers to transfer quickly and seemlessly via the APM and Foregate street exit directly into the city centre.

The paper references a historic signalling notice from 1973, including the layout that survives today: http://www.signallingnotices.org.uk/scans//HOLD 507/1973 43 w 2705.pdf
 
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squizzler

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On the assumption that a picture is worth a thousand words I figured out how to produce a map to show why I feel cablecar might be the best means of linking the centre of Worcester to Shrub Hill. I will see about attaching to the original post.worcs cablecar.jpg
My proposed route obviously the red line. The Shrub Hill terminal could be in the front of the station above a car park providing a naturally elevated starting point. My suggested route takes the cable car along a dead-end street and over the canal. The gondola rises to clear a multi storey car park attached to the retail estate before descending to its terminal just inside City Wall Road.

Bear in mind that we are train nuts on this forum and consider 2% a pretty steep grade. So we might underestimate what is possible with modern ropeway technology. They are designed to operate up the sheer side of mountains, I don’t think a provincial English city would pose much of a challenge.

The impact on residential amenity and the environment are potentially harder nuts to crack. What will hopefully strike the reader about my alignment is how it runs through modern commercial buildings only. It stops at the edge of the historic centre. Most of it could run at comparatively low level. The car park in the way would necessitate a taller pylon or two, but maybe the car park structure is itself sufficiently robust to support the cable?

The cablecar might be an unorthodox solution but only a means to an end: that being an efficient way of getting from Shrub Hill to the centre and thus enabling the closure of Foregate Street Station. I reckon the savings of operating one fewer stations would likely outweigh the running cost of the cablecar, and for passengers the benefits of a single interchange station would outweigh any inconvenience of taking the gondola into town.
 

skifans

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I think another advantage to a hypothetical cable car is the frequency, no other mode operates every few seconds. Sure people don't like changing, but even an every 15 minute bus/shuttle would probably still be an unwelcome increase in journey times for a return passengers who is currently used to a direct service.

2% is northing for a cable car, some can operate upto 70%, I've never been to Worcester so saying this just based off a map, that looks like it would be a much bigger problem then the gradient. But there doesn't seem to be much space for a hypothetical cable car station, even if the car park on the far side of City Walks road was used, and where is the space at Shrub hill station? A telepulse does have alot smaller space, this unit in Chamonix France:
telecabine_mer_de_glace_0031.jpg

https://www.remontees-mecaniques.net/bdd/reportage-tcp-de-la-mer-de-glace-dcsa-skirail-2163.html

Takes up a space less than 10m by 10m. However, these carry alot less people (around ~1,200 people per hour vs ~4,000 for a modern more standard system). How many people get off the train at Shrub hill, I have no idea. Presumably they are also going to come in sort of waves whenever a train arrives, rather then being evenly spread out. They are can also be cheaper to build and maintain due to there simplicity.
 

MarkyT

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The cablecar might be an unorthodox solution but only a means to an end: that being an efficient way of getting from Shrub Hill to the centre and thus enabling the closure of Foregate Street Station. I reckon the savings of operating one fewer stations would likely outweigh the running cost of the cablecar, and for passengers the benefits of a single interchange station would outweigh any inconvenience of taking the gondola into town.

It's a good route to improve significantly by some means, but I don't understand why you are so fixated on CLOSURE of Foregate Street. Have a new high frequency link between Shrub Hill and the city centre by all means, perhaps concentrate new service growth on Shrub Hill, particularly additional trains on the Stourbridge line which are difficult to accomodate at Foregate Street today it must be admitted, although that might be solved partly by track layout adjustments as explained up thread. Only a proportion of journeys involve interchange. Many others are travelling TO the centre of Worcester for leisure and employment, encouraged no doubt by the extremely convenient siting of Foregate Street station. From the Malvern direction your proposal could add ten minutes to many peoples' journey times to access the city centre. From Malvern Link for example, a journey of just under 7 miles, that would lead to a doubling of journey time if your destination was within a few minutes walk of Foregate Street and such notional journeys could involve interchange at the bus station nearby for which a convenient connection might be missed messing about going via Shrub Hill, leading to 30 minutes or an hour being added, that is unless you're also proposing to move the bus station out to Shrub Hill as well. No matter how good your link proposal is, the practical and political problems of how to 'sell' closure of Foregate Street would remain. It's a well established site and if it hadn't survived in the 1960s or had never been built in the first place I'm sure there would be campaigns to provide something similar (again or newly) even if just as a local train stop if not for longer distance expresses. The location is just so damned convenient for the city.
 

Llanigraham

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Squizzler,
You'll have fun persuading Worcester City to approve that, considering that the western end is right next to a major Conservation Area!
Again, do some research before making suggestions.
 

Pokelet

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As someone who has used both stations for commuting and travelling in all available directions from Worcester for well over 15 years I can categorically say that both Worcester stations need the order to survive. The thought of closing either, even with parkway, doesn't bear thinking about.

Foregate, you could say serves those (like me) living to the west or in town who commute out (Birmingham in my case), or those who work in the town that travel in. Closing foregate then means that you are inconveniencing hundreds on a daily basis who would have to sail through the former station and take a separate mass transit route back or walk through a less than nice part of town. There are several schools within 2 mins of Foregate so you now have a hundred or so young children displaced twice per day. Will an alternative method of traveling between the two stations be capable of taking a trainload around the corner in one go?

Shrub Hill then caters for those who drive to the station, park at it or near it. Those in the East of the city would be closer, I used to live over looking the sidings and this was my closest station by a few yards. The station is exceptionally busy during the peaks and during the day it is a surprisingly peaceful place to wait for your train and watch the freight go through.

There are 5 platforms at Shrub hill (1 A/B, 2 A/B, 3). Not unusual to see all platforms occupied in the peak. Platforms 1 and 2 can take an HST with room to spare, platform 3 is a little odd, mostly used for stabling now. The old motorail platform is still there - shuttle to parkway any one?

There then is the significant amount of sidings available, it's a busy enough yard. Diesel depot, stabling for GWR, through roads for freight, heritage trips and operators use i often. Then the fairly large drivers and guards depot will need housing somewhere.

So what if Foregate is a parasite on the face of shrub hill, both need the other to survive.
 

DavidGrain

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I would not describe either station as a parasite on the other. I think the word is 'commensal', (Animals which feed at the same table, each complimenting the other)
 

AndrewE

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As someone who has used both stations for commuting and travelling in all available directions from Worcester for well over 15 years I can categorically say that both Worcester stations need the order to survive. The thought of closing either, even with parkway, doesn't bear thinking about.
Glad to hear from someone with real local knowledge... Most people here (apart from the OP) think both stations are needed, we just tried to imagine whether an enhanced link between the two (that didn't get in the way of existing rail operations or prevent future improvements) might make life easier for a significant proportion of users?
 

Pokelet

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And yes, it might. Anything to improve transport links is good in my book. However, any cable based option would see massive resistance. The guided way theory attached to the existing alignment between the stations would be a non starter, there is nowhere for a platform at Foregate it is locked in by buildings on the shrub hill platform, the embankment is steep and again built around, then there is the canal to cross, there is a viaduct some 50-60ft high, then that goes back to embankment and over a busy road. Then the chord to Shrub Hill diverges, again on embankment, I don't think the line here was ever dual track, there are then 2 more bridges and you are at Shrub Hill, then where does the platform go? The suggestion earlier on the map would put the terminus right in the staff carpark and would go over the walking route to the depot.

Before any if this is even contemplated improving the local bus services and giving an incentive to leave the car at home would be the thing to focus on.
 

AndrewE

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And yes, it might. Anything to improve transport links is good in my book. However, any cable based option would see massive resistance. The guided way theory attached to the existing alignment between the stations would be a non starter,
See my post 71 (quoted below to save you digging back.) MarkyT and I have been trying to make the railway easier to use and to operate, and we thought that while the cable-car is a non-starter, a Gatwick-style people-mover might fit the bill.
Before any if this is even contemplated improving the local bus services and giving an incentive to leave the car at home would be the thing to focus on.
I completely agree with that, however buses are stuck with and cause yet more congestion. In post 71 I suggested
Stick to established technology! If we're doing fantasy - and if the useage and heavy rail track congestion justified it - an underground might be nice to have. However in the meantime I would consider an automated Gatwick-style people-mover shuttle, single track (with a passing loop if needed) supported on pillars stuck into the grass banks on the inside of the existing curve, passengers board and unload off the platform ends of the existing stations. This would have next to no land take, no operator staffing costs, out-of-hours it could run on an as-needed frequency like a pelican crossing control...
In a later post I pointed out that it would be on beams anyway, so bridges would be no problem at all.
 
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