Trivia: Reopenings that have been "Proposed" the longest.

[OVS Flatbottom]

It was first mentioned as the second phase of the Ivanhoe Line reopening, the first phase opened in 1994 which is the local service between Leicester and Nottingham.

It often seems to come up around election time though.

I have a December 1986 Railway Magazine with an article on Leicester-Burton; the article mentions that there was a previous reopening proposal as far back as 1980.

 

[tavistock]

Leamside line in County Durham, been various proposals for that over the years but nothing comong to fruition.

Leamside may not reopen fully, but the Northern section converted to a metro line might happen

 

[Ant158]

Clitheroe to Hellifield, not technically closed and a freight route, but every few years there seems to be a pledge/promise to introduce regular passenger trains and yet only the Sunday Dalesrail ever runs.

 

[QTXAdsy]

Either the Leven and St Andrews branches deserve a mention (incidentally closing on the same day as the Waverly Line though got nowhere near the coverage as that line did), though at least the former will be put to rest at long last while the later will have to wait a bit more longer.

 

[Bald Rick]

Well, yes and no. Portishead for example is a local council scheme. It has to pass through various statutory processes, sure, but it's a local thing.

Still needs central Govt money. If Treasury don’t like it it won’t happen (although in my opinion it will happen).


This thread does make me wonder though. When will the campaigners give up? I guess a lot of them are going to have to ask that question of themselves in the next few months when they don’t get any further in the Restoring your Railway initiative.

 

[pnepaul]

What about Penrith to Keswick?

 

[David Goddard]

All of the regular suspects as expected. Lets add March to Wisbech to the pot

 

[thenorthern]

What about Penrith to Keswick?

That is another one that has been mentioned as a candidate for reopening since it closed in 1972. I know Mosedale Viaduct was going to be demolished around 1996 but the plans were scrapped when it was mentioned for reopening.

 

[Pinza-C55]

Haxby and Strensall stations near York are proposed for reopening just before every general election, usually accompanied by a photo of the candidates standing on the level crossing in suspiciously clean hi-vis jackets.

 

[SteveM70]

Surely Skipton Colne tops the list.

But then Chris Grayling came along for a photo opportunity fact finding visit. Oh

 

[Gloster]

Barnstaple-Bideford was, I believe, the reason for the Speller Act of 1981. Despite the track having been lifted, it looks (on Google maps) as though the biggest problem would be the road junction west of Barnstaple station: there appear to be no domestic properties affected. I would be surprised if there are not still some people pushing for reopening.

 

[WesternBiker]

Not quite 'reopening', but I have seen Metropolitan Line to Watford Junction in a 1968 or 1969 journal. That's come and gone a few times and over 50 years on still doesn't look like coming any time soon.

There's quite a useful summary here on the District Line to Watford Junction saga. I can't vouch for all the details, but it's incredible to think £130m might have been spent already - with nothing above ground to show for it, and no sign currently that it will ever come to fruition.

 

[Taunton]

Oh, absolutely. There are certain people who won't ever shut up about that, despite the fact that there's no platform capacity at Waverley, and for most areas, the journey times to the city centre can't compete with the buses.

The Edinburgh Sub was being repeatedly championed when I was at university there in the 1970s!

Circular services seem to have a bizarre fascination for transport amateurs, despite them having a string of practical downsides. The geography of the line also militates against it, it is well removed from being an actual circle, it forms more a very flattened oval where trains from the champions' principal south-side points have to make a long run out east or west and back again to get to the centre. I reckon I could (well, at least, back in those days) run faster from Newington to Waverley than the train would take.

Given that the Edinburgh has always (then and now) had one of the most frequent, dense and comprehensible bus networks anywhere, with outside Newington or Morningside stations always seeming to have a bus for Princes Street in sight, it was no wonder the former rail service died a death.

I did travel on it one weekend out to Slateford when Haymarket Junction was being rebuilt and the Shotts line was operating out of the east end of Waverley. Someone took lineside photos of the dmu passing and got the Evening News to print an accompanying story that BR were running test trains for a resumption!

 

[bluenoxid]

Still needs central Govt money. If Treasury don’t like it it won’t happen (although in my opinion it will happen).


This thread does make me wonder though. When will the campaigners give up? I guess a lot of them are going to have to ask that question of themselves in the next few months when they don’t get any further in the Restoring your Railway initiative.

“Not my fault that the government doesn’t have my/our vision”

The tub thumping that transport infrastructure brings will always energise certain minds. It’s very easy to get a survey pulled together demanding the restoration of the railway.

 

[Bald Rick]

“Not my fault that the government doesn’t have my/our vision”

The tub thumping that transport infrastructure brings will always energise certain minds. It’s very easy to get a survey pulled together demanding the restoration of the railway.

Well exactly. Most reopening campaigns will get support from their local MP and councillors. It’s pretty difficult for a local MP not to support such a project.... right up until the time it comes to build it!

 

[jonesy3001]

That is another one that has been mentioned as a candidate for reopening since it closed in 1972. I know Mosedale Viaduct was going to be demolished around 1996 but the plans were scrapped when it was mentioned for reopening.

Most of the bridges have been damaged by storms.

 

[MP33]

Has Crossrail 2 and its previous versions such as the Chelsea Hackney line been on the drawing board for nearly 40 years. Not a re-opening though.

 

[sw1ller]

Not the longest but it’s up there. Gaerwen to Amlwch has been proposed since I can remember.

 

[OVS Flatbottom]

The Edinburgh Sub was being repeatedly championed when I was at university there in the 1970s!

In fact, the Buchanan/Freeman Fox City of Edinburgh Planning and Transport Study came out with a suburban rail proposal that included reopening Corstorphine (which had only closed in 1968) and Leith Central, but not the Sub, as early as 1971. (However, it was essentially a straw man aimed at showing that railways weren't a feasible alternative to road building; a light rail scheme was similarly looked at briefly and dismissed.)

The study (whose final report came out in 1972) proposed turning the Sub into a dual-carriageway road (I think it was called the Intermediate Circular Route - it would also have used the former Caley North Leith branch), with considerable acquisition of adjacent property, and I don't think the road proposal was finally abandoned until 1979. I suspect it was all too easy for campaigners to drift from the justifiable position that the Sub shouldn't be turned into a road to the less justifiable (for the reasons you list) one that it was worth reinstating the local service.

 

[A0wen]

The Woodhead case has also been massively improved by the availability of Class 442s to operate it...

*ducks*

Of course - by using the old tunnels with 750v DC 3rd rail it'll overcome the clearance issues..... To keep things simple, the bits either side get re-wired at 1500v DC OHL - all we need is some more multi-voltage stock, or procure some 1500v stock from NS......

In terms of longest reopening campaign, I'd probably go with Borders because there was an attempt by the late Bob Symes in 1969 to reopen it.

 

[Taunton]

Of course - by using the old tunnels with 750v DC 3rd rail it'll overcome the clearance issues..... To keep things simple, the bits either side get re-wired at 1500v DC OHL - all we need is some more multi-voltage stock, or procure some 1500v stock from NS......

In terms of longest reopening campaign, I'd probably go with Borders because there was an attempt by the late Bob Symes in 1969 to reopen it.

There were constant requests to reopen the north-south Farringdon-Blackfriars line from closure to passengers in 1916 to reopening as Thameslink in 1988. 72 years.

Likewise the old GER line down through the Isle of Dogs to North Greenwich (not the present one; opposite bank of the river) closed the same year, and there were regular demands for a revived service until the DLR opened to Island Gardens in 1987, notably using a lot of the same structures (much of which has been replaced since).

 

[Jamesrob637]

Why not?

Kins x

Because unless you're just off or just on the Didsbury Road it's more practicable to use East Didsbury for Chorlton and other parts of Manchester, or Stockport/Heaton Chapel for Manchester itself.

 

[tbtc]

This thread does make me wonder though. When will the campaigners give up? I guess a lot of them are going to have to ask that question of themselves in the next few months when they don’t get any further in the Restoring your Railway initiative.

Interesting question.

I kind of admire the blind devotion that some proponents have to their favourite scheme, their creativeness in trying to find new (and sometimes contradictory) justifications - e.g. the way that the Leamside can be both a slow freight line and also a Durham-avoider for HS2 and also a stopping Metro service

It's almost a shame for them that some lines remained open because I can imagine just how much they'd be boasting about what a success the line could be if only it weren't for "short-sighted" people in the 1960s not predicting exactly how things would be over fifty years later - e.g. if the Settle & Carlisle had closed in the 1980s as was planned, we'd have regular threads bemoaning the closure and how, if only it was still open in 2021 there'd be regular services, loads of London and Nottingham to Glasgow trains, the S&C would be hosting WCML diversions every weekend, there'd be huge passenger numbers at all these incredibly important villages that were now without a train station...

...whereas in reality, there's only a bi-hourly Sprinter (with nothing running north of Carlisle and only one train per week running south of Leeds), none of the stations north of Settle have passenger numbers worth writing home about, the much vaunted "diversionary resilience" sounds nice in theory but clearly doesn't happen in practice, not much freight - it's a heavily loss making route with low passenger numbers...

...now, listen to what the enthusiasts say the Tavistock - Okehampton route could be (regular services, loads of London trains, lots of diverted services too etc) and consider whether it'd be worthwhile if the reality is just a bi-hourly Sprinter (with pretty much nothing running east of Exeter/ west of Plymouth)...

...or the Matlock - Buxton people (who talk of fast St Pancras - Manchester services whilst also taking freight off the MML, despite the single track sections to accommodate the Monsall Trail etc) would still want to spend all that money if it was just a local DMU every hour or two..

...not that the people demanding we re-open such lines will worry about the reality of how the routes that did survive "Beeching" etc are often pretty quiet with underwhelming numbers at intermediate stations and very little of the exciting freight/ London trains/ diversions

True faith means never having to worry about pesky evidence (e.g. you can pretend to yourself that an Uckfield - Lewes line would see lots of diversions when the main London - Brighton line is closed, despite the fact that the Horsham line could be used for such diversions yet generally isn't)

 

[thenorthern]

A lot of these lines seem to come up at election time when Candidates say they would like to see a line reopened.

With several previously safe Labour seats in the North and the Midlands now marginal or relatively safe Conservative such as Mansfield, Stoke-on-Trent, parts of County Durham, Dudley and Walsall all of which have relatively poor rail connections for their size the "Promised" line reopenings may happen now.

 

[WesternBiker]

True faith means never having to worry about pesky evidence (e.g. you can pretend to yourself that an Uckfield - Lewes line would see lots of diversions when the main London - Brighton line is closed, despite the fact that the Horsham line could be used for such diversions yet generally isn't)

I agree with lots of that... though the Horsham line isn't great as a diversionary route as trains have to go down to Littlehampton and reverse - and it is quite a trundle along the coast route. Having used the line regularly at weekends when they still used the Horsham route regularly for diversions, it was usually quicker to take the main Brighton-Three Bridges line and suffer the replacement bus.

Ironically, any reopened Uckfield-Lewes would face a similar problem given the fact the original through route joining to the east of Lewes station, through the town, is now so heavily built over.

 

[thenorthern]

Just seen Matlock to Buxton mentioned again by a petition as well as a petition saying don't reopen it. That one has been proposed for many years but it's unlikely to happen.

 

[Quakers Yard]

Ebbw Vale to Newport

 

[The Planner]

Ebbw Vale to Newport

Does a proposed service really count? We would be here forever otherwise.

 

[tavistock]

Is the line between Middlewich and Northwich on the cards for reopening or is this one going to be talked about forever like the Leamside line?

How about Helsby to Mouldsworth via Alvanley, or has that become too overgrown ?

 

[The Planner]

Is the line between Middlewich and Northwich on the cards for reopening or is this one going to be talked about forever like the Leamside line?

How about Helsby to Mouldsworth via Alvanley, or has that become too overgrown ?

Not any time soon, not sure what Helsby to Mouldsworth is going to allow if open either.