Parts of the railway infrastructure in the UK could be subject to some quite radical improvement without a huge degree of difficulty except for one thing: as policy stands, only directly railway related costs, savings and revenue gains can be taken into account when calculating the all important benefit / cost ratio, which must produce a verifiable figure of 2.0 or higher in order to have any likelihood of proceeding.
Yet there are many instances where, if the full effects on the local economies were to be taken into account, schemes would easily exceed this vital figure. Perhaps the best known example is Lincolns infamous level crossings the logical solution would be to lower the entire station and approaches so that the level crossings would become over-bridges, but this would be an enormously expensive and disruptive solution to implement. There would, critically, be no revenue benefits to the railway from doing so which means that it is pointless even trying to advocate such a scheme despite it obviously making life much easier for businesses and their customers in Lincoln town centre.
This is not, however, the only such example. There are many more all around the country and the one thing they have in common is that they would all require the resulting boost to their local economies to be taken into account before a financial case could even start to be made.
One case, however, would result in significant revenue increases for the railway, although probably not enough in itself to justify the scheme. This instance is Epsom to Chessington.
A bit of a history lesson is needed here. Originally the Southern Railway intended the line from Chessington South to join the Dorking route between Epsom and Leatherhead in a south facing direction near Ashtead, effectively providing a second route to Dorking from Waterloo and Wimbledon. The war intervened after only preliminary works below Chessington South were completed ( this today forms the headshunt visible from the station and used to reverse the services ). After the war the land across Epsom Common which was intended to be used for this line became protected green belt land. This did not in itself bar the construction of the line, but it was intended to be financed by suburban development on the Common and this was now out of the question. No development meant no line.
Fast forward to 2014 and the road congestion between Epsom and Chessington and between Epsom and Tolworth has to be seen to be believed; as an example it frequently takes 20 - 25 minutes to drive between Epsom and Tolworth outside the peak despite the A240 being dual carriageway. This is a distance of just three miles and much of the congestion is on the last mile approaching Tolworth from where a busy road called Ruxley Lane joins the A240, despite the road widening to three lanes for the last half mile shortly beyond that point. Heading south the bulk of the congestion is on the approaches to Epsom but there is also often heavy traffic approaching Ruxley Lane.
Towards Chessington much of the B284 road is again dual carriageway but on-street parking bays effectively halve the width near Chessington while at the Epsom end the road is single carriageway and there is no width available to expand into. One key traffic generator is a huge theme park at Chessington.
Clearly a direct rail link between Epsom and Chessington would make a huge difference, so can we look again at the pre-war proposals, forget about any additional development it would not be permitted anyway, remember and tweak the proposal slightly in order to turn the connection round to face Epsom rather than Leatherhead? More importantly, can this be done without damaging the green belt lands and without displacing any residents or businesses?
It quite possibly could be. The present turnback stub below Chessington has to be the starting point and following the originally planned alignment would take the line along the back of an industrial estate ( memo to the planners: for goodness sake have the foresight to provide room for a north side loop adjacent to the line here! ) and across a road called Chalky Lane. This road leads directly to the theme park at Chessington giving rise to the possibility of a station called Chessington World to be built specifically to serve the park. Although the park is across the busy A243 road, a disability compliant footbridge could easily be built to serve as a direct link between the station and theme park.
The station could be sited in what is currently a field immediately to the south of Chalky Lane and could even be double ended with one end at Chalky Lane and the other end opposite the Premier Inn / Beefeater. Both ends would provide access to the theme park and hotels and this layout would have the advantage of avoiding the station becoming congested. The station would not need to have hours restricted to the theme park opening hours as the hotels would of course be a source of business outside these hours.
Note that putting the station in this field takes the line slightly to the north of the original alignment. This is necessary in order to avoid having to destroy the small Chessington Wood; the line would now cross the wood at the narrowest point and would be close to the A243, but at this stage cannot be brought up adjacent to that road; instead the alignment would need to follow the curving boundary of the wood ( but avoiding an electricity pylon! ) and cross the B280 Rushett Lane to pass directly behind another industrial estate ( planners again please be foresighted! ). The B280 is rather busy so I would suggest that an over-bridge be built at this location by lowering the line.
Lowering the line helps pass the next obstacle, an access road to a farm at Malden Rushett. Again, the railway would pass under the road. At this point it would also be swinging close to A243 in order to minimise the land take and affect as few fields as possible. Keeping the line low and adjacent to the A243 would also allow it to pass under the access drive to DAbernon House at Epsom Gap without adversely affecting that property or the land associated with it.
From here on the alignment would remain with the A243 as far as the northern half of the complex road junction between the A243, A244 and M25 ( Jct 9 ) this keeps it right at the edge of Ashtead Common and avoids cutting through the associated woodlands; any loss would be a minimal strip along the very edge. Even when clear of the woodlands the alignment must remain with the A243 because we have now come to the most challenging part of the suggestion joining the line to the existing line in a rather tight space without having to demolish any of the properties at the edge of Ashtead.
To meet this challenge, the junction must start immediately the line clears the back gardens of the properties in Corfe Close and Caen Wood Road and the curvature to the new alignment will of necessity be rather sharp. There is also the need to grade separate the junction to avoid creating conflicting movements.
Grade separation could only be achieved if the existing route between Ashtead and Leatherhead was lowered, with the down gradient on this route starting immediately past the required new pointwork and at the same time the new route assumes an up gradient. Fortunately the existing route passes under, rather than over, the M25 and A243 so there is no physical barrier to this, but it may require a rebuild of the foundations of both bridges!
The gradient and sharpness of the curve required would impose a severe speed restriction on joining and leaving the new alignment but this is preferable to creating a new flat junction as such would carry with it a risk of conflicting movements we need to avoid introducing new potential causes of delays anywhere on the national network so lets not go putting one in here!
This suggested new link would provide for the first time a direct rail service between Epsom and Chessington and Tolworth, with a probable journey time including a stop at the new station of just over 10 minutes, which would make the service very competitive. There would be minimal timetable complications as the existing Chessington services would continue round to Epsom and return to Waterloo as a new loop service. These could merge with the existing Waterloo to Guildford SWT services the two trains per hour level of service to Guildford could be maintained by extending the two Southern services per hour which currently terminate at Epsom. The present Waterloo to Dorking services would be unaffected.
You may ask why not do this the other way round? The answer is that the present Guildford Epsom Waterloo services reach Epsom slightly ahead of the path that would be used by continuing the Chessington trains towards Epsom; this gives the opportunity to build in an extended stop at Chessington World. In the opposite direction the Waterloo Epsom Guildford service reaches Epsom at a time which would put it at Chessington some 5 minutes early for the existing path, giving the opportunity to build in an extended stop at Chessington World in that direction too.
Switching the Waterloo to Dorking and Guildford via Epsom services between their respective paths and making the Dorking service a fully Southern service is a possibility, but does reduce the choice at Dorking and may cause platform availability problems at Guildford in addition, extending the Southern services to Guildford would increase the choice available there.
There is a further improvement that could be made to the Waterloo Epsom / Chessington infrastructure which would have a big positive impact on the local economy, but and this is the point of this article - this second phase would not stand alone on a rail measured basis as, unlike the Epsom Chessington link, there would be no direct gain in railway revenue although it would remove three existing sources of possible delays so reliability would certainly improve. Unfortunately it would certainly be extremely expensive to implement, and very disruptive as the main works required would need a total blockade between Raynes Park and Worcester Park / Malden Manor for at least two or three weeks and this is one of the busiest commuter routes in the country!
In a nutshell, it would consist of the lowering of Motspur Park station in order to allow Motspur Park Junction to be grade separated and the two level crossings on the line to become over-bridges. At first glance, that sounds like it is an impossible idea, but for the moment let us ignore the huge costs and lengthy blockade required and consider the technical merits of the suggestion.
Both the level crossings are extremely busy in both road and railway terms and are a major cause of road congestion in the area. Similarly, it is not unknown for trains to be delayed waiting for the crossings to be cleared. The flat junction carries six trains an hour each way off peak, of which one third diverge so the pathing margins are pretty tight and delays elsewhere can easily result in trains waiting at the junction, especially in the up direction from Worcester Park.
The key point is to lower the railway enough for the two level crossings to become bridges there is just enough room for this to be done from the Raynes Park end although it may involve some increase in the gradient at that end in the down direction. It may be possible to minimise this by raising the road by a foot or two around where the crossing currently is. At the other crossing at the south end of Motspur Park station this would not be a problem as there is sufficient room to start the grade separation for the junction at this point.
Here the important element is the need to return the railway to the present level before Worcester Park station so to achieve the grade separation the Chessington branch would in fact need to be raised slightly at the junction. So like with the suggested new junction between Ashtead and Leatherhead / Chessington, the Chessington line would be raised and the Epsom line lowered in order to achieve grade separation.
Technically, this is not difficult at all the time consuming expensive bit would be the extensive digging out for a mile or so around Motspur Park, no more so than at the station itself where the excavation and new station would be around 20 feet deep compared to the present line and station and the reconstruction of the actual junction.
Difficult? No. Disruptive? Yes. Expensive? Yes. Hugely beneficial? Yes.
Which brings us back to where we started
if only the benefit / cost ratio was able to take into account external gains rather than just the rail related ones
