Do the British have an aversion to building new alignments?

[DelW]

So far in this thread we have the following suggestions for new conventional speed rail alignments:

Morpeth bypass
EWR central section
Dawlish avoiding line

Do we have any more?

A couple more that regularly come up:

• east - west connection at Redhill (avoiding reversal in the station)
• south - west connection at Yeovil Junction

and could western and southern access to Heathrow count too?

 

[snowball]

Apologies - I thought there was still some non-motorway sections in County Durham but that's presumably been upgraded since I was last on that section of road.

Ther has been no new motorway in County Durham since 1970. However the upgrade to motorway of the 12-mile section between Leeming Bar and Barton in North Yorkshire, including through Scotch Corner, was completed earlier this year. As a result there is continuous motorway from the south end of the M1 at Brent Cross to a couple of miles south of the Angel of the North.

 

[Bald Rick]

Those freight railways which whave been reopened were over twenty years ago. The last couple came back as guided busways.

Robin Hood Phase 3 Dec 98
Vale of Glamorgan 2005
Ebbw Vale 2008
Aylesbury Vale 2008
Kettering Corby 2008
Stirling - Alloa 2008
Halifax - Huddersfield 2000

Just off the top of my head. There are others I’m sure.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Indeed the lack of a motorway link to the centre of civilisation that is Teesside truly is a blight on the good people of Tyneside that we can only hope will someday be rectified.

I have never seen such a mess of a road as the A1(M).

 

[Railwaysceptic]

So far in this thread we have the following suggestions for new conventional speed rail alignments:

Morpeth bypass
EWR central section
Dawlish avoiding line

Do we have any more?

New alignments either by a massive rebuild or a completely new build are most necessary between Taunton and Plymouth, Berwick and Edinburgh and Manchester and Leeds. No real need for faster than 100 mph but current alignments prevent even that.

What also require 100 mph running are those flat, straight routes in Eastern England where the alignment is ideal but nevertheless low speed limits are in force: Kings Lynn to Cambridge; Lincoln to Grimsby; Hull to Doncaster and Selby.

 

[deltic08]

Everywhere in the UK should be within a few miles of a convenient railhead?

Really?

Yes, really. Every settlement of 10,000 population should be rail served by having a convenient railhead to encourage use of rail and reduce use of the car. Even using electric cars in 2040 wont reduce air pollution because of the Oslo Effect (dust produced from wear and tear of brakes, tyres and asphalt that enter the lungs and cause early death. Once airborne from the vortices of passing traffic, it can carry for hundreds of miles, so it affects us all). Buses and lorries will still be diesel, and they are the biggest air polluters.
In the case of Ripon, Harrogate is not a convenient railhead, eleven miles from Ripon, extremely busy in peaks and shoulder peaks taking over an hour by road to reach the station car park only to find it is full and nowhere to park on adjacent streets. Can only be used as a railhead for travelling south to Leeds and beyond. Not very convenient railhead.

Thirsk, eleven miles away, has a limited service and with all services apart from one not going north of Northallerton needing a change and wait for a train along the ECML and again the station car park is full most of the day. Only 4 buses a day from Ripon to Thirsk between 0800 and 1730 only, 3 on Saturdays, none on Sundays and Bank Holidays. This is NOT a convenient railhead even with a car.

Northallerton, 15 miles away from Ripon, same bus service as to Thirsk, but takes an hour and doesn't stop anywhere near the station, bigger car park, trains along the ECML to Darlington and beyond to Edinburgh. NOT a convenient railhead unless you have a car.

We feel cheated here in Ripon ever since 1967 when our railway was taken away from us by Beeching, even though it was making a profit of £18,000 a year in 1966, when other market towns in North Yorkshire that retained their railway are thriving. Now in 2018 with over one million visitors a year to the cathedral, racecourse, Fountains Abbey and local theme park, we feel we should be near the top of the reinstatement table as a strategic second shorter route from West Yorkshire to the North avoiding York.

If we have to use the car, we don't bother with distant railheads, we complete the whole journey by car.

 

[deltic08]

Apologies - I thought there was still some non-motorway sections in County Durham but that's presumably been upgraded since I was last on that section of road.

Completed in 1970! You really ought to get out more and sample the real world or update your road atlas.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

We feel cheated here in Ripon ever since 1967 when our railway was taken away from us by Beeching, even though it was making a profit of £18,000 a year in 1966, when other market towns in North Yorkshire that retained their railway are thriving. Now in 2018 with over one million visitors a year to the cathedral, racecourse, Fountains Abbey and local theme park, we feel we should be near the top of the reinstatement table as a strategic second shorter route from West Yorkshire to the North avoiding York.

If we have to use the car, we don't bother with distant railheads, we complete the whole journey by car.

Dr. Beeching had left B. R. long before 1967 so don't blame him. Does the route between Harrogate and Thirsk still exist or has it been built on?

 

[deltic08]

I have never seen such a mess of a road as the A1(M).

Would you like to qualify this statement? I live almost next to it and I find nothing wrong with it.

 

[deltic08]

Dr. Beeching had left B. R. long before 1967 so don't blame him. Does the route between Harrogate and Thirsk still exist or has it been built on?

It was still Beechings doing.

One place only between Harrohate and Ripon (10 houses) and several places between Ripon and Northallerton have been returned to agriculture but the problem here is the new motorway that has been built across the trackbed at Sinderby without bridging.

Melmerby-Thirsk closed in 1958 and is almost obliterated. The same motorway was built across this line without bridging at Baldersby. The stone abutments are still visible where it bridged the River Swale at Skipton Bridge but the centre pier went about 30 years ago.

 

[deltic08]

Indeed the lack of a motorway link to the centre of civilisation that is Teesside truly is a blight on the good people of Tyneside that we can only hope will someday be rectified.

The A19 is good dual carriageway. What more do you need?

 

[ainsworth74]

The A19 is good dual carriageway. What more do you need?

Nothing outside of peak times the A19 is an excellent road and therefore my post was purely tongue in cheek

 

[Pigeon]

It was still Beechings doing.

One place only between Harrohate and Ripon (10 houses) and several places between Ripon and Northallerton have been returned to agriculture but the problem here is the new motorway that has been built across the trackbed at Sinderby without bridging.

Melmerby-Thirsk closed in 1958 and is almost obliterated. The same motorway was built across this line without bridging at Baldersby. The stone abutments are still visible where it bridged the River Swale at Skipton Bridge but the centre pier went about 30 years ago.

There we see an example of something we certainly do have an aversion to - dealing with what are really rather trivial difficulties.

Bridge missing? Sure, it's a shame, but... just build one then. It's not that hard. When the Victorians built the original line, they had to build all the bridges, not just the odd one or two - and it was a lot more difficult for them, doing it all by hand without the advantages of things like reinforced concrete or massive powered lifting equipment. And many of the bridges that do still exist are likely to need complete rebuilding anyway because they've spent so long without maintenance that they're too far gone to be repaired; one which is missing altogether is actually easier to deal with than this, since you don't have to clear the old one out of the way first...

More generally, we have an aversion to getting stuck in to any kind of practical activity; we far prefer sitting around talking about it to actually doing it. This would be understandable, if not sensible, if the people doing the talking were the same ones who were going to have to do the shovelling, but they're not. If the Victorians were doing HS2 (not that I agree with it, but that's irrelevant), it would be up and running by now. The saga of East West Rail is even worse - on the western half at least, at the time the idea first sprung up we could have just re-started running trains over track that was already there; instead we have sat around procrastinating for so long that it now costs hundreds of millions just to get back to where we were before all the yapping started.

I don't think there's much case that we have an aversion specifically to new alignments. It's just that it can look that way, partly because there is so often an old alignment on any given proposed route, and partly because we're so bad at doing anything and that is most obvious where there wasn't anything before.

 

[deltic08]

There we see an example of something we certainly do have an aversion to - dealing with what are really rather trivial difficulties.

Bridge missing? Sure, it's a shame, but... just build one then. It's not that hard. When the Victorians built the original line, they had to build all the bridges, not just the odd one or two - and it was a lot more difficult for them, doing it all by hand without the advantages of things like reinforced concrete or massive powered lifting equipment. And many of the bridges that do still exist are likely to need complete rebuilding anyway because they've spent so long without maintenance that they're too far gone to be repaired; one which is missing altogether is actually easier to deal with than this, since you don't have to clear the old one out of the way first...

More generally, we have an aversion to getting stuck in to any kind of practical activity; we far prefer sitting around talking about it to actually doing it. This would be understandable, if not sensible, if the people doing the talking were the same ones who were going to have to do the shovelling, but they're not. If the Victorians were doing HS2 (not that I agree with it, but that's irrelevant), it would be up and running by now. The saga of East West Rail is even worse - on the western half at least, at the time the idea first sprung up we could have just re-started running trains over track that was already there; instead we have sat around procrastinating for so long that it now costs hundreds of millions just to get back to where we were before all the yapping started.

I don't think there's much case that we have an aversion specifically to new alignments. It's just that it can look that way, partly because there is so often an old alignment on any given proposed route, and partly because we're so bad at doing anything and that is most obvious where there wasn't anything before.

I like it, I like it!
They are building 10,000 houses in East Leeds either side of the Cross Gates-Wetherby trackbed. Are they allowing room for future proofing and reopening? Are they hell. They are going to build over it. 10,000 houses is going be a sizeable town in its own right and big enough to have a station and short spur opening onto the Leeds-York/Selby line. In fact it will be big enough for two stations and bigger than Wetherby or Selby!
Leeds City Council have told me they plan to move commuters in the peaks by bus into an already gridlocked city centre. That is 300 double decker movements in the peaks.
A train could move 1000 commuters in 9 minutes into the heart of the city from here every 10 minutes.

 

[DPWH]

What about Welwyn Viaduct and Tunnels, and Bradford crossrail?

 

[DPWH]

Also, the Victorians built lots, but at that time they also had an economy that was growing at massive rates, while they were able to plunder the natural resources of a quarter of the world then under British military domination, and by using cheap foreign (mostly Irish) labour whose health and safety was not even a consideration.

Even then, the Victorians still managed to build lines that weren't straight, lines that duplicated other lines, lines through rural areas which were pointless when built and even more pointless when they were closed 100 years later, lines that didn't connect with each other, London termini located too far from the City, etc.

The Victorians built a lot, but a lot of it wasn't particularly fit-for-purpose. Lessons which perhaps haven't been learnt for HS2.

 

[tbtc]

So far in this thread we have the following suggestions for new conventional speed rail alignments:

Morpeth bypass
EWR central section
Dawlish avoiding line

Do we have any more?

Inverkeithing to Halbeath (i.e. following the M90 so that services from Edinburgh to Dundee/ Aberdeen would avoid the twisty bits of the Fife Coast and also overtake the Kirkcaldy-bound services - non-stop from Inverkeithing to at least Markinch).

For personal selfishness (and not necessarily in the national interest!), a chord around Dove Holes to allow a direct service from Sheffield/ Hope Valley to Buxton.

Ther has been no new motorway in County Durham since 1970. However the upgrade to motorway of the 12-mile section between Leeming Bar and Barton in North Yorkshire, including through Scotch Corner, was completed earlier this year. As a result there is continuous motorway from the south end of the M1 at Brent Cross to a couple of miles south of the Angel of the North.

Having checked online, the continuous motorway was only completed (as far as Gateshead) six months ago (by upgrading the existing A-road) - the fact that London to Gateshead has only just become a continuous motorway in 2018, and Newcastle to Edinburgh still relies on long stretches of single carriageway A-road, is worth remembering when we see people claim that new roads are ten-a-penny - if they were then North East England motoristis wouldn't be reliant upon such poor infrastructure (whilst the region has had 125mph electrified trains on the ECML for some time now).

Grass is always greener.

Yes, really. Every settlement of 10,000 population should be rail served by having a convenient railhead to encourage use of rail and reduce use of the car

So you've decided that every place around a threshold that your small town conveniently meets should have rail station?

Despite the three stations you already have within about a dozen miles?

Convenient.

Completed in 1970! You really ought to get out more and sample the real world or update your road atlas.

Really?

Your road atlas showed a continuous motorway from London to Newcastle in 1970? (rather than the piecemeal combination of A-road and Motorway that has only allowed London - Gateshead to be done all on motorway in March 2018)

I wish I had a 1970s map that predicted the future!

If the Victorians were doing HS2 (not that I agree with it, but that's irrelevant)

It seems that most proponents of re-opening old Victorian lines are against HS2 for some reason.

If HS2 followed the Grand Central route then I'm sure people's objections wouldn't be quite so vociferous (though that's obviously a terrible alignment to follow, managing to avoid Birmingham as it does)

What about Welwyn Viaduct and Tunnels, and Bradford crossrail?

Bradford Crossrail is prime Crayonista (IMHO) - drawing a line to link places on a map without worrying about inconveniences like height differences/ what lies between them/ whether it actually solves any problems (e.g. that huge untapped market of people wanting a direct service from Ilkley to Halifax).

Bradford Crossrail is a solution without any problems which would complicate things (e.g. would we end up running DMUs under the wires from Leeds to Bradford via Shipley because they continue through to the Calder Valley, which means EMUs replaced by DMUs? Or is it contingent on wiring the whole line from Leeds - Pudsey - Bradford - Rochdale - Manchester? where are the additional paths at Leeds for any new services? What actual demand is there to get from Keighley to Hebden Bridge or from Pudsey to Saltaire that this would provide?)

Welwyn sounds good, but (AIUI) would push the bottleneck slightly further up the line, given the three track sections north of Huntingdon. Welwyn certainly seem to be a problem though.

 

[edwin_m]

In post #5, Senex suggested that this is not going ahead. I must admit I thought it was already under construction though.

There were originally two parts to the project. The re-alignment of the most severe curve in the station itself is going ahead, but the section further north (to get rid of the dogleg over the former Joint line) has been deleted from the work.

 

[AndrewE]

It seems that most proponents of re-opening old Victorian lines are against HS2 for some reason.

Not sure about that, I'd like to see easy-to-reopen lines done soon where there is a need (Ripon) but I'm not against HS2 per se, I just think it could have been better if it had been planned as part of the UK rail network rather than another airline-on-wheels, although it's not as bad as HS1

If HS2 followed the Grand Central route then I'm sure people's objections wouldn't be quite so vociferous (though that's obviously a terrible alignment to follow, managing to avoid Birmingham as it does)

Please get it right, Grand Central is a station in the USA, and a shopping centre in Brum. There was a Great Central Railway in the UK which got absorbed into the LNER at the 1923s Grouping.

Bradford Crossrail is prime Crayonista (IMHO) - drawing a line to link places on a map without worrying about inconveniences like height differences/ what lies between them/ whether it actually solves any problems (e.g. that huge untapped market of people wanting a direct service from Ilkley to Halifax).

Well, as we currently have conurbations choking on diesel exhaust, almost any improvement in rail-based cross-town public transport is to be welcomed. If it's electrified, heavy rail linking more widely out into the city/ region then what's not to like?

Welwyn sounds good, but (AIUI) would push the bottleneck slightly further up the line, given the three track sections north of Huntingdon. Welwyn certainly seem to be a problem though.

It's not. J(F)DI
Increasing 3 track to 4 should be easy, especially in cuttings and on embankments given the (not-so) recent civil engineering innovations of secant- and sheet-piling and gabions.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

It seems that most proponents of re-opening old Victorian lines are against HS2 for some reason.

If HS2 followed the Grand Central route then I'm sure people's objections wouldn't be quite so vociferous

I am opposed to HS2 but I am not generally in favour of re-opening closed railways. In my opinion almost all of them should have been closed several years before they were (!) but I take each case, each crayonist proposal, on its own merits.

 

[Bald Rick]

Welwyn sounds good, but (AIUI) would push the bottleneck slightly further up the line, given the three track sections north of Huntingdon. Welwyn certainly seem to be a problem though.

It's not. J(F)DI
Increasing 3 track to 4 should be easy, especially in cuttings and on embankments given the (not-so) recent civil engineering innovations of secant- and sheet-piling and gabions.

Number of extra trains that can be run on the ECML by doubling Welwyn Viaduct and tunnels?

None.

 

[Bald Rick]

Apart from Peterborough and Offord I can't think of any ECML alignment that was electively done to raise speed.
Selby Deviation was paid for so the Coal Board could remove coal from under the old route and Prestonpans was coal subsidence and north of Berwick was geology too. It was not optional but compulsory.
Where else on the ECML were the other 5 alignments?

Apologies I missed your question.

I didn’t say new alignments. I said “...new chords, flyovers and alignments.” And as someone responsible for doing this sort of work in the past, you don’t build things simply to increase speed. You do things to deliver better outputs, e.g. reducing journey time, increasing capacity, improving capability, improving safety. As an example Hitchin flyover improved journey times on the main line for many services without affecting speed.

The ten I thought of on the ECML, and there’s more, were:

Holloway flyover
New chords and grade separation between Finsbury Park and Drayton Park
Welwyn flyover
Hitchin flyover
Offord realignment
Peterborough reliagnment (twice)
Allington Chord (not on ECML, but for the ECML)
Joan Croft flyover and new line
Selby diversion
Penmanshiel

The above excludes various major remodelling schemes which realigned track in existing places giving significant journey time improvements - Kings Cross, Donny, York, Newcastle to name a few. It also excludes the big schemes in the 50s at Sandy and Potters Bar / Hadley Wood and (I think) Langley Jn. There’s more realignments as well, but I don’t have the details.

Yes some were ‘compulsory’, but then so are a significant proportion of those in Germany / Switzerland, simply because the old route is life expired (particularly for some tunnels).

As for the scores of reopened lines etc, I have posted these twice before elsewhere.

 

[AndrewE]

Number of extra trains that can be run on the ECML by doubling Welwyn Viaduct and tunnels?

None.

What? Given that the viaduct is a 2-track pinch-point at the end of a 4-track main line and then there's a lot of 3-track "main line" going north from there to Peterborough (at least) I don't see how you can justify that. Compare it with the WCML: 4 tracks to Rugby, then mostly multiple-track Trent Valley to Stafford, plus 2 tracks via Coventry and then 4 from Stechford to Bushbury, then 4 from Stafford again. Double track northbound only from Winsford Jct, (165 miles?) compared with the ECML: about 20 miles to Welwyn.

 

[Ianno87]

What? Given that the viaduct is a 2-track pinch-point at the end of a 4-track main line and then there's a lot of 3-track "main line" going north from there to Peterborough (at least) I don't see how you can justify that. Compare it with the WCML: 4 tracks to Rugby, then mostly multiple-track Trent Valley to Stafford, plus 2 tracks via Coventry and then 4 from Stechford to Bushbury, then 4 from Stafford again. Double track northbound only from Winsford Jct, (165 miles?) compared with the ECML: about 20 miles to Welwyn.

Because the services that weave Slow>Fast>Slow at Welwyn (that seemingly consume a potential Fast Line path) are basically using capacity that otherwise gets lost futher north on two track sections due to different stopping patterns (or for other reasons - such as a path lost by a Stevenage stop on the Fast Lines)

 

[AndrewE]

Because the services that weave Slow>Fast>Slow at Welwyn (that seemingly consume a potential Fast Line path) are basically using capacity that otherwise gets lost further north on two track sections due to different stopping patterns (or for other reasons - such as a path lost by a Stevenage stop on the Fast Lines)

...And as I said, why not expand the EC so-called ML into a proper 4-track main line then?

 

[Bald Rick]

What? Given that the viaduct is a 2-track pinch-point at the end of a 4-track main line and then there's a lot of 3-track "main line" going north from there to Peterborough (at least) I don't see how you can justify that. Compare it with the WCML: 4 tracks to Rugby, then mostly multiple-track Trent Valley to Stafford, plus 2 tracks via Coventry and then 4 from Stechford to Bushbury, then 4 from Stafford again. Double track northbound only from Winsford Jct, (165 miles?) compared with the ECML: about 20 miles to Welwyn.

...And as I said, why not expand the EC so-called ML into a proper 4-track main line then?

Where would the southbound extra trains go to when they get to Finsbury Park? (Assuming there was a path for them to get there in the first place).

 

[AndrewE]

Where would the southbound extra trains go to when they get to Finsbury Park? (Assuming there was a path for them to get there in the first place).

Well I would have thought a 12-platform terminus could manage the arrivals from a 4-track throat, even if there are more lines a bit further out. Aren't there some more destinations for up trains too? Moorgate, Horsham, Brighton?

 

[Bald Rick]

Well I would have thought a 12-platform terminus could manage the arrivals from a 4-track throat, even if there are more lines a bit further out. Aren't there some more destinations for up trains too? Moorgate, Horsham, Brighton?

Soon to be 11 platforms but that is splitting hairs. And you’d be surprised how full they are.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Dr. Beeching had left B. R. long before 1967 so don't blame him. Does the route between Harrogate and Thirsk still exist or has it been built on?

You should disregard deltic08's spin, the line is completely blocked in the Ripon area itself, firstly by the Ripon by-pass and then at the former station site which has a small industrial estate built on it. It would certainly be possible to reinstate from Starbeck to a new station site on the south-eastern edge of Ripon, and I think it is a good idea, but anything else would be far too expensive.

 

[Ianno87]

...And as I said, why not expand the EC so-called ML into a proper 4-track main line then?

Just an idea, but could you just save some hassle and build two new tracks throughout between London and somewhere just south of York? Possibly at a higher speed than the current ECML?