New Brighton Mainline???

[Chrisgr31]

Living in Crowborough I cannot think of anyone I know who works in Lewes or Brighton, there are few who work in Hailsham and more that work in Crawley/Gatwick. Many work in Tunbridge Wells but most are self employed working from home.

The 29 bus certainly provides a good service to Brighton and with the cost of parking tends to be my preference if going there, but I haven't been to central Brighton for years.

Its difficult to tell what the current state of passenger loading is. Certainly there are now often free seats between Oxted and East Croydon and often beyond East Croydon, and the car park at Crowborough has significantly more free spaces at 7.15 then it did.

I am not sure if the seats issue is caused by the longer trains. I suspect that the strike causes some people who catch my train to catch the earlier one, and they have stuck with it as with the longer services it has seats.

However I suspect a bigger issue is that the disruption from the strikes, and the regular unit and network failures has caused passengers to either work more from home or to travel via the BML or Hastings lines.

Reliability is a big issue on the line, probably the biggest. Passenger loadings before the recent strikes probably demonstrates why single tracking the line was the wrong decision, and it would have been worth investing in it. However I struggle to believe that passenger flows south justify a re-opening to Lewes. However it would be worth looking at as a diversionary route for the BML albeit an expensive option!

 

[tbtc]

This is a really tough one.

Some new lines make sense to me (HS2, Dawlish Avoiding Route, Crossrail, Ordsall Chord, a branch into “new towns” like Skelmersdale).

Reopening some old lines makes sense to me (Ashington, Portishead, Gunnislake to Tavistock, Thornton Junction to Methil).

Many old lines discussed on this Forum seem to have fairly threadbare cases to me (often the ones in relatively empty parts of the country that don’t link a sizeable population to a nearby big city – seem to be more about nostalgic trips through quaint countryside - usually these tend to involve rural bits of Devon/ Cumbria/ North Yorkshire/ Galloway/ Aberystwyth – you can probably guess the usual suspects…).

But this scheme… it’s one that I’ve always struggled with. There are actual problems that need solving here, though I remain to be convinced that this project is the answer to them.

The “BML” is certainly a fairly busy rail corridor. And whilst we talk about the “resilience” of having a diversionary route for a couple of weekends a year (or the ability to take a handful of freight trains a week off a busy junction) as justification for spending tens of millions of pounds on reinstating some line that closed in the 1960s, we don’t talk enough about relieving pressure on congested corridors like the BML.

Would this actually relieve much pressure on the Brighton line though? Nobody is going to use it for London to Brighton journeys – it’d never compete. What percentage of passengers on services from central London towards Croydon are doing to places that an Uckfield – Lewes link would serve better?

If the Uckfield services are already at bursting point at rush hour then where is the spare capacity on that existing line? There certainly aren’t additional paths through East Croydon (to permit more services)!

Do you divert existing East Sussex – London services (Eastbourne etc) via Uckfield? In which case you are leaving some stations (Plumpton etc) without their long established London services and removing a number of other links (e.g. East Sussex to Gatwick).

It’s probably telling that most of the fascination on here with “BML2” is the idea of re-opening the Uckfield to Lewes line (Nostalgia + Beeching Grievances + Countryside = Win!), rather than the complicated/ busy/ expensive bit at the London end.

The London section has always been the problem for BML2 – the smallish simplish extension from Uckfield to Lewes tied to the Blue Sky Thinking ideas for tunnels from the Croydon area into central London/ a new line from south London towards Docklands/ Stratford/ taking over the Hayes branch/ closing part of Croydon Tramlink etc).

If anything, a mega tunnel from central London to somewhere in the Redhill area is at least tackling a big problem properly (you’ll never solve East Croydon with tinkering)…

…it’d take many years, it’d take billions of pounds, but it’d improve millions of journeys and free up lots of valuable capacity (as well as using up lots of crayons)…

…but I can understand why a lot of enthusiasts are more interested in the “tail” of a scenic line following an old alignment from Uckfield – Lewes than the messy awkwardness of building a tunnel on a new alignment under London!

If you've got some money spare then electrify the Uckfield branch so that we Oop North can get our hands on those Turbostars (that currently spent long periods on electrified tracks)

 

[duffield]

This is a really tough one.

Would this actually relieve much pressure on the Brighton line though? Nobody is going to use it for London to Brighton journeys – it’d never compete.

It could compete on price instead of speed.

There are a number of part of the country where you have the choice of fast/expensive versus slower/cheaper to reach the same destination, and that seems to work OK.

Example: (Anytime single)
Birmingham New Street -> Euston 07:10 - duration 1:21, price £88
Birmingham Moor Street -> Marylebone 06:55 - duration 1:39, price £69

People in lower paying jobs or with no family commitments (for example) may want/need to trade 20mins extra journey time for a £20 saving.

 

[JamesRowden]

Do you divert existing East Sussex – London services (Eastbourne etc) via Uckfield? In which case you are leaving some stations (Plumpton etc) without their long established London services and removing a number of other links (e.g. East Sussex to Gatwick).

My suggestion to produce the biggest business case would be build a double track electrified line between Tunbridge Wells and just east of Lewes encompassing the Eridge-Uckfield section. A three way junction with the East Coastway east of Lewes would allow services to run to both Brighton or Eastbourne without reversing. The existing London-Eastbourne-Hastings services could be kept as they are with services which presently terminate at Uckfield and Tunbridge Wells extended to the coast.

This line would massively improve the rail connections between West Kent and Brighton and the West Sussex coast.

People who presently use the Uckfield services might switch to the services via Tunbridge Wells which presently have more spare capacity than the average peak Brighton Mainline service.

People living close to London Road, Moulsecomb and Falmer stations might like the ability to travel to London on a through service.

The service level on the line might make it an attractive area to commute to a variety of locations from, or even a good place to set up a business.

 

[Pinza-C55]

However I struggle to believe that passenger flows south justify a re-opening to Lewes. However it would be worth looking at as a diversionary route for the BML albeit an expensive option!

People said that about the Borders Line and Alloa.