Could the Borders railway feasibly be extended to Hawick or even Carlisle?

[A0wen]

If so, that is an absolutely scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money.

Indeed, but remind us, how much did the ScotGov sink into Borders Rail as a political vanity project ?

 

[Bald Rick]

Indeed, but remind us, how much did the ScotGov sink into Borders Rail as a political vanity project ?

Well, “recollections may vary”.

But in cash terms, around £400m. In real terms to today’s prices nudging half a billion.

 

[A0wen]

Sadly, if they ever decide to bring large developments to the area between Carlisle & Hawick, the first thing they will build is trunk roads, to allow lots of heavy lorries to pollute the atmoshere whilst delivering building materials.

Well what would you suggest?

Felling half of Kielder Forest to provide wood for log cabins with the materials shipped by horse and cart along bridleways?

I disagree, there are more than a few problems as you put it. There are also benefits and opportunities which need to be developed.

What country? Please don't tell me you are going to defend the spending decisions of previous administrations of the UKGov in relation to how rail infrastructure has been developed?

I also fundamentally disagree on limited financial resources as anyone with a cursory interest in government finance would attest to given the events of the last year. Our resources are far greater than some would have us believe. We must be prudent to a point, but investment in the north has been strangled compared to the south. Not only is a rebalance overdue, it's needed to meet a number of future ambitions on climate, active travel, rail freight etc etc.

We have just endured the worst winter here for a decade, we personally had well over 4ft of snow and it drifter to 8ft in places. Driving was challenging for weeks. For some it meant not driving for a month. Now, wouldn't it be great if a high quality public transport option were available in such circumstances?

Just one example. Then we have poor bus services which absorb huge public subsidy. Congestion. Road accidents. Noise in residential areas. Insufficent access to job markets. Underdeveloped tourist markets. Youth migration out of rural and in to city, hollowing out our towns and villages.

For someone who works in railways, you surely know all these issues already, so im a little surprised you need them spelling out to you. Do you, or are you just being antagonistic for fun?

Well let's unpack this whole rant somewhat.

Let's start by talking about rail infrastructure and focus on the period 1970 - 2000 because that was when the UK government had responsibility and was at the end of the Beeching & Modernisation programmes (post 1997 of course the Scot Gov came into play). So the 1970s saw the West Coast Mainline electrified from Crewe to Glasgow providing the first electrified Anglo-Scottish mainline, electrification of the Great Northern suburban (proposed by the LNER in the 1930s) and the Midland Mainline suburban services (which started in 1981). The 1980s (allegedly a time of financial starvation and decline for the railways) saw electrification of the London - Hastings line, electrification of the GEML to Norwich, Cambridge and Kings Lynn, electrification of the East Coast Mainline to Leeds, York, Newcastle and Edinburgh. The late 1980s / early 1990s also saw the complete overhaul of the Marylebone suburban service which has evolved into the Chiltern Mainline replacing signalling systems which had been in place since before the war, electrification of the cross city line in Birmingham, electrification of the Aire Valley and Wharfe Valley lines from Leeds. Scotland wasn't neglected among this, there was the Argyle Line opening in the 1970s and various suburban line improvements throughout the 1980s and 1990s. None of this cost tuppence, none of it was insignificant. And all of this is before you start looking at non infrastructure items like rolling stock, ticketing, marketing or anything else.

On the government finances and resources, you seem to think the last year is in some way a demonstration that we could have spent money differently throughout the last 30 years - put simply, you're wrong. Completely wrong. Tax receipts have collapsed in the last year and the economy has taken a hit. The government has sought to mitigate the extremities of this by increasing borrowing, massively. But there's not an economic model in the world which allows you just to borrow on an unlimited fashion. Gordon Brown was lying when he claimed to be following Keynes - he was doing nothing of the sort, because even Keynes conceded there were limits to borrowing and that in the good times you shouldn't be running a huge deficit because in theory you should be collecting the taxes from the growth to pay the bills of your borrowing. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to which economic model you're advocating ?

Funnily enough, snow affects railway lines too. In fact there are no shortage of stories of lines closed due to snow drifts. So whilst you may have had 4-8' of snow, there's no evidence a rail line would have fared any better than the road network. And how do people get to the station through 4' snow drifts exactly ?

Poor bus services do absorb subsidy. But the bus industry's subsidy levels are peanuts compared to the rail network. So why do you want to massively increase that subsidy if you're unhappy with the levels the bus operators get ? Arguably a 5% increase in bus subsidy, which wouldn't buy you very much on the rail network, would make a far bigger impact overall. Congestion and road accidents have always existed, equally so have accidents and deaths on the railways - look up William Huskisson.

Noise in residential areas - well it's noisy if you live near a railway line as well. Access to job markets isn't usually addressed by adding rail links into the mix. The only example where this probably has worked is some of the south Wales valleys where the lines into Cardiff were reopened to passengers - but that's more because those areas have struggled with jobs ever since the closure of the coal industry. And the distance are far shorter than we're talking about with Borders Rail. Most people, particularly on low paid jobs, work locally (sub 5 miles) and will be more likely to use a bus than a train.

"Under developed tourist markets" - thanks for providing me with the best laugh I've had this week. For a tourist market to exist there has to be something people actually *want* to go and visit. And whilst the Borders area no doubt has some beautiful scenery (I've driven the A7 Carlisle - Edinburgh a couple of times), it doesn't have the tourist attractions that other areas have, be that stately homes, castles, mountains or museums. Go a little south and the Borders are like the 'North Pennines' compared to the Lake District - the latter has the tourist attractions and they are long standing.

Villages aren't "hollowed" out by the lack of a railway - mainly because railway lines rarely if ever served villages effectively. Too often stations were sited a long distance from the village they purported to serve (see the GC London extension) which is why as far back as the 1930s the motorbus started to erode the viability of the train in rural areas - because it was cheaper to run, because for the actual users it was more convenient - they came back from market day in the local town and were dropped off by their door rather than a mile or two away, because the bus could run more frequently, because the bus could offer a wider variety of destinations.

In my experience on these boards @Bald Rick is one of the posters who actually has "put his money where his mouth is" - he's got a career in the rail industry and isn't dewy eyed or sentimental about it. He knows what needs to be done to deliver. And most importantly has worked out what the rail network and rail industry are good at and what need they can serve and where they should leave it to someone / something else. He's got the credibility.

So what are your credentials, what's you're experience (and I mean genuine experience in work of delivering things). There are too many armchair experts armed with crayons who seem not to understand a few of the basic realities.

 

[Wynd]

Why do i get the impression that whenever I post something in here, I'm being targeted personally?

 

[Railwaysceptic]

If we build it, they will come. Along with jobs, houses, tourists, freight and all manner of other tangible and intangible benefits. That's what rail infrastructure does and has always done.

Really? Why then did all those pointless, loss making branch lines constructed during the two periods of railway mania in the 19th Century fail to bring all these benefits to the remote countryside they meandered across?

 

[Gareth]

Why do i get the impression that whenever I post something in here, I'm being targeted personally?

Skite Train, you little get: who do you think you're looking at?

 

[A0wen]

Why do i get the impression that whenever I post something in here, I'm being targeted personally?

You're not.

But equally you're not averse to personal targeting of other, far more experienced posters: "For someone who works in railways, you surely know all these issues already, so im a little surprised you need them spelling out to you. Do you, or are you just being antagonistic for fun?"

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Why do i get the impression that whenever I post something in here, I'm being targeted personally?

Perhaps because of the way you have addressed a much respected member of this forum?

 

[Journeyman]

If we build it, they will come. Along with jobs, houses, tourists, freight and all manner of other tangible and intangible benefits. That's what rail infrastructure does and has always done.

Only if you build it in the right place.

I'm a volunteer for the Mountain Bothies Association, and I help look after Will's Bothy, close to the site of Riccarton Junction station. I'm therefore familiar with the surrounding area, and the surviving infrastructure.

The area south of Hawick is very sparsely populated indeed, and always has been. While Hawick undoubtedly suffered economically after the line closed, I can't see reopening it making a massive difference, and the demand for local journeys south to Carlisle is minimal. The idea of using it as a diversionary route for the WCML is also questionable. Snow has been mentioned - the Waverley Line was so challenging to operate that huge snowdrifts regularly closed the line for weeks at a time. It was one of the toughest lines in the country to run because of the curvature, gradients and wild, remote nature of the countryside.

Hawick might be do-able eventually, but Carlisle is an absolute no-hoper.

 

[mrgreen]

There's no benefit to either people or the country as a whole to try and boost the population of very rural areas.... rural populations use more resources and subsidies: electricity, NHS, water, sewage, education, roads, bus subsidies... they all cost more. If the young want to leave remote area, then maybe their making a rational decision.

AOwen: "Go a little south and the Borders are like the 'North Pennines' compared to the Lake District - the latter has the tourist attractions and they are long standing."

It's notable that the North Pennines had far better railway provision than The Lakes: Tyne Valley and Stainmore lines on the north and south fringes, with the Alston, Middleton-in-Teesdale, and Weardale lines up all the main valleys. It's an area as large as The Lakes and almost as high. But the railways never boosted tourism. Apart perhaps from Teesdale, tourism was (and still is) tiny compared to The Lakes. Most of the population of the UK must have been to The Lakes at one time or another, only a tiny percentage by train, but few will have ever set foot in the North Pennines (or even know where it is).
Ambleside and Bowness are major international tourist hot-spots, but have never been rail-served, and no-one thinks they should be.

 

[Journeyman]

Hasn't one of the tunnels collapsed so would cost a fortune to reinstate or open up?

Yes, Whiterope.

 

[yoyothehobo]

Its a classic case of if there had never been a railway there, no one in their right mind would consider it now, but because there once was a railway there, there is this almost ingrained need for perceived wrongs of Beeching to be righted.

We can all come to this forum with wild ideas of routes, some better than others, but if the only response when told of shortcomings in plans by people exceedingly familiar with railways and railway construction is to say Bah, Humbug. I thought you were for railways, not against them then you will got short shrift.

A great rule of thumb on this board are Altnabreac's golden rules and there have been many threads which have shown that the Borders line (certainly beyond Hawick) is a no hoper.

A lot of people protested when the borders line closed, if more of them had maybe used it in the first place...

 

[Journeyman]

Its a classic case of if there had never been a railway there, no one in their right mind would consider it now, but because there once was a railway there, there is this almost ingrained need for perceived wrongs of Beeching to be righted.

Absolutely. The Great Central is another example of this - a line hugely popular with enthusiasts, but that only really served the needs of aggressively competitive Victorian empire builders.

The Waverley line had precious little local traffic and what limited through traffic there was could be easily handled by other lines.

We can all come to this forum with wild ideas of routes, some better than others, but if the only response when told of shortcomings in plans by people exceedingly familiar with railways and railway construction is to say Bah, Humbug. I thought you were for railways, not against them then you will got short shrift.

A great rule of thumb on this board are Altnabreac's golden rules and there have been many threads which have shown that the Borders line (certainly beyond Hawick) is a no hoper.

A lot of people protested when the borders line closed, if more of them had maybe used it in the first place...

I can't help thinking that. There may have been justification in a singled DMU operated basic railway to Galashiels and possibly Hawick, but the southern end of the route was barely used at all throughout its existence, and there would still be very little traffic potential now.

 

[A0wen]

Absolutely. The Great Central is another example of this - a line hugely popular with enthusiasts, but that only really served the needs of aggressively competitive Victorian empire builders.

The Waverley line had precious little local traffic and what limited through traffic there was could be easily handled by other lines.


I can't help thinking that. There may have been justification in a singled DMU operated basic railway to Galashiels and possibly Hawick, but the southern end of the route was barely used at all throughout its existence, and there would still be very little traffic potential now.

Much sense being spoken here.

On the GC it was very much one man's desire to be a railway baron. But I do think on balance the GC's closure was unnecessary - the push to run it down happened after responsibility for it was transferred from BR Eastern Region to BR London Midland - and that neglect continued even on the remains right through to the point it was transferred to BR Western Region. Somebody posted on another thread that BR Western condemned the signaling systems pretty much immediately in the late 1980s such was the BR Midland's level of neglect.

On the Waverley, that really was a low income line - there's no doubt about that and the potential to improve that was limited. The subsidies suggested just to retain a Hawick service was circa £ 250k / p.a. - the equivalent of £ 3.5m in today's prices, which is £ 30 per person per year in the Borders Council area. The interesting thing is a very similar line in many ways - The Heart of Wales - survived. The latter served a number of key Labour constituencies and it was a Labour government in power at this time. Probably not a complete co-incidence the HoW survived where it was no better than the Waverley route.

Beeching got things wrong - but BR management also did and weren't beyond using Beeching as the excuse - witness the closure of another favourite around here, Chinley - Matlock, which wasn't proposed by Beeching, who proposed closure of the Hope Valley and retaining Woodhead and Chinley - Matlock yet BR did the opposite and too many believe it was Beeching that was responsible.

The problem with the Waverley will be politics - again. No doubt the pressure to build the remaining section will come from politicians seeking to make a point - and if it cost about £ 0.5bn to build the first bit (citing Bald Rick's previous post) then the final bill for doing so is likely to be at least another £ 1bn - given the distance is pretty much double what's already been reinstated. That said, and particularly if the SNP try to remain in power, such sums will be "invested" not because they represent a good deal for the taxpayer, but because they represent a 'triumph' for Edinburgh's politicians over London's.

 

[Bevan Price]

Bevan Price said:



Sadly, if they ever decide to bring large developments to the area between Carlisle & Hawick, the first thing they will build is trunk roads, to allow lots of heavy lorries to pollute the atmoshere whilst delivering building materials.

Well what would you suggest?

Felling half of Kielder Forest to provide wood for log cabins with the materials shipped by horse and cart along bridleways?

I was saying that there was little chance of restoring the railway. Any new developments in that area would be served by roads, not rail.

 

[tbtc]

Its a classic case of if there had never been a railway there, no one in their right mind would consider it now, but because there once was a railway there, there is this almost ingrained need for perceived wrongs of Beeching to be righted.

We can all come to this forum with wild ideas of routes, some better than others, but if the only response when told of shortcomings in plans by people exceedingly familiar with railways and railway construction is to say Bah, Humbug. I thought you were for railways, not against them then you will got short shrift.

A great rule of thumb on this board are Altnabreac's golden rules and there have been many threads which have shown that the Borders line (certainly beyond Hawick) is a no hoper.

A lot of people protested when the borders line closed, if more of them had maybe used it in the first place...

I agree with all of this - it's daft how many times people get told that they must "hate" railways or be a "Beeching apologist" or whatever just because they don't agree with spending hundreds of millions of pounds on building a loss-making railway through some empty part of countryside (Dartmoor, Lake District, Galloway, Borders, Cardiganshire, Peak District etc).

I appreciate that people like scenic railway trips (especially ones you can ride for significantly cheaper than the fares on a preserved railway), but some of the arguments people cobble together in favour seem a little desperate in trying to come up with a problem that will justify the solution of "building a line through the middle of nowhere" (e.g. "we need to be Greener and get cars off the road" sounds lovely but a DMU doing a couple of miles to the gallon isn't very efficient if the average passenger load could fit on a minibus - it'd be better for the environment if everyone drove a modern car!)

Always interesting to see how the "solution in need of a problem" people always coincidently find ways of coming up with "and that's why we should re-open this old line". e.g. Edinburgh to Carlisle apparently needs a diversionary route - but not Glasgow to Newcastle because there's no abandoned line from Clydeside to Tyneside through the borders - just like there's apparently a large market of people wanting to travel through the Peak District from Derby to Manchester which coincides with a closed route but nobody ever worries about demand from Stoke to Sheffield because there's no "old" line from Stoke to Sheffield.

But it'll always be the case, the true believers will always find a new excuse to try to justify what they want - we need to reconnect a town of ten thousand people... we need a diversionary route for the couple of weekends a year when the main line is closed... there'll be a new excuse along shortly for the same old predictable answer.

There are some potential re-openings that look like they might be justifiable - generally shortish ones that link towns with the nearest large city (Peterhead to Aberdeen, Ashington to Newcastle, Washington to Sunderland/ Newcastle, Portishead to Bristol, Tavistock to Plymouth) and a number of brand new alignments that might be justifiable (HS2, NPR, properly serving various "new towns" like Skelmersdale) but we keep coming back to discussing the same old routes through incredibly rural areas BECAUSE BEECHING.

 

[HSTEd]

There are some potential re-openings that look like they might be justifiable - generally shortish ones that link towns with the nearest large city (Peterhead to Aberdeen, Ashington to Newcastle, Washington to Sunderland/ Newcastle, Portishead to Bristol, Tavistock to Plymouth) and a number of brand new alignments that might be justifiable (HS2, NPR, properly serving various "new towns" like Skelmersdale) but we keep coming back to discussing the same old routes through incredibly rural areas BECAUSE BEECHING.

I think a lot of people dramatically underestimate the cost of reopenings.
They think they are much cheaper than new construction, when for the most part, they aren't.

 

[Bald Rick]

E.g. Edinburgh to Carlisle apparently needs a diversionary route - but not Glasgow to Newcastle because there's no abandoned line from Clydeside to Tyneside through the borders

That’s a very good point. If it’s ok I will use that example in anger calm discussions in future.

I think a lot of people dramatically underestimate the cost of reopenings.
They think they are much cheaper than new construction, when for the most part, they aren't.

It is perhaps the most bemusing thing of all in this subject. Almost every proposer of such projects who isn’t in the rail industry, or a well informed stakeholder (some local authorities and some property developers) assumes that they can deliver their project significantly more cheaply than the going rate, usually because they think they know better than the rail industry. “Oh but this project is different”. Trust me, it isn’t.

An awful lot of proposers, many of whom should know better, have learned that lesson the hard way, including the Governments in Scotland and Wales, Hertfordshire County Council, West of England combined authority, West Devon council, Westfield, and many more.

I remember having a ‘difference of opinion’ on these pages with someone who thought that their pet scheme would cost £5m per mile, because BR built the Selby Diversion for £4m per mile. Seemingly forgetting about inflation, and BRs rather questionable capital accounting of the time (Where almost everything that wasn’t paid to a contractor was counted as a corporate overhead).

 

[The Planner]

All good posts above. I also agree that no one ever considers an actual new line that has never existed which could be designed to actually solve and allow a current and future issue to be resolved. Why does it have to be the rose tinted view of a line which allowed something 60 years so therefore is suitable now? The world changes and will continue to do so. Would HS2 have got as much resentment if it followed the GC to the millimetre?

 

[HSTEd]

BRs rather questionable capital accounting of the time (Where almost everything that wasn’t paid to a contractor was counted as a corporate overhead).

Well traditional vertically integrated railways make that a defendable policy IMO. They already had the staff on roster etc.
That vertically integrated railway obviously no longer exists, so we can't do that any more.

 

[Bald Rick]

They already had the staff on roster etc.

All the design staff
All the locos and wagon fleet sat around doing nothing all week, but then used for engineering work
Plenty of people in on overtime
Loss of revenue when the line was shut

All counted as overheads!

 

[tbtc]

That’s a very good point. If it’s ok I will use that example in anger calm discussions in future

I also agree that no one ever considers an actual new line that has never existed which could be designed to actually solve and allow a current and future issue to be resolved

It'd be interesting to give a newcomer to the UK (or someone who knows nothing about railway history) a map of the current rail routes and see where they felt the gaps in direct services and actual lines was.

You'd presumably get a list that included a number of "new towns" that had minimal rail access like Milton Keynes/ Skelmersdale/ Glenrothes (generally as they were built during the era when rail appeared to be failing - even if there was "a" station it wasn't serving the place fully/ there were no suburban rail services set up so a central station is a long way from houses)

You may get a few places that already had stations but were close to other "bigger" lines (e.g. I could see the logic in a spur off the ECML at Chester le Street down the Wear Valley to serve the city of Sunderland, maybe a link from Oldham to the main trans-pennine line in the direction of Huddersfield, maybe a link from Wrexham to the WCML at Crewe or from Manchester Airport to the WCML at Stockport)

You could have some chords between existing lines (I appreciate that the river/road at Newark mean that there's not much space for a Nottingham - Doncaster chord, but I could see that it would be the kind of thing that some people could argue in favour of, given Nottingham's poor links to the north - maybe a chord from the CLC or the Mid-Cheshire line onto the WCML - maybe something at Nuneaton to permit through Coventry - Leicester services, that kind of thing)

Maybe there'd be suggestions for through trains that wouldn't need any infrastructure improvements (e.g. some places don't have a direct train to a big city around an hour away - given that this is a threshold for regular travel patterns)

It's just so predictable though... Buxton *must* have a direct Derby service (not Stoke, not Macclesfield, not Sheffield, must be Derby), Tavistock and Okehampton *must* have a direct Waterloo service (who cares about whether extending the existing SWR services over more single track is going to make the carefully pathed slots at Waterloo less reliable), Colne *must* have a direct line to Skipton (even though a link to Keighley would be much better if journey times to Leeds are apparently so important)... the only possible "solutions" are re-opening lines that closed a long time ago

Would HS2 have got as much resentment if it followed the GC to the millimetre?

Agreed

It was a debate about HS2 that became the tipping point for me - some enthusiasts were complaining about the environmental damage caused by chopping trees down, yet seemed to think that building a railway on an alignment that had sat idle for over fifty years could be done without removing a single leaf... given how we'd need to completely rebuild embankments that were built over a hundred years ago, it seems "strange" to feign concern for trees on one alignment but not another.

If HS2 followed the GC then a lot of the people complaining about it would have been in favour (and the "fifteen minute" time saving for "rich businessmen" would be A Good Thing because it followed the sacred route of our Victorian forefathers)

 

[swt_passenger]

Agreed

It was a debate about HS2 that became the tipping point for me - some enthusiasts were complaining about the environmental damage caused by chopping trees down, yet seemed to think that building a railway on an alignment that had sat idle for over fifty years could be done without removing a single leaf... given how we'd need to completely rebuild embankments that were built over a hundred years ago, it seems "strange" to feign concern for trees on one alignment but not another.

If HS2 followed the GC then a lot of the people complaining about it would have been in favour (and the "fifteen minute" time saving for "rich businessmen" would be A Good Thing because it followed the sacred route of our Victorian forefathers)

You can see that view being taken if you follow links to Twitter in the EWR construction thread. The pictures showing de-vegging the massively overgrown cutting where Winslow station will be built are already starting to get the “environmental disaster” treatment...

 

[Tobbes]

If HS2 followed the GC then a lot of the people complaining about it would have been in favour (and the "fifteen minute" time saving for "rich businessmen" would be A Good Thing because it followed the sacred route of our Victorian forefathers)

I somewhat agree, but I do wonder in the specific case of HS2 whether there would have been the same level of opposition if the communities impacted on the line-of-route were actually getting some additional/reinstated local services as an offset - this could have included Aylesbury (EWR) - AVP (EWR) - [Winslow (EWR) (reverse) / Verney Junction] - Buckingham - Brackley - Banbury which as an extension to the existing 1 tph Aylesbury terminator and 1 tph AVP terminator. This may or may not have a business case, but it would be tangible improvements for people who otherwise see no benefits but only downsides of HS2.

 

[Bald Rick]

I somewhat agree, but I do wonder in the specific case of HS2 whether there would have been the same level of opposition if the communities impacted on the line-of-route were actually getting some additional/reinstated local services as an offset - this could have included Aylesbury (EWR) - AVP (EWR) - [Winslow (EWR) (reverse) / Verney Junction] - Buckingham - Brackley - Banbury which as an extension to the existing 1 tph Aylesbury terminator and 1 tph AVP terminator. This may or may not have a business case, but it would be tangible improvements for people who otherwise see no benefits but only downsides of HS2.

As above, they would still complain.

 

[Tobbes]

As above, they would still complain.

But with less to complain about - the people I'm aiming for here are the persuadables rather than the hard core antis.

 

[Journeyman]

This may or may not have a business case, but it would be tangible improvements for people who otherwise see no benefits but only downsides of HS2.

HS2's biggest problem there has been failing to point out why it's being built - that it's primarily to relieve congestion and overcrowding. The speed is effectively a bonus.

 

[Tobbes]

HS2's biggest problem there has been failing to point out why it's being built - that it's primarily to relieve congestion and overcrowding. The speed is effectively a bonus.

Agreed, but to the affected communities who see costs but no tangible benefits, the argument is harder to make

 

[HSTEd]

Perhaps it would be better to obliterate all pre Beeching maps of the railways, and destroy all remaining surface featurse of alignments, so it was if they had never existed.

That way we wouldn't end up with people constantly trying to reopen them, even though today you wouldn't build a railway on these routes, even if you wanted to reach the same stations.

(Earthworks are cheap, gradients are easy and land take is expensive)

 

[Tobbes]

Perhaps it would be better to obliterate all pre Beeching maps of the railways, and destroy all remaining surface featurse of alignments, so it was if they had never existed.

That way we wouldn't end up with people constantly trying to reopen them, even though today you wouldn't build a railway on these routes, even if you wanted to reach the same stations.

(Earthworks are cheap, gradients are easy and land take is expensive)

Ha!