Campaign for Better Transport - The Case for Expanding the Rail Network

[quantinghome]

The York HS2 bypass has been shelved and if it hadn't been, would be miles from Wetherby for commuting to Leeds and visitors to Wetherby if a station was built on a high speed line for a non city which is very doubtful.

I was thinking more of a pair of conventional tracks running alongside a hypothetical future high speed route, making use of the alignment. Clearly you can't have high speed and local services on the same track.

A five minute bus ride from a P&R car park to a station is a nonsense. It would not be used by commuters as it requires a three mode journey which would be fraught with missed connections and extended journey times as journeys will require an intermediate shuttle bus. How regular would the shuttle be. Not frequent enough.

The road down to the parkway station would be steep and hazardous in winter weather.

You misunderstand my post and the proposed parkway station layout (more details here: https://www.yourvoice.westyorks-ca.gov.uk/1710/documents/2035). The P&R car park will be situated immediately adjacent to the parkway station. The 5 minute shuttle bus will connect directly from the station entrance to the airport terminal building.

Given the 5 minute journey, a single shuttle bus could in theory sustain a 15-minute interval service which would fit the train frequency, although two buses would work better to give more time to board/alight. Why do you think this would not be implemented? Doesn't sound particularly onerous.

The link road from the parkway station car park to Scotland Lane will have a 7-8% gradient. Reasonably steep, but nothing out of the ordinary in this neck of the woods.

Reinstate a spur to Pool-in-Wharfedale where there is room for a large car park and station together on flat ground an not half a mile and 150 feet in height apart.

Which would require significant investment in new track, junctions and formation rebuild, at a cost similar to the Todmorden Curve reinstatement, as opposed to the airport parkway which requires neither.

LNER are planning seven services per day to Harrogate. Harrogate Chamber, that claims to represent the Council on railway matters, is pushing for all local services to be all stations. If this happens, the non-stop LNER services would be heavily handicapped by a preceding service.

This line between Leeds and Harrogate is in need of electrification for faster acceleration from six station stops in 18 miles in a mixed stopping pattern service. Something Grayling et al cannot, or refuses to, grasp.

Agree we need to electrify. The Harrogate line is crying out for this. Harrogate Chamber's view is... interesting. I hope they won't get their way and you'll see some faster services.

 

[adrock1976]

Was it Harrogate Chamber or West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive that proposed electrification with third rail DC so as to enable use of former London Underground trains?

 

[yorksrob]

Was it Harrogate Chamber or West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive that proposed electrification with third rail DC so as to enable use of former London Underground trains?

It was Harrogate chamber. I think traditional OLE would be better.

 

[deltic08]

Was it Harrogate Chamber or West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive that proposed electrification with third rail DC so as to enable use of former London Underground trains?

It was Harrogate Chamber. They were even awarded a prize by Railfuture for it. Incredible that they were awarded a prize in their annual awards for such a ridiculous proposal It was a way of providing private money for it as a bribe for being able to develop the railway and bus station site. It was a ridiculous idea with York and Leeds already 25kv fitted. It was scrapped when West Yorkshire, York, Harrogate and North Yorkshire spent money on a report that supported 25kv installation costing £99m.

 

[deltic08]

I was thinking more of a pair of conventional tracks running alongside a hypothetical future high speed route, making use of the alignment. Clearly you can't have high speed and local services on the same track.



You misunderstand my post and the proposed parkway station layout (more details here: https://www.yourvoice.westyorks-ca.gov.uk/1710/documents/2035). The P&R car park will be situated immediately adjacent to the parkway station. The 5 minute shuttle bus will connect directly from the station entrance to the airport terminal building.

Given the 5 minute journey, a single shuttle bus could in theory sustain a 15-minute interval service which would fit the train frequency, although two buses would work better to give more time to board/alight. Why do you think this would not be implemented? Doesn't sound particularly onerous.

The link road from the parkway station car park to Scotland Lane will have a 7-8% gradient. Reasonably steep, but nothing out of the ordinary in this neck of the woods.



Which would require significant investment in new track, junctions and formation rebuild, at a cost similar to the Todmorden Curve reinstatement, as opposed to the airport parkway which requires neither.

I think not. Have you visited the site? When it was first proposed I did and it is not a site that lends itself to a carpark. It is also private land.

The cost of the station is already at £30m and will probably cost more when completed. It is altogether a bad place for a station.

A junction at Arthington, a mile of track to Pool plus single jig-saw platform would cost no more than another station at Horsforth. Todmorden was nearly a mile of new track with pointwork at both ends, signalling and cost only £10m.

 

[DarloRich]

It was Harrogate Chamber. They were even awarded a prize by Railfuture for it.

surely that third rail stuff was just a publicity stunt?

 

[deltic08]

surely that third rail stuff was just a publicity stunt?

It might have been, but I attended every public meeting (3) and it did seem as if it had been thought through. The only thing they ignored was where the maintenance facility would be. There wasn't one. They were claiming longer and more frequent trains with more stations because at the time the system was so short of diesel trains and the likelihood of no more being built. Many services were Pacers and it would have eliminated those but replaced with something not much better for how much longer? It was being backed by developers who had their eyes on developing the site at Harrogate into retail with a raft over the station. Thank goodness common sense prevailed.

 

[DarloRich]

It might have been, but I attended every public meeting (3) and it did seem as if it had been thought through. The only thing they ignored was where the maintenance facility would be. There wasn't one. They were claiming longer and more frequent trains with more stations because at the time the system was so short of diesel trains and the likelihood of no more being built. Many services were Pacers and it would have eliminated those but replaced with something not much better for how much longer? It was being backed by developers who had their eyes on developing the site at Harrogate into retail with a raft over the station. Thank goodness common sense prevailed.

fair enough - sounds more serious than I thought - I assumed it was just a media circus to try and drive some improvements in sensible areas ( better trains, better station facilities etc)

 

[deltic08]

fair enough - sounds more serious than I thought - I assumed it was just a media circus to try and drive some improvements in sensible areas ( better trains, better station facilities etc)

No, I don't think so. The meeting was chaired by a Harrogate/NYC Councillor who spoke against me at a meeting at County Hall in 2010 and 2014 when I went begging for a contribution towards a feasibility study for the Ripon line reinstatement, so that gave me incentive to tear into him and his team when he was proposing ground rail electrification. It made me feel that a wrong had been righted even if it hadn't. Knowing the councillor he was probably on a bung if the proposal had gone ahead.

The same Councillor is now proposing a £120m bypass for Harrogate even though he denies it at public meetings but he is executive member for highways at County Hall. Nearly everyone in Harrogate is against it because it would go through both an AONB and an SSSI and wouldn't stop gridlock in the peaks as it is locally generated.