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Shapps to reverse Beeching cuts

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Grumpy Git

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All we need to do is elect Tory MP's in all 650 seats and the jobs a good 'un. Railways for everyone!
 
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Aictos

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Rather then reopening all those lines closed under Beeching, surely it’s more important to get on with upgrading the existing network and electrifying more of the UK network?

Yes there are some lines that shouldn’t have closed eg Oxford to Cambridge, Lewes to Uckfield, Three Bridges to East Grinstead but there are some lines which were closed which was the right decision at the time.
 

yorksrob

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Many closed railways will have a BCR, well over 2, (minimum for rail)when social and economic factors are accounted for.
Currently the Oxford -Cambs expressway has a BCR of 1.2 , east west rail 7.6 , witney Oxford 2.2 ( both rail and busway ).
It is not a matter of magic money trees, it’s how you choose to spend the existing capital budgets.
I rather think the £8bn expressway, which has zero public support ( and is a political liability), could be better directed effectively to other projects.
The latest costings are about 100% up on initial estimates, pushing the BCR to .6 now.

Given that both an expressway and a railway involve building a long line of infrastructure, someone needs to be asking why the BCR is so low. If it's down to exhorbitant costs for the railway, these need to be attacked. Alternatively, does the calculation flatter motor transport too readily.
 

HowardGWR

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That's lovely but how does it form part of any Oxford-Cambridge route, whether road or rail? It seems perpendicular.
Perhaps he thinks they will use Motorail to go between Northampton and MH? I doubt he would be more than vaguely aware of where these places are. When Ken Clarke did his stint as Transport minister, he said it was like one long geography lesson.
 

NorthernSpirit

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Yes, let's scrap HS2 and use the money saved to reopen branch lines in marginal constituencies! I'd vote for that. ;)

What's the chance that it'll be the closed lines in Conservative constituancies first? I wouldn't say no to the Ryburn Valley Line between Rishworth and Sowerby Bridge being reopened since that is in the Calder Valley constituancy currently represented by Conservative MP Craig Whittaker.
 

plarailfan

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The trouble is, railway schemes and projects quickly add up to costing £ billions. The Skipton to Colne route has been put forward for re-opening for at least twenty years, without anything physical actually happening on the ground. All the money for railways seems to be going on HS2, Crossrail and the Trans-Pennine route upgrade at the moment.
I hope some lost lines are rebuilt eventually, but I think the NHS and schools, etc, will be lobbying for funding as they seem to have various problems at the moment. Some, uninformed / non rail user members of, "Joe public" probably think that railways should look after themselves through the fares they collect.....
 

Kite159

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"We will form a committee to look into it"

Followed a couple years later of
"No business case due to the costs of bringing the line back"
 

Kingham West

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Thought it was Labour who had "The Magic Money Tree".....now it appears to be the Tories.

Maybe they could spend some of this "magic" money on pensions instead.
View attachment 69803
Given that both an expressway and a railway involve building a long line of infrastructure, someone needs to be asking why the BCR is so low. If it's down to exhorbitant costs for the railway, these need to be attacked. Alternatively, does the calculation flatter motor transport too readily.
You may have misunderstood BCRs
The Rail Scheme is 7.6 that’s incredibly high, the road Scheme is 1.2 , appallingly low.
Rail is expensive, but road bids are now even worse than Rail, after the Aberdeen Western Bypass disaster , contract prices up 30%.
£560 million for the Birdlip Scheme south of Gloucester, estimated at £300m .
We could reopen a lot of Railway for that.
Rail offers a better return now , in a way it did not 10 years ago .
 

muddythefish

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I Remember David Cameron promising to re-open Bere Alston Tavistock Okehampton prior to the 2015 election, believe mr Shapps when it happens.

David Cameron - what happened to him? The Dawlish washout and Cameron's classic knee-jerk response which he had no intention of fulfilling shows that Shapps's comments need to be viewed with extreme caution.
 

yorksrob

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You may have misunderstood BCRs
The Rail Scheme is 7.6 that’s incredibly high, the road Scheme is 1.2 , appallingly low.
Rail is expensive, but road bids are now even worse than Rail, after the Aberdeen Western Bypass disaster , contract prices up 30%.
£560 million for the Birdlip Scheme south of Gloucester, estimated at £300m .
We could reopen a lot of Railway for that.
Rail offers a better return now , in a way it did not 10 years ago .

My apologies - I'm so used to it being the other way round !
 

Bevan Price

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Yes - some closed lines should perhaps be reinstated. But first, he should reverse the cancellation of electrification projects and instruct senior DfT staff that long-term consequences are much more important than short-term capital costs.....
 

underbank

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New lines, stations and re-openings will have a bigger effect on more people than just improving/electrifying existing lines. More people will be attracted to the railways (which is the whole point) by a new line or station than by electrifying an existing line, or straightening a curve etc. If they are serious about getting people out of cars and onto the railways, they need new lines/stations.
 

johnnychips

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^Yes, but that’s no good if the new line can’t arrive at its terminus because there aren’t extra tracks or the junctions and curves haven’t been straightened etc. The often unnoticed modifications can often deliver great benefits. Unfortunately they aren’t vote-winners.
 

Dr Hoo

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You may have misunderstood BCRs
The Rail Scheme is 7.6 that’s incredibly high, the road Scheme is 1.2 , appallingly low.
Rail is expensive, but road bids are now even worse than Rail, after the Aberdeen Western Bypass disaster , contract prices up 30%.
£560 million for the Birdlip Scheme south of Gloucester, estimated at £300m .
We could reopen a lot of Railway for that.
Rail offers a better return now , in a way it did not 10 years ago .
It would still be helpful to be clearer what the ‘Rail Scheme’ and the ‘Road Scheme’ actually comprise.
Is there perhaps a document that you can link to?
 

paul1609

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Exactly Rob,

And I'd rather have a definite yes to even something really simple like wiring Man Vic to Stalybridge, or on a grander scale 15/16 at Man Picc, rather than wibble about even more studies into reopening closed branch lines.
Is Central Manchester a Tory marginal?
 

underbank

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Is Central Manchester a Tory marginal?

Not just Central Manchester. The entire North West is blighted by poor public transport, poor roads, etc. Any politician who promises improvements will get lots of votes in most Northern constituencies. I've just spent all afternoon travelling just 60 miles - at least 3 hours due to stop/start traffic. And no, I couldn't have done that journey by train. That was from South Manchester to Lancashire, nothing to do with Central Manchester at all. A good start would be running trains to/from Manchester airport to start earlier and finish later in the day - airports aren't 9-5 operations yet the rail system seems to think they are!
 

johnnychips

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^ but, going back to the original topic, there aren’t many marginal seats in the NW that would benefit from proposed Beeching reopenings. I am not a psephologist, but if there are many marginal seats in the NW, I would probably be trying to promise better and more frequent and punctual trains, as you say (if, indeed, that were shown to be a major concern of the voters there - which I doubt. But given the method of our electoral system, just a thousand people attracted to this out of a constituency of 80 000 might swing it).
 
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Didn't Shapps' predecessor promise the same thing two years ago? It turned out that he really only meant that there should be a feasibility study of Skipton - Colne reopening.....
 

The Ham

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The trouble is, railway schemes and projects quickly add up to costing £ billions. The Skipton to Colne route has been put forward for re-opening for at least twenty years, without anything physical actually happening on the ground. All the money for railways seems to be going on HS2, Crossrail and the Trans-Pennine route upgrade at the moment.
I hope some lost lines are rebuilt eventually, but I think the NHS and schools, etc, will be lobbying for funding as they seem to have various problems at the moment. Some, uninformed / non rail user members of, "Joe public" probably think that railways should look after themselves through the fares they collect.....

Most of the money isn't being spent on HS2 and Crossrail, as the following graphic from the Network Rail accounts shows:

View media item 3339
Now to be fair some of the enhancement spending is spent on Crossrail, but relatively little of the circa £20bn.

It also shows that, even as spending on HS2 had started and has been increasing year on year, spending on enhancements on the existing network has been increasing.

Of course if anyone has any evidence to support the view that the rail spending is all going on HS2 and/or Crossrail then I would be grateful if they could point me in the direction of this evidence.
 

johnnychips

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Didn't Shapps' predecessor promise the same thing two years ago? It turned out that he really only meant that there should be a feasibility study of Skipton - Colne reopening.....
Quite. The proposed study gets the headlines, fanfare and publicity. The results saying either there are no benefits, or if there are but it’s on a list, less so.
 

Bald Rick

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These announcements are becoming a bit like the announcement of the first cuckoo in Spring, as regular as clockwork everytime we get a new transport Minister.

We've heard it all so many times before.

I'm really only interested in an announcement of a funded programme of reopenings.

Indeed. The previous SoS made a similar announcement. Others prior to him have as well.

To set a few expectations, no Government will ever commit to a ‘funded programme’ until they are clear what that programme would cost. To do that needs development funding, and to get development funding someone needs to demonstrate a case at strategic level. This gets a ‘decision to initiate’ to start work. That has not happened.


Feel free to re-direct me to a specific East-West Rail thread but does anyone reasonably know how much the full scheme, including right through to Cambridge with effectively wholly new construction probably from somewhere west of Bedford, including new or re-modelled stations or interchanges there and around Sandy, 100mph, electrification, freight loops, station car parks and so forth is going to cost yet?
I wasn’t even aware that the final route has been nailed down.
And this is supposedly one of the most ‘advanced’ ‘schemes’.

The Rail Scheme is 7.6 that’s incredibly high, the road Scheme is 1.2 , appallingly low.

It would still be helpful to be clearer what the ‘Rail Scheme’ and the ‘Road Scheme’ actually comprise.
Is there perhaps a document that you can link to?

The East - West Expressway Strategic Outline Business Case is here:
https://assets.publishing.service.g...le/739893/strategic-outline-business-case.pdf

Because most of the work has already taken place or is in hand, this business case is actually for Oxford - MK. It has a BCR range of 1.1 - 1.3 depending on the route option chosen.


The East - West Rail Phase 2 (Western section) Business case (Aylesbury / Bicester to Bedford) is here:
https://assets.publishing.service.g...or-east-west-rail-western-section-phase-2.pdf

The BCR ranges from 1.3 - 2.4, which depends on the assumptions about housing, employment and economic growth. On the baseline forecasts, as used in the Highway scheme, it is 1.3.

Therefore, on a comparable basis, the projects have similar BCRs.
 
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cle

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Apart from wires, that is exactly what Bicester Bletchley will be.
It was downgraded to 90mph (and no wires), but also capacity reduced by 1-2tph from what was proposed just prior. So, no.
 

edwin_m

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to be fair, you could tunnel under the houses or route around them
That would be interesting where the former trackbed disappears at a bridge abutment on the side of the road next to Market Harborough station, heading at first or second floor level for several blocks the flats on the others side. I wonder who those people vote for.

A lot of money has also just been spent re-aligning the station so it blocks the alignment of the Northampton line.
 

MarlowDonkey

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Closer reading suggests he wants to look at reopening lines rather than anything concrete.

Fifty or more years of using the abandoned routes for other purposes would rather suggest that the only relatively easy redevelopments would be to reopen freight only lines to passengers ( if they go anywhere useful) and to reinstate capacity, perhaps by redoubling single lines. restoring double tracks to triple or quadruple and reinstating local stations where they were closed on main lines.
 

Dr Hoo

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Thanks to Bald Rick for lining up some weekend reading! I wonder what the Cambridge chapters will say at some point in the future.
 
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