Shapps to reverse Beeching cuts

Andrew1395 · 29 Oct 2019

I must say I think the priority should be to invest in the current network. Some reopening of lines and stations closed in the years prior to 1990 will have there place. For example in supporting regeneration and the expansion of housing. Cities like Nottingham and Sheffield have expanded local transport through light rail/trams and investment in bus networks, rather than reopening heavy rail lines and stations. In twenty years time I expect the electric bus will dominate the scene. For longer distance commuting and Inter regional journeys rail needs to improve. Nottingham to Manchester is slow and low quality experience compared to driving. Reopening lines and junctions to improve journeys like that, rather than branch lines, would be good. For me I would like to see more interconnectivity between the radial mainlines. So reinstating links between the MML and WCML via Northampton would be good too.

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The Planner · 29 Oct 2019

yorksrob said:
NSE managed to reopen Oxford - Bicester on a freight only route. Why then, after twenty years of passenger increases, can our railway not manage the same with the Ivanhoe line, for example.

It wasn't just them though, Oxford County Council would have played a part in it. Remember it was also just a 30mph track with a low service, not something you would get away with now.

yorksrob · 29 Oct 2019

The Planner said:
It wasn't just them though, Oxford County Council would have played a part in it. Remember it was also just a 30mph track with a low service, not something you would get away with now.

Why can't we get away with that now. You see, that's entirely the problem that because its rail, the costs are artificially inflated.

The Planner · 29 Oct 2019

I would look at it the other way round, you re-open at 30mph with a 1tph service and people are going to go "really?"

yorksrob · 29 Oct 2019

The Planner said:
I would look at it the other way round, you re-open at 30mph with a 1tph service and people are going to go "really?"

My local station has had an hourly service for years (It still does to the main destination) yet it gets loads of passengers. Another problem is that reopenings are expected to be massively more profitable than similar existing services.

A0wen · 29 Oct 2019

Andrew1395 said:
For me I would like to see more interconnectivity between the radial mainlines. So reinstating links between the MML and WCML via Northampton would be good too.

The case for "radial links" between the mainlines is massively overstated. Even when EWR is up to speed the journey time from MK to Leicester for example won't be significantly different to that of today going via Nuneaton for example.

Currently MKC - Nuneaton takes 34 mins, Nuneaton - Leicester 26 mins - so that's a 1 hour journey plus connection times.

Bedford - Leicester currrently is 45 mins (average, it's +/- a couple of mins depending on journey) so unless MKC to Bedford could be covered in 15 mins, there's no saving to be had there.

So the only thing reinstating lines radiating north or east from Northampton to the MML would achieve is to provide a link between Northampton and that other place, which would be either Wellingborough, Market Harborough or Bedford, none of which are justifiable. It would be far better - and more effective, to sort out EWR and to improve services and connections on the WCML northwards at Nuneaton and Tamworth - reinstating a northbound Trent Valley service that runs via Northampton would achieve that.

jimm · 29 Oct 2019

yorksrob said:
NSE managed to reopen Oxford - Bicester on a freight only route. Why then, after twenty years of passenger increases, can our railway not manage the same with the Ivanhoe line, for example.

Thing is that the number of people now using the trains to get between Bicester and Oxford (I am talking about local commuting and leisure trips here, not London passengers) has expanded massively since the line was rebuilt and the service frequency went up to a train every 30 minutes, taking 14 or 15 minutes with one intermediate stop, or 18 minutes with two stops - instead of a 26-minute trundle over all of 12 miles with one stop, with trains running at assorted intervals and not that many passengers on board them outside one peak train in either direction at the times of the day when road congestion around Oxford and on the A34 between there and Bicester is at its worst.

In the mid-1960s, when the track was presumably maintained for something like 50-60mph, trains between Leicester and Burton took 60+ minutes end to end. Even if we assume traffic between places like Coalville and Ashby and Leicester is more the target market than end-to-end passengers, the line runs in a loop out to the south-west of Leicester before heading to Coalville, whereas the road, even if congested, goes in a straight line. Unless the train is going to deliver a decent time advantage over the road, then people will not be inclined to use it - and trundling though the countryside at 30 or 40mph may have its charms but is more heritage railway than modern transit system.

Mikey C · 29 Oct 2019

There are specific reasons why Oxford to Bicester traffic has increased so much - the growth in size of Bicester, the Bicester Village shopping complex which attracts many foreign visitors (and what better than to combine this with the gleaming spires of Oxford?), Chiltern using it to create a new direct route from London to Oxford.

I'd be wary of thinking that every branch reopening will develop traffic growth in the same way

RLBH · 29 Oct 2019

The Planner said:
I would look at it the other way round, you re-open at 30mph with a 1tph service and people are going to go "really?"

jimm said:
Unless the train is going to deliver a decent time advantage over the road, then people will not be inclined to use it - and trundling though the countryside at 30 or 40mph may have its charms but is more heritage railway than modern transit system.

I'm reminded here of the fact that SNCF wanted 130kph end-to-end average times to compete with the Autoroutes, which was where the idea of 200kph trains came from. I believe that one of BR's managers came up with similar figures. Based on the general principle, a railway needs to run up to 90mph to compete with ordinary 60mph roads.

yorksrob · 29 Oct 2019

jimm said:
Thing is that the number of people now using the trains to get between Bicester and Oxford (I am talking about local commuting and leisure trips here, not London passengers) has expanded massively since the line was rebuilt and the service frequency went up to a train every 30 minutes, taking 14 or 15 minutes with one intermediate stop, or 18 minutes with two stops - instead of a 26-minute trundle over all of 12 miles with one stop, with trains running at assorted intervals and not that many passengers on board them outside one peak train in either direction at the times of the day when road congestion around Oxford and on the A34 between there and Bicester is at its worst.

In the mid-1960s, when the track was presumably maintained for something like 50-60mph, trains between Leicester and Burton took 60+ minutes end to end. Even if we assume traffic between places like Coalville and Ashby and Leicester is more the target market than end-to-end passengers, the line runs in a loop out to the south-west of Leicester before heading to Coalville, whereas the road, even if congested, goes in a straight line. Unless the train is going to deliver a decent time advantage over the road, then people will not be inclined to use it - and trundling though the countryside at 30 or 40mph may have its charms but is more heritage railway than modern transit system.

That's all well and good, but do you think the upgrade to Oxford - Bicester of which you speak, would have happened at all had the line not been reopened in the first place ?

I suspect not.

As a country we fall into the trap of thinking a modest improvement won't be good enough, then nothing at all gets done

175mph · 29 Oct 2019

Grumpy Git said:
Good luck telling those who have a house built on the old track-beds they have to move, (unless it's BoJo's dad of course)

Or in Hull, compulsorily purchasing Hull College's motor vehicle training site, (prior to that being built and opened, there was a disused terminus station on that site). You can see the training site in this picture complete with the original station gates, (photo credit geograph.org.uk):

Bald Rick · 29 Oct 2019

yorksrob said:
That's all well and good, but do you think the upgrade to Oxford - Bicester of which you speak, would have happened at all had the line not been reopened in the first place ?

I do, as it happens. For evidence: Bicester to Bletchley is in the process of being reopened in ‘full upgraded’ style. This has been done without a ‘minimal’ reopening first. And it’s in the same part of the country with very similar characteristics.

jimm · 29 Oct 2019

Mikey C said:
There are specific reasons why Oxford to Bicester traffic has increased so much - the growth in size of Bicester, the Bicester Village shopping complex which attracts many foreign visitors (and what better than to combine this with the gleaming spires of Oxford?), Chiltern using it to create a new direct route from London to Oxford.

I'd be wary of thinking that every branch reopening will develop traffic growth in the same way

Did you miss the bit where I said I was talking about local traffic between Bicester and Oxford? Which is to say making a comparison with the previous operation on this line, where a Turbo trundled along at no more than 40mph, averaging less than two miles per minute for the full run. A state of affairs that was not half as attractive as is being suggested above and is not something that we should be aspiring to replicate anywhere else.

The transformation of the line has transformed its attractiveness to local residents as a way to get in and out of Oxford, because the train is now much faster than driving, even at the quieter times of day, never mind the rush hours.

The vast majority of Bicester Village traffic is from and back to London Marylebone, going nowhere near Oxford. You have to be joking if you think many of the Chinese and Arab 'bargain' hunters are remotely interested in the dreaming spires.

And I suspect that the bulk of Chiltern's London-Oxford traffic is via its own private Parkway station, rather than the central station, where GWR already has the edge on journey times, and will all the more so from December, and usually undercuts Chiltern's advance fares into the bargain.

I wouldn't for a minute suggest that reopening lots of the lines closed in the 1960s would deliver anything like the same outcome - see my comments about Cirencester above.

yorksrob said:
That's all well and good, but do you think the upgrade to Oxford - Bicester of which you speak, would have happened at all had the line not been reopened in the first place ?

I suspect not.

As a country we fall into the trap of thinking a modest improvement won't be good enough, then nothing at all gets done

Considering that Chiltern Railways sent surveyors to look at the state of the former Princes Risborough to Cowley route to see if there was any prospect of reviving that to create a Marylebone-Oxford link, I doubt that they would have been deterred by a mothballed Bicester-Oxford line, had that been the case.

And despite the line being in officially fully operational condition, it cost a lot of money to bring the trackbed up to scratch for the reinstatement of double track to 100mph standards - which was also the case on the also fully operational Chiltern main line between Princes Risborough and Bicester, both for the initial redoubling project there and then the subsequent speed increase to 100mph.

Macwomble · 29 Oct 2019

DynamicSpirit said:
Oh dear... so much wrong with this. Where do I start?

Firstly...

Rail infrastructure, is capital spending. You spend the money once, and then you have the infrastructure and over the subsequent years you get a return on the investment. (Might not be much of a return if it's a particularly badly thought out scheme but a return nonetheless).

Pensions are current spending. You spend the money. It makes people happy while you're spending it. Then the money is gone. And not only do you not get any ongoing return from it, but you then have to keep spending the same amount over and over again each year if you want to keep up the benefits. Unlike capital spending, you can't spend the money just once and then have the project completed.

You simply cannot compare the two and just swap money between the two types of spending in the way you're suggesting (well, not unless you want to go bankrupt). So saying that the Government could just spend the money on pensions makes no economic sense, no matter how much pensioners might deserve it.

Secondly, that meme. I've seen several similar memes that make out that pensions in the UK are vastly lower than pensions in most other comparable countries. Every one I've seen uses misleading statistics and in my experience, they are all easy to debunk if you take a bit of effort. In fact, as far as I can ascertain, pension levels in the UK are overall pretty similar overall to pensions in similar countries - the UK Government is not being unusually mean. And on this particular meme, it quotes lots of figures for the 'payout' without ever defining what 'payout' means, so the meme is already meaningless. Then there's that picture of Iain Duncan Smith, which has obviously been taken completely out of context to give the impression he's vindictively laughing at pensioners. I have no idea when that picture was taken but it's a fair guess he was laughing at some joke someone had made and wasn't thinking about pensions at all at that moment.

I really would urge people to think twice before they share these kinds of unverified memes on social media without sanity-checking and fact-checking them first. Whether they originate from the left or the right, they are very often completely misleading, often to the point of outright dishonesty.

Sorry, fundamentally disagree.....but let's just agree to disagree. Obviously our respective views on society vary significantly.

yorksrob · 29 Oct 2019

Bald Rick said:
I do, as it happens. For evidence: Bicester to Bletchley is in the process of being reopened in ‘full upgraded’ style. This has been done without a ‘minimal’ reopening first. And it’s in the same part of the country with very similar characteristics.

jimm said:
Did you miss the bit where I said I was talking about local traffic between Bicester and Oxford? Which is to say making a comparison with the previous operation on this line, where a Turbo trundled along at no more than 40mph, averaging less than two miles per minute for the full run. A state of affairs that was not half as attractive as is being suggested above and is not something that we should be aspiring to replicate anywhere else.

The transformation of the line has transformed its attractiveness to local residents as a way to get in and out of Oxford, because the train is now much faster than driving, even at the quieter times of day, never mind the rush hours.

The vast majority of Bicester Village traffic is from and back to London Marylebone, going nowhere near Oxford. You have to be joking if you think many of the Chinese and Arab 'bargain' hunters are remotely interested in the dreaming spires.

And I suspect that the bulk of Chiltern's London-Oxford traffic is via its own private Parkway station, rather than the central station, where GWR already has the edge on journey times, and will all the more so from December, and usually undercuts Chiltern's advance fares into the bargain.

I wouldn't for a minute suggest that reopening lots of the lines closed in the 1960s would deliver anything like the same outcome - see my comments about Cirencester above.

Considering that Chiltern Railways sent surveyors to look at the state of the former Princes Risborough to Cowley route to see if there was any prospect of reviving that to create a Marylebone-Oxford link, I doubt that they would have been deterred by a mothballed Bicester-Oxford line, had that been the case.

And despite the line being in officially fully operational condition, it cost a lot of money to bring the trackbed up to scratch for the reinstatement of double track to 100mph standards - which was also the case on the also fully operational Chiltern main line between Princes Risborough and Bicester, both for the initial redoubling project there and then the subsequent speed increase to 100mph.

Sorry, but I don't think it remotely likely that the current upgrades would have happenned without the original Oxford reopening proving the way.

Without a functioning railway, I suspect we'd still be bogged down.

And as for Chiltern, you can guess what would be there now if the powers that be had suceeded in closing it.

tbtc · 29 Oct 2019

The Ham said:
Personally there's a need to get on with projects like HS2 (circa 100 million passengers a year) and Crossrail 2 (an extra 270,000 passengers in the morning weekday peak into London) rather than the vast majority of reopenings which will struggle to achieve 5% of these passenger figures but could well require a much greater proportional cost

It's surprising that so many people are so focussed on the kind of schemes where the Best Case Scenario will be an hourly DMU carrying an average passenger load that could be accommodated by a minibus, rather than the kind of schemes where we are talking thousands of passengers per hour.

yorksrob said:
Why can't we get away with that now. You see, that's entirely the problem that because its rail, the costs are artificially inflated.

Focus on that then.

We have a public sector infrastructure company in Network Rail, so why isn't it working efficiently? Remember, everyone on here seems to think that public sector running of trains will be more efficient/cheaper, so why is Network Rail costing so much?

Maybe because every infrastructure project costs so much more nowadays (look at motorways etc as a benchmark), engineering needs to be done properly, the days of slapping up some wooden platforms in the 1980s and hoping for the best are over.

But until someone tackles the high cost of building new railways, that's always going to hold re-openings back.

yorksrob said:
Another problem is that reopenings are expected to be massively more profitable than similar existing services.

We have hundreds, maybe thousands of miles of lines that are wholly unsuited to the mass transportation required to justify heavy rail services.

You should be grateful that there's no clamour to close such lines, rather than complaining that we expect *additional* lines to be busy enough to justify a service.

We shouldn't be opening new lines today that can be accommodated by an hourly 153 - we should be focussing on busy areas (even if we are stuck with lots of quiet lines already)

175mph said:
Or in Hull, compulsorily purchasing Hull College's motor vehicle training site, (prior to that being built and opened, there was a disused terminus station on that site). You can see the training site in this picture complete with the original station gates, (photo credit geograph.org.uk)

I do enjoy the contrast between "we should demolish everything built in the route of a line that closed over fifty years ago" and the "we can't build HS2 because there are some trees in the way" that some other posters on here have.

(you're right, of course - there are a lot of things on trackbeds - rightly or wrongly - and no skirting over this)

stj · 29 Oct 2019

Any reopenings will be a shadow of what was and a single track at best.

yorksrob · 29 Oct 2019

tbtc said:
Focus on that then.

We have a public sector infrastructure company in Network Rail, so why isn't it working efficiently? Remember, everyone on here seems to think that public sector running of trains will be more efficient/cheaper, so why is Network Rail costing so much?

Maybe because every infrastructure project costs so much more nowadays (look at motorways etc as a benchmark), engineering needs to be done properly, the days of slapping up some wooden platforms in the 1980s and hoping for the best are over.

But until someone tackles the high cost of building new railways, that's always going to hold re-openings back.

Well, I believe in looking at real costs, rather than relying on naive Thatcherite ideology to assume that everything will sddenly become cheaper through the private sector.

Wooden platforms have served our network well, and with minimal maintenance for decades. Why then is it necessary for every new halt to entail a scale of engineering works that would make an Egyptian Pharoh blush.

tbtc said:
We have hundreds, maybe thousands of miles of lines that are wholly unsuited to the mass transportation required to justify heavy rail services.

You should be grateful that there's no clamour to close such lines, rather than complaining that we expect *additional* lines to be busy enough to justify a service.

We shouldn't be opening new lines today that can be accommodated by an hourly 153 - we should be focussing on busy areas (even if we are stuck with lots of quiet lines already)

Our current railway network is vital to the countries transport needs. I'm not about to start accepting that bits of it can be discarded, just because Beeching era nostalgists believe that we should regurgitate the discredited closure policies of the past.

HowardGWR · 29 Oct 2019

jimm said:
................where a Turbo trundled along at no more than 40mph, averaging less than two miles per minute for the full run.

Yes, 40 mph is certainly less than 120 mph!

Bald Rick · 29 Oct 2019

yorksrob said:
Sorry, but I don't think it remotely likely that the current upgrades would have happenned without the original Oxford reopening proving the way.

Without a functioning railway, I suspect we'd still be bogged down.

That’s your opinion, and that’s fine.

Why do you think the line between Bicester and Bletchley is being reopened, given that there hasn’t been a minimalist reopening of the route first?

yorksrob · 29 Oct 2019

Bald Rick said:
That’s your opinion, and that’s fine.

Why do you think the line between Bicester and Bletchley is being reopened, given that there hasn’t been a minimalist reopening of the route first?

Because I think the Oxford - Bicester route has already proven the desireability of non-London focused routes in the area.

Sleeperwaking · 29 Oct 2019

tbtc said:
Maybe because every infrastructure project costs so much more nowadays (look at motorways etc as a benchmark), engineering needs to be done properly, the days of slapping up some wooden platforms in the 1980s and hoping for the best are over.

But until someone tackles the high cost of building new railways, that's always going to hold re-openings back.

A rolling programme of upgrades would help bring costs down as it enables you to build up an experienced team, improve standardised designs etc. There's plenty of evidence wrt the benefits of rolling programmes of electrification in other European countries. But hey, that would require the DfT to actually commit to something over the long term (decades), rather than promising yet another feasibility study into reversing Beeching to grab votes in the next 3 months, then changing their mind again afterwards.

6Gman · 29 Oct 2019

yorksrob said:
Our current railway network is vital to the countries transport needs. I'm not about to start accepting that bits of it can be discarded, just because Beeching era nostalgists believe that we should regurgitate the discredited closure policies of the past.

Do you really consider that Liskeard-Looe, or Llandudno Jn-Blaenau, or Middlesbrough-Whitby are "vital to the country's transport needs"?

yorksrob · 29 Oct 2019

6Gman said:
Do you really consider that Liskeard-Looe, or Llandudno Jn-Blaenau, or Middlesbrough-Whitby are "vital to the country's transport needs"?

Yes I do. Whitby and Looe all have their part to play in the National economy and culture, and their railways are vital in enabling those communities to do so.

Why on earth would anyone think that they weren't ?

Bald Rick · 29 Oct 2019

yorksrob said:
Because I think the Oxford - Bicester route has already proven the desireability of non-London focused routes in the area.

Wouldn’t Bletchley to Bedford have done that though? Similar type of line, service, catchment.

yorksrob · 29 Oct 2019

Bald Rick said:
Wouldn’t Bletchley to Bedford have done that though? Similar type of line, service, catchment.

To an extent maybe. But Bedford - Bletchley was never reopened.

ChiefPlanner · 29 Oct 2019

yorksrob said:
Yes I do. Whitby and Looe all have their part to play in the National economy and culture, and their railways are vital in enabling those communities to do so.

Why on earth would anyone think that they weren't ?

Frankly - a very minor part. The fact they are still operating is a gesture on "someone" prepared to pay for the status quo. I recall a very senior manager making a genuine point on the Looe line , that they might as well make it free to users for 9 months of the year , as there was not enough revenue collected to pay for the conductor guard. Harsh - but true.

yorksrob · 29 Oct 2019

ChiefPlanner said:
Frankly - a very minor part. The fact they are still operating is a gesture on "someone" prepared to pay for the status quo. I recall a very senior manager making a genuine point on the Looe line , that they might as well make it free to users for 9 months of the year , as there was not enough revenue collected to pay for the conductor guard. Harsh - but true.

My local doctors surgery doesn't make any revenue at all.

I still wouldn't be without it though.

If we're serious as a country, about providing opportunities and spreading wealth beyond the Cities, then we need services like the Looe and the Whitby lines. The alternative is stagnation.

Bald Rick · 29 Oct 2019

yorksrob said:
To an extent maybe. But Bedford - Bletchley was never reopened.

Well, I disagree.

The prime objective of the project is to connect Oxford and (ultimately) Cambridge with each other and the greater MK area, and enable development all along that corridor. That the line between Oxford & Bicester had previously been reopened would not have been material to the case, nor the decision.

Kingham West · 29 Oct 2019

Bald Rick said:
Wouldn’t Bletchley to Bedford have done that though? Similar type of line, service, catchment.

The economy of Oxford, is much stronger, Bedford -Bletchley has grown traffic, but needs to be plugged into the Oxford -Cambridge powerhouse.
Can’t wait to zip over it onto Cambridge..

Shapps to reverse Beeching cuts

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