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#11 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: West Yorkshire
Posts: 630
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If a good bit of the old track bed is still available then light rail might be a solution to getting round built over track. Manchester Metrolink is a good example where old track bed and street running have been successfully combined. Unfortunately it is not a solution everywhere. A local line in my vicinity is a good example. The Skipton to Leeds and Bradford via Ilkley was commuted at Ilkley, however since the line was cut a lot of the outlying villages have become almost dormitory districts the result being commuter traffic now clogging up Ilkley being the nearest railhead for Leeds etc. Due to the narrow roads in Ilkley even a light rail solution would require some demolition. As the saying goes you cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs and if they are prepared to demolish part of a yet to be finished new estate for HS2 then I suppose anything can happen. I feel sorry for people who are likely to lose homes but unfortunately in our densely populated towns and cities any road/transport solution these days means there will be some losers.
Richard |
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#12 |
Eternal Optimist
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: Cumbria and Scotish boarder.
Posts: 1,882
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When we lived in South Wales, this may sound a bit daft but the local people were adamant and open about the fact that the Northern Welsh did not even speak to South and vice versa. And I am not joking. Feelings ran high. I do not have any idea why. It all mystified us.
So I don't think they would be interested in a rail link...................John
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I may be wrong as I very often am. John Last edited by Footplate1947; 29-11-2017 at 12:21 PM. |
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#13 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Basingstoke, Hants
Posts: 2,067
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Lines mentioned in the paper this morning are: Oxford to Cambridge (Varsity Line), Bristol to Portishead and Bristol to Henbury, Routes in Devon connecting Exeter to Okehampton and Bere Alston to Tavistock. New routes around Birmingham with plans for four new stations in the West Yorkshire area - elland, Thorpe Park, White Rose and Leeds International Airport Parkway. Some of these routes are expanded on what is partially in place. When Beeching made the cuts, the car was become the most popular method of transport, but there are now more people than ever travelling by train. Time will tell.
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I always knew I’d get old. How fast it happened was a bit of a surprise though. |
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#14 |
Part time idiot
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: HAZLEMERE, Bucks
Posts: 9,710
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The Varsity line is going ahead, in fact it is well on its way.
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NURSE,the screens! |
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#15 |
Hornby Collector
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Rye East Sussex
Posts: 605
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At the time of Beeching it was believed that the private car offered Britain the best industrial future, but that overlooked the possibility of foreign manufacturers coming to dominate the market. Beeching was just looking at costings not the transport system as a whole. Tramway systems were also closed because it was thought they discouraged car ownership.
The SR was electrified in 1933, but many branch lines remained steam operated and these were vulnerable to Beeching - the branch lines had to be closed because the cost of electrification could not be justified. What is the situation now? Lines that are not electrified cannot now be fitted with a third rail because this system is now considered too dangerous for a new installation. Any new electrification will have to be catenary which is much more expensive to install. That's why some electrification schemes have been cancelled. There are tramways, such as Bordeaux, which use a modern version of the Dolter Stud Contact System where the current is only activated when the vehicle passes over the contact. This system is expensive to install and such trams run off catenary away from the historic part of the town. It is proposed to use bi-mode trains on lines that cannot now be electrified. The principal problem with re-opening closed routes is the cost of the track. The existence of old earthworks, bridges and tunnels does not significantly improve the business case compared to a completely new line engineered from scratch. The good thing about Beeching is that he provided Britain with a large number of heritage railways which other countries lack. Although Beeching is often the most hated man in the universe he has been the inspiration for many a modeller.
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Railway Modelling is about life, the universe and everything. |
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#16 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: West Yorkshire
Posts: 630
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It's like with many post war council estates with roads designed only to take the occasional delivery van, no parking facilities and houses without provision for driveways because who would have thought council tenants would aspire to own cars? This at a time when car ownership was being encouraged. Predicting the future is always difficult, predicting the consequences of taking certain actions is not impossible though. I know that many of the lines closed in the Beeching cuts would probably never made money no matter how long they were kept open, but you would have thought a lot of the BR real estate would have been kind of mothballed turning it into country walks or cycle ways just in case and thus easily brought back into use, a case of never say never. Richard |
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#17 |
Part time idiot
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: HAZLEMERE, Bucks
Posts: 9,710
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I bet if a track bed had become a public footpath or cycle way as many have, you would have a devil of a job making it a railway again. There would be an inordinate number of hoops to jump through.
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NURSE,the screens! |
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#18 | |
Hornby Collector
Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Rye East Sussex
Posts: 605
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Railway Modelling is about life, the universe and everything. |
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#19 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Basingstoke, Hants
Posts: 2,067
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That's not being flippant - the problem in this country is that we never seem to plan for years ahead - cost of course - the M25 is a classic - it should have been built with six lanes in each direction - it wasn't - so it is now costing millions to widen it. It's the same with the Eurostar terminal at Waterloo - which is now costing in excess of £60m to convert for normal use. Some committee would have know that in a few years it would be closed when the service transferred to St Pancras. As I type this the local news is reporting that a new hospital will not be built - this has taken six years and cost millions to decide - when everyone was against it in the first place. Sorry for the rant.
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I always knew I’d get old. How fast it happened was a bit of a surprise though. |
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#20 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Downham Market
Posts: 3,015
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Thus is the price of living in a democracy.
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