(Entirely) new railway lines

[BritishGuy54]

Some that others said (in some cases) that I like
- Heathrow going out west
- Bedford to Cambridge (EWR)
- HS2 225mph and NPR 140mph (both in full)
- DLR towards Walthamstow calling at Stratford Int, Maryland, Cathall, Leytonstone, Whipps Cross and Walthamstow Central.
- HS3/4/5 (you choose) 140/186mph PBO - CBG - SSD - SFA - Euston Cross - OOC - Heathrow - RDG - BRI - CDF

Some suggested by HSUK which I’d like to see as parts of HS2 Phase 3a/b - 186mph?
- Beaumont Hill (Darlington) to Ferryhill, completelt straight
- Tursdale to Birtley using first bit of Leamside then new route across to Birtley
- Gateshead to Glasgow, via Underground High Speed NCL, EDB and GLC stations. Segregated from everything else, for HS2 and NPR.

Nice ideas. Here’s some ideas I thought of:

- DLR towards Romford calling at:
Gallions Reach
Beckton Riverside
Creekmouth
Barking Riverside (Overground)
Goresbrook
Dagenham Dock (c2c)
Dagenham Park
Dagenham East (District)
Eastbrook
Becontree Heath
Crowlands
Romford (TfL Rail, Overground, Greater Anglia).
Trains would go between Romford and Canning Town.

- Overground takeover of the GWR service between West Ealing and Greenford.

- Greater Anglia new branch between Chelmsford and Maldon, calling at:
Chelmsford
Great Baddow
Danbury
Hazeleigh
Maldon

- LNWR new branch between Leighton Buzzard and Luton, calling at:
Leighton Buzzard
Briggington
Stanbridge
Houghton Regis
Dunstable
Challney
Luton

 

[southern442]

Greengauge (the High Speed lobbying organisation) was recommending a new line from central London - Stratford - Stansted Airport - over to the GEML, which would speed up journeys to the airport and on to East Anglia and provide an alternative route towards London south of Colchester.

I had an idea for something like that myself a while back, following the M11 up and then after stansted following the old railway along to Colchester.

Nice ideas. Here’s some ideas I thought of:

- DLR towards Romford calling at:
Gallions Reach
Beckton Riverside
Creekmouth
Barking Riverside (Overground)
Goresbrook
Dagenham Dock (c2c)
Dagenham Park
Dagenham East (District)
Eastbrook
Becontree Heath
Crowlands
Romford (TfL Rail, Overground, Greater Anglia).
Trains would go between Romford and Canning Town.

This idea I believe is similar to one that was proposed in a '2050 tube map' a while back, so there might be someone somewhere thinking along these lines.

- Overground takeover of the GWR service between West Ealing and Greenford.

Not only is this not an entirely new railway line, it's not even an old railway line, this line exists and is open! Please read the original post

(with that said, I think this is probably going to turn out an accurate prediction - I suspect TfL may take it over in a similar vein to Romford - Upminster)

- Greater Anglia new branch between Chelmsford and Maldon, calling at:
Chelmsford
Great Baddow
Danbury
Hazeleigh
Maldon

Not sure what the topography of the area is like but this seems to be a fairly built-up corridor so it might end up being well used.

- LNWR new branch between Leighton Buzzard and Luton, calling at:
Leighton Buzzard
Briggington
Stanbridge
Houghton Regis
Dunstable
Challney
Luton

As for this one, this is a closed railway line that would reopen (unless you have a case for using a new line instead?)

 

[d70g]

Glasgow Queen St to Glasgow Airport, via Central, SEC, Partick, QEUH, Braehead and Renfrew. All tunnelled, of course.

And if the Crayola packet isn't empty... then overground to Paisley, Barrhead, Newton Mearns, Eaglesham, East Kilbride, Hamilton, Motherwell, Bellshill (existing line), then a new chord up to the M8 before a stop somewhere in Glasgow's East End and a tunnel back into Queen St lower low level.

Throw in a Airport to Clydebank spur for good measure or lolz.

 

[Irascible]

How about a large bunch of small stretches of new line to resite awkwardly sited stations? there must be too many to list here...

 

[billio]

Reconnecting Wetherby to the rail network is probably going to be a new formation following the A1M

I think a line to Wetherby would be better as a tram route.
1. Use the old trackbed from Wetherby as much as possible to around Scarcroft or Thorner
2. Cut across to near Shadwell and Monkswood on a new alignment
3. Follow the spare land next to the A58 and then the central reservation to Harehills Corner
4. Then either
a. Tunnel past St James Hospital into the city centre and the station.
b. Street run from Harehills past the hospital to Quarry Hill and then to the station.
5. If the plans for Bradford - Leeds NPR are acceptable and take over the Halifax services then I would extend the tram line to the existing Leeds - Bradford line via Bramley. A sort of Leeds Crossrail.

I would second some form of light rail link Bolton-Bury-Rochdale.

I think re-opening Rochdale - Bury - Bolton as a heavy rail link could provide much more than a tram service in that it could provide a useful Liverpool - Yorkshire route that by-passes Manchester. Tram trains could still be run from the Bury Metrolink line to Bolton which I think would attract quite a bit of traffic from the Metrolink line to Bolton.

However, if this topic is to be discussed in depth it needs a separate thread as it impacts on a nuber of lines apart from the re-opened link..

All I would observe about the comments on this thread is how difficult it seems to be to justify the opening of a new or re-instated line that would link together at least hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps millions, with a faster train service when compared with re-opening a line through open countryside to place with a few thousand people. That's not to say I don't want a reopened line in North Devon but the priorities don't seem to be right.


And back to the topic of completely new lines, I would, shock horror, extend the line from Windermere to at least Keswick.

 

[swt_passenger]

Did it ever explain how it got into central London? I thought it didn’t come further in than Stratford, and anyone who knows Stratford knows that to build a new station there means demolishing a very large amount of real estate.

It was probably going to cross the Thames and link up with BML2...

 

[gingertom]

A new high-speed line from Rutherglen to Carstairs - for Avanti WC, XC, LNER and TPX services - is much needed to free up capacity on the congested Lanarkshire commuter routes and also complement any future extensions of HS2 northwards. One question is how that could be achieved without bypassing Motherwell - a notorious pinch point, but also an important interchange station between long distance and local services.

similarly a new high speed line from Carstairs to Edinburgh Waverley. Flying junction with the existing lines at Mid Calder then dive into tunnel from near the city bypass into the city, with new underground stations at Haymarket and Waverley for easy interchange. Said tunnel also just happens to point in the general direction of Kirkcaldy.....

I'll get my hat.

 

[Ianno87]

similarly a new high speed line from Carstairs to Edinburgh Waverley. Flying junction with the existing lines at Mid Calder then dive into tunnel from near the city bypass into the city, with new underground stations at Haymarket and Waverley for easy interchange. Said tunnel also just happens to point in the general direction of Kirkcaldy.....

I'll get my hat.

If you were really crayinging, you wouldn't go anywhere near Carstairs when approaching from the south - you'd deviate off the WCML somewhere around Lamington and 'cut the corner' to get into Edinburgh.

 

[gingertom]

If you were really crayinging, you wouldn't go anywhere near Carstairs when approaching from the south - you'd deviate off the WCML somewhere around Lamington and 'cut the corner' to get into Edinburgh.

If we get the crayons fully out we wouldn't be using the WCML at all but a purpose-built HS line.

 

[Journeyman]

A metre gauge steam railway like the one in the Harz from Fort William to Inverness.

 

[Irascible]

A metre gauge steam railway like the one in the Harz from Fort William to Inverness.

You say that... but I wonder what a km of modern metre-gauge ( RhB-style ) line costs. I think the fastest they get up to is 90kmh, so certainly room for terrain avoidance...

 

[Journeyman]

You say that... but I wonder what a km of modern metre-gauge ( RhB-style ) line costs. I think the fastest they get up to is 90kmh, so certainly room for terrain avoidance...

Haha. It's obviously not a serious suggestion, but I'd love to see a heavy-duty narrow gauge steam line in the Highlands! Me and a former work colleague got the crayons out once and came up with quite an ambitious network...

 

[southern442]

Haha. It's obviously not a serious suggestion, but I'd love to see a heavy-duty narrow gauge steam line in the Highlands! Me and a former work colleague got the crayons out once and came up with quite an ambitious network...

Well I'm told that if you go properly exploring there's still a few bits of the old one intact!

 

[Horizon22]

Already on these forums but a Heathrow Western Link from West Drayton / Iver and Southern Link down to somewhere like Staines.

 

[Irascible]

Already on these forums but a Heathrow Western Link from West Drayton / Iver and Southern Link down to somewhere like Staines.

That is mostly reusing the old branch, no?

 

[Horizon22]

That is mostly reusing the old branch, no?

What branch? There's never been a railway going through Heathrow in the areas I've mentioned. On the Western Link side yes possibly usage of the old Poyle link, but I imagine a whole new alignment.

Most of the country was connected to the railway at some point of time so this will be hard to find genuinely new links. The only parts might be new towns or areas with significant growth but even then they are either connected already to the railway as extensions or are planned to be (like Cambourne).

 

[southern442]

Most of the country was connected to the railway at some point of time so this will be hard to find genuinely new links. The only parts might be new towns or areas with significant growth but even then they are either connected already to the railway as extensions or are planned to be (like Cambourne).

One think I haven't mentioned explicitly that I'd like to advocate for is rail links that go into the centre of New Towns. For example, we have a Livingston North and South, I think a new-build rail link should be perhaps one to Livingston Central, near the main shopping centre. The car-centered nature of new towns in the UK is very outdated, and having one station on the very edge of a large town, much like an airport, encourages leaving out train journeys for 'special occasions' and makes the idea of daily commuting by rail unrealistic, so perhaps more centrally-located stations like this could do some good.

 

[Greybeard33]

How about a new 125mph line straight up the Lune valley from Lancaster, rejoining the WCML at Low Gill? This would bypass the slow, twisty part of the WCML between Oxenholme and Low Gill and so improve England - Scotland journey times, particularly for non-tilt HS2 CC trains. (It might be possible to reuse parts of the disused branch line alignments at either end of this route, but there has never been a through line all along the valley).

 

[30907]

How about a new 125mph line straight up the Lune valley from Lancaster, rejoining the WCML at Low Gill? This would bypass the slow, twisty part of the WCML between Oxenholme and Low Gill and so improve England - Scotland journey times, particularly for non-tilt HS2 CC trains.

An intriguing thought, though I am not sure how much time it would save.
It would be very difficult to follow the valley at the Lancaster end, so I would start at Bolton-le-Sands and curve south of Carnforth (as the canal does), past Capernwray and Docker to the Lune.
A slight problem is that you would have to offer Kirkby Lonsdale a station (and possibly a Sedbergh Parkway).

 

[adrock1976]

My attempts at crayoning a new line would be the unbuilt section of the ex Oxford & Rugby (present day Crosscounty and London Marylebone - Birmingham) just north of Fenny Compton to Rugby.

Although looking at Google Maps to see what the alignment would have been with there appearing to be no large residential areas, if this section is built, this would mean that the Southampton - Bescot/North West freight traffic would be able to use this new line and avoid the need to weave across the whole station area at Coventry.

I recall The Planner or Bald Rick mentioning a long time ago that normally new freight only long lines do not have good returns cost wise, but would this one be helpful as it would help reduce delays in and around the Coventry/Birmingham area?

 

[TheSel]

Whilst I am in no way endorsing this, it does make me wonder that surely somewhere down the line there must have been a proposal like this before?

Indeed. In 1863 a Bill was submitted to parliament, one of the purposes of which was to create such a line, but on an embankment, between West Kirby and Mostyn.

More about this in 'The Wirral Railway and its predecessors' by T B Maund ISBN 9781899889 38 9

 

[The Planner]

My attempts at crayoning a new line would be the unbuilt section of the ex Oxford & Rugby (present day Crosscounty and London Marylebone - Birmingham) just north of Fenny Compton to Rugby.

Although looking at Google Maps to see what the alignment would have been with there appearing to be no large residential areas, if this section is built, this would mean that the Southampton - Bescot/North West freight traffic would be able to use this new line and avoid the need to weave across the whole station area at Coventry.

I recall The Planner or Bald Rick mentioning a long time ago that normally new freight only long lines do not have good returns cost wise, but would this one be helpful as it would help reduce delays in and around the Coventry/Birmingham area?

There are only delays if things go wrong. The trains themselves running on time are fine. It wouldn't be as many trains as you think either. Taking a random weekday its 16 trains. That is a lot of railway for 16 trains.

 

[Bald Rick]

My attempts at crayoning a new line would be the unbuilt section of the ex Oxford & Rugby (present day Crosscounty and London Marylebone - Birmingham) just north of Fenny Compton to Rugby.

Although looking at Google Maps to see what the alignment would have been with there appearing to be no large residential areas, if this section is built, this would mean that the Southampton - Bescot/North West freight traffic would be able to use this new line and avoid the need to weave across the whole station area at Coventry.

I recall The Planner or Bald Rick mentioning a long time ago that normally new freight only long lines do not have good returns cost wise, but would this one be helpful as it would help reduce delays in and around the Coventry/Birmingham area?

There are only delays if things go wrong. The trains themselves running on time are fine. It wouldn't be as many trains as you think either. Taking a random weekday its 16 trains. That is a lot of railway for 16 trains.

Also wouldn’t be much use for Bescot.

 

[BrianW]

Most of the country was connected to the railway at some point of time so this will be hard to find genuinely new links. The only parts might be new towns or areas with significant growth but even then they are either connected already to the railway as extensions or are planned to be (like Cambourne).

A lot of interesting 'ideas' here. I'm reminding myself of so many of those Victorian entrepreneues/ developers/ promoters/ investors ... what evidence of demand did they have? It seems to me it's a combination of meeting demand where there is already overloading/ lack of capacity, perhaps by an alternative route; and creating new travel opportunities. For as long as public money and support are involved, that MUST be a consideration- new lines, grade separations, reopenings- and politics are unavoidable. Not all politicians are villains, they are there to represent and give voice for their constituents. Similarly 'planners; including rail planners seeking to get as large a 'pot' as possible and to use it to best effect. I understand there are 'formulae' (I hesitate to say algorithms) that would suggest the amount of traffic there might be between town A of population X with town B (pop Y) separated by distance (or time) Z. Factors in my mind would be New Towns (and similar big 'suburbs' or estates) created around the time of Beeching, deindustrialisation, airports and containerisation, and the death of the office and 'shopping'. There's also the issue of town 'boundaries' and 'parkways' etc...

 

[Bevan Price]

How about a new 125mph line straight up the Lune valley from Lancaster, rejoining the WCML at Low Gill? This would bypass the slow, twisty part of the WCML between Oxenholme and Low Gill and so improve England - Scotland journey times, particularly for non-tilt HS2 CC trains. (It might be possible to reuse parts of the disused branch line alignments at either end of this route, but there has never been a through line all along the valley).

No.
Divert the WCML at Oxenholme via Kendal & Windemere, with new section (much in tunnels) to rejoin WCML near Penrith..
(Old alignment retained for freight)

And as for Wetherby, mentioned elsewhere, how about totally new route, also partly in tunnel, Leeds - Wetherby - York. Potentially several miles shorter than route via Church Fenton, to be used by all express services, and frees some capacity between Leeds & Micklefield / Church Fenton for improved local services.

 

[adrock1976]

There are only delays if things go wrong. The trains themselves running on time are fine. It wouldn't be as many trains as you think either. Taking a random weekday its 16 trains. That is a lot of railway for 16 trains.

Also wouldn’t be much use for Bescot.

Thanks both of you.

 

[tbtc]

It's hard not to suggest routes that previously existed but on another thread I recently suggested:

• Chester le Street to Sunderland - down the Wear Valley - at the moment journeys from the south to Sunderland take about the same time via Newcastle or via Hartlepool but both are pretty slow compared to the way that the crow flies
• Wrexham to Crewe. The biggest place in north Wales (as the late merlodlliw used to remind us) has poor links to the east/ WCML - loads of connections at Crewe but those two dozen miles tend to take at least fifty minutes, sometimes well over an hour

Some of the ideas on here sound interesting but just because two places look big doesn't necessarily mean there's a lot of demand between them. For example, in West Yorkshire, Huddersfield, Bradford and Wakefield are all pretty big places but the Bradford - Huddersfield service and the Huddersfield - Wakefield service are both pretty lightly loaded - partly because (whilst they all have decent populations) there's not a huge amount in one place that the other one lacks - whereas the bigger city of Leeds does have attractions worth leaving your home town for.

For a transport corridor to work it sometimes needs an imbalance between the two places. Small town to big city might work well because there's a reason to leave the small town for jobs/ shops etc that only the big city can provide. Whereas medium sized town to medium sized town might not work because there's not a lot in one that the first place doesn't already have (why travel half an hour each way just to visit eh same range of shops that your town already has?). In other words, linking some orbital places sounds nice in theory but is there much actual demand? What is there in High Wycombe for people in Welwyn Garden City/ vice versa? (that's just using one of the "orbital" examples on this thread - not a dig at any one poster - just one example of the "linking two medium sized places where it's not obvious what flows there'd be)

 

[Glenn1969]

The Bradford- Huddersfield and Huddersfield- Wakefield lines both take the long way round which may make driving quicker. Bradford- Dewsbury and Dewsbury-Wakefield are also journeys for which rail currently makes littie or no sense

 

[Hardcastle]

If we get the crayons fully out we wouldn't be using the WCML at all but a purpose-built HS line.

Via Hawick of course (sarcastically)

 

[Greybeard33]

No.
Divert the WCML at Oxenholme via Kendal & Windemere, with new section (much in tunnels) to rejoin WCML near Penrith..
(Old alignment retained for freight)

High speed trains are good at climbing hills. Much cheaper to quadrify Shap than to tunnel underneath.