re-opening railways.

VeNT

VeNT

VeNT

Soldato
Joined
9 Jan 2003
Posts
21,145
Location
Cornwall
I was just reading about this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8102971.stm and I started thinking about all the local lines/stations that are closed currently
there are 2-3 local lines in cornwall that I'd love to see re-opened (truro to newquay/perranporth etc) and quite a few stations that it seems silly not to re-open (ones on existing lines that the trains just pass though)

but some of these lines are being used for cycle paths/bridleways etc (even ones still with the track on) so what would happen to these?

Does anyone else have any local railway lines/stations they would use if they where re-opened.

I'm sure that it's not an issue all over the country but I know in cornwall it would help with the traffic congestion we get every damn summer when all the emmits come down and take all our parking spaces!
 
There is a big campaign to re-open one of the old lines accross the peak district but mainly for freight rather than passengers as the current Trans Penine line is pretty much at capacity forcing freight onto the roads.
 
There's a line between Horsham and Guildford that was closed by Dr Beeching which I reckon would be viable to re-open as there's only a crappy single-carriageway road between them. They're talking about re-opening part of it from Cranleigh to Guildford but a lot of the residents of Cranleigh are up in arms about it - don't want smelly, noisy trains in their part of the world. At the moment there's a lot of congestion around Guildford station in the mornings as people drive there to catch their trains.
 
Group local to me are restoring a line and station platform/buildings. They are a bit cliquey though! Talk of linking the line up to the Blackpool tram system as the line is the same gauge:-

http://www.pwrs.org/

Dr. Beeching - you short sighted fool!
 
They are reopening the one from bristol to portishead in eh next few years.

It's what they should be doing. Rather than keep bailing companies out and keep creating pen pushing jobs. Create jobs that make a different and help the economy. Which means employing people in all areas of infrastructure to improve and upgrade them.
 
how many people does it take to open a railway
how many did we employ to lay the original track?
I'm betting that with modern tech we can do the work with less people but will end up having more pencil pushers so we end up even.
hell, if my new job doesn't come though I'd happily work on the railways!
 
Well i want them to hurry up and get these schemes going because i cant find work at my level anywhere round here in the railways and i'm an assistant signalling design engineer thats just been made redundant. It's annoying.
 
just been reading up on the beeching axe on Wikipedia, and am stunned at the extreme short sightedness and idiotic assumptions that were made.

Once we were the pinnacle of rail travel and now we are in the gutter.
 
Fiocca said:
Well i want them to hurry up and get these schemes going because i cant find work at my level anywhere round here in the railways and i'm an assistant signalling design engineer thats just been made redundant. It's annoying.
Click to expand...

Shame you aren't further up, there's loads of senior and manager level jobs about.
 
They keep oohing and ahhing over reopening the line from Bere Alston to Tavistock (the Drake line) to provide a connection to Plymouth but nothing concrete ever seems to happen. So much traffic would be removed from the A386 if it did.
 
who owns all this land currently?
what would it take for someone to come along and make this happen?
 
AcidHell2 said:
Shame you aren't further up, there's loads of senior and manager level jobs about.
Click to expand...

Yeah thats what takes the p. They are axing lower positions and hiring managers and seniors. Also lots of pen pusher jobs were being advertised by my last company so it's really annoying. Can't find anything for me.

Network Rail own the current infrastructure but i'm not so sure about the disused areas. I'm guessing it's a mixture of NR and local councils that own the land. It would create a bucket load of work and make the whole rail system better if they got the schemes going.
 
who owns all this land currently?
what would it take for someone to come along and make this happen?
Click to expand...

Sold off to farmers, councils, developers. 65% of the old lines are now "broken" with housing developments in the middle of them, meaning demolition to re-instate the lines. the other 35% of the lines are owned privately, probably requiring compulsory purchase orders to re-instate the lines.

how many people does it take to open a railway
how many did we employ to lay the original track?
Click to expand...

£4 million per mile of single track.

It took 2400 workers to build the first intercity railway - Liverpool>Manchester - 35 miles long and built between 1826 and 1830. Cost £700,000 - or £140 million in todays money - pretty much bang on what the same line would cost today - in fact, it costs slightly less nowadays per mile.

To illustrate the point, Blackpool has just been awarded £80 million to upgrade and relay 7 miles of double line (so 14 miles in total) tram track from North Shore to Fleetwood and £20 million for 8 new trams.
 
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