Inspired by this post:
This multimillion pound project made possible by the RailUK Reinstatement Committee has not been fully costed but let's take a look at what the bottomless pit of available money is going to give us.
Mold station is now a Tesco supermarket and a suburban residential street called Lon yr Orsaf. In Welsh, the word for railway station - gorsaf - changes to 'orsaf' because of the grammatical rule known as soft mutation. The endless supply of money made available to us by the Speculative Ideas Forum Financial Fund (SIFFF) ensures that a curve can be built "over and around" Mold to our own preferences. I'll pay the Speculative Ideas Mapping Manipulation Board (SIPMMB) to draw up how this curve will be positioned.
The Mold by-pass does not seem to be any obstruction for us, and so we can carry on along our newly laid track towards Llong. We may have to realign the rails away from the former station building and in any case, neither here nor Padswood look as though they could justify having railway stations provided even with a bottomless pit of money thanks to SIFFF.
We can provide a new two-platform stop at Pen-y-ffordd and seem to be unhindered by any significant construction as we swing up towards the Anglo-Welsh border towards Broughton.
Now we may get into problems. Broughton Village might be a viable station in the residential area prior to the built-up urban and industrial sprawl near the out-of-town shopping centre, AIRBUS UK, and the industrial park built around AIRBUS. Sadly for the SIFFF costings department, the shopping area, roundabouts, connecting roads and an Aldi carpark have been built on top of the trackbed. So once again I need to ask our friends in the SIPMMB to come with alternative routes.
For good measure we can build a new junction station at the triangle junction at Saltney (Ferry). This will ensure connections between the North Wales line and our new Mold route (with only two potential routing issues to attend to.)
With approx 15km of track and at least 5 new stations, I wager that the entire cost could be the GDP of a developing nation, but this is why we speculate and look at maps.
I will, of course, tell Transport for Wales that they should have put this proposal into action the moment they won the franchise.
This multimillion pound project made possible by the RailUK Reinstatement Committee has not been fully costed but let's take a look at what the bottomless pit of available money is going to give us.
Mold station is now a Tesco supermarket and a suburban residential street called Lon yr Orsaf. In Welsh, the word for railway station - gorsaf - changes to 'orsaf' because of the grammatical rule known as soft mutation. The endless supply of money made available to us by the Speculative Ideas Forum Financial Fund (SIFFF) ensures that a curve can be built "over and around" Mold to our own preferences. I'll pay the Speculative Ideas Mapping Manipulation Board (SIPMMB) to draw up how this curve will be positioned.
The Mold by-pass does not seem to be any obstruction for us, and so we can carry on along our newly laid track towards Llong. We may have to realign the rails away from the former station building and in any case, neither here nor Padswood look as though they could justify having railway stations provided even with a bottomless pit of money thanks to SIFFF.
We can provide a new two-platform stop at Pen-y-ffordd and seem to be unhindered by any significant construction as we swing up towards the Anglo-Welsh border towards Broughton.
Now we may get into problems. Broughton Village might be a viable station in the residential area prior to the built-up urban and industrial sprawl near the out-of-town shopping centre, AIRBUS UK, and the industrial park built around AIRBUS. Sadly for the SIFFF costings department, the shopping area, roundabouts, connecting roads and an Aldi carpark have been built on top of the trackbed. So once again I need to ask our friends in the SIPMMB to come with alternative routes.
For good measure we can build a new junction station at the triangle junction at Saltney (Ferry). This will ensure connections between the North Wales line and our new Mold route (with only two potential routing issues to attend to.)
With approx 15km of track and at least 5 new stations, I wager that the entire cost could be the GDP of a developing nation, but this is why we speculate and look at maps.
I will, of course, tell Transport for Wales that they should have put this proposal into action the moment they won the franchise.