Rational justifications for keeping open lightly used lines

[yorksrob]

The highways guys very much do consider roads in isolation!

I await the list of highways closures then, in that case.

Oh no, there won't be, because roads aren't expected to generate farebox revenue.

 

[Bald Rick]

I await the list of highways closures then, in that case.

Oh no, there won't be, because roads aren't expected to generate farebox revenue.

There’s frequently permanent closures of smaller, lightly used roads.

If you want a big one, let’s go with the A14, Huntingdon.

 

[yorksrob]

There’s frequently permanent closures of smaller, lightly used roads.

If you want a big one, let’s go with the A14, Huntingdon.

According to Highways England, the old A14 is being converted for local journies:

Huntingdon - National Highways

Huntingdon

highwaysengland.co.uk

Hardly an equivalent to whole towns being deprived of their railway link.

On a personal level, if it's the viaduct over Huntingdon station that's going, I'll miss it as it was a bit of a landmark of the ECML.

 

[Bald Rick]

On a pwesonal level, if it's the viaduct over Huntingdon station that's going, I'll miss it as it was a bit of a landmark of the ECML.

Its gone!

 

[yorksrob]

Its gone!

Quite sad. Along with Mk3's.

Welcome to the modern era.

 

[Greybeard33]

...are you forgetting about the hourly Blackburn - Burnley - Rochdale - Manchester service (which could pick up some local stops in your example)?

No, but that service (which goes across Manchester all the way to Wigan) has only a few minutes recovery time at Blackburn. If you added four stops each way you would have to put an extra diagram into the circuit. Then the extra traincrew costs have gobbled up your savings - for the sake of stations that probably have lower footfall than the ones you are already proposing to close!

But, by what you're saying, there's no line that can be considered in isolation - even one with only a couple of passengers can be explained away on the grounds that "you need to look at the bigger picture" and all of that, everything can be explained away.

We need billions of pounds in subsidy to keep the railway functioning (even at times of record passenger numbers), but no cuts can be countenanced.

On the contrary, cuts can most certainly be countenanced, but the cuts have to be to services, not just pieces of infrastructure considered in isolation.

In this example, your average 28 passengers are likely made up of over 100 on a few trains and one man and his dog on some of the others. So you might find there would be bigger savings from reducing the Preston - Colne service to peak only rather than shortening it to Preston to Burnley all day. And almost certainly, there would be much bigger savings (total operating cost minus lost revenue) from binning Preston to Colne completely.

Although the costs to Network Rail of keeping a short, lightly used, passenger only, branch open are not insignificant, I believe the TOC costs (traincrew pay, fuel, maintenance) of running a 2-car DMU to carry mainly fresh air are what absorbs most of the subsidy.

This is very different from a long rural branch that requires frequent repairs due to flooding, storm damage or coastal erosion, with difficult access for maintenance. Burnley to Colne is little more than a long siding.

 

[quantinghome]

We need billions of pounds in subsidy to keep the railway functioning (even at times of record passenger numbers), but no cuts can be countenanced.

What proportion of those billions in subsidy do you think would be saved by closing lightly used sections of the network?

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Meanwhile, in America...

Cash-Strapped Towns Are Un-Paving Roads They Can't Afford to Fix

Rural areas all over the country are embracing this kind of strategic retreat.

www.wired.com

To some extent, highway authorities here in the UK are giving up on aspects of road maintenance too. I spent a couple of days last week putting up cycle route signs around a nearby rural county, and the state of their existing signage was frankly shocking - most of it looked like it hadn't been maintained in 20+ years. Another county experimented with a policy of managed retreat a while back - putting up signs saying "Danger, Failed Road".

The difference between road and rail here is that rail is much more binary: a railway is either open or closed. You can't put up a sign at the start of the Conwy Valley saying "Danger, Failed Line", and if the 150 hits a washed-out bit of track halfway down, that's the passengers' lookout.

But does it have to be binary? Should we be looking at converting more lines to a Light Railway standard, with lightweight rolling stock and cheaper signalling? That, to me, is a more interesting question than simply "should we keep these lines open".

 

[zwk500]

The difference between road and rail here is that rail is much more binary: a railway is either open or closed. You can't put up a sign at the start of the Conwy Valley saying "Danger, Failed Line", and if the 150 hits a washed-out bit of track halfway down, that's the passengers' lookout.

But does it have to be binary? Should we be looking at converting more lines to a Light Railway standard, with lightweight rolling stock and cheaper signalling? That, to me, is a more interesting question than simply "should we keep these lines open".

I don't see how converting to Light Rail standard isn't still a binary open/closed situation. It's not like the driver's going to make an announcement for all passengers to get off and carry the unit over the next gap. I agree though, opportunities to reduce running costs should be explored if it means locally significant but lightly-trafficked routes could reduce the required subsidy/avoid closure.

 

[HSTEd]

As I said earlier, I think light rail makes more sense as a means to get higher service frequencies to try and drive patronage up.

If for example, the line between Colne and Rose Grove was converted to use Citadis Compacts or similar very small trams.
We could cut travel times, drive up service densities and cut costs such that we have a chance that patronage and revenue might climb to the point where the line is not such a drain on the taxpayer.

Tram trains help ofcourse, because they allow through services to be retained etc.

(I think the Clitheroe line is probably a better example though)

 

[A0wen]

Hardly an equivalent to whole towns being deprived of their railway link.

A pretty silly statement that, because most of the roads into towns long pre-date the railways by virtue of having been developed from the turnpikes which existed for hundreds of years before the railways were invented.

If you closed all the roads into a town, even if you left a railway in place, you'd basically isolate the town and probably kill it completely, because it would be totally impractical to provide even basic services.

 

[quantinghome]

A pretty silly statement that, because most of the roads into towns long pre-date the railways by virtue of having been developed from the turnpikes which existed for hundreds of years before the railways were invented.

If you closed all the roads into a town, even if you left a railway in place, you'd basically isolate the town and probably kill it completely, because it would be totally impractical to provide even basic services.

Turnpike trusts started just over a hundred years before railways and only really got going in a big way in the 1750s.

Turnpikes went into sharp decline with the coming of the railways and were eventually taken over by local government, requiring local taxpayer subsidy for their maintenance and renewal, as they do to this very day. I daresay very few roads run at a profit. Yet somehow that's OK whereas unprofitable railways are bad and must be closed.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

I don't see how converting to Light Rail standard isn't still a binary open/closed situation. It's not like the driver's going to make an announcement for all passengers to get off and carry the unit over the next gap. I agree though, opportunities to reduce running costs should be explored if it means locally significant but lightly-trafficked routes could reduce the required subsidy/avoid closure.

Exactly. The choice shouldn't be "open or closed", it could be "open as heavy rail; open as some form of light rail with standards more fitting to the levels of use; or closed".

 

[zwk500]

Exactly. The choice shouldn't be "open or closed", it could be "open as heavy rail; open as some form of light rail with standards more fitting to the levels of use; or closed".

What savings would you look to make? Reduction in linespeed or Route availability? And what kind of lower-spec signalling do you think would be appropriate? These are the kind of parameters we need to be able to judge whether a line could be kept open as a feeder route or isn't worth the time and cost to keep going.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What savings would you look to make? Reduction in linespeed or Route availability? And what kind of lower-spec signalling do you think would be appropriate? These are the kind of parameters we need to be able to judge whether a line could be kept open as a feeder route or isn't worth the time and cost to keep going.

One thing that can be done by way of a light rail conversion is conversion of level crossings to road junctions, with the tram driver expected to slow to ensure safe passage.

Another is that tram crew tend to be cheaper than mainline traincrew.

Another is that you can get other benefits cheaper, e.g. adding a station is much, much cheaper because things like at-grade foot crossings are allowable - no lifts to put in and maintain.

Another is that you can potentially run on sight (though not on single-track lines), requiring no actual signalling, just road-style traffic lights at any conflict point.

Quite a few benefits.