HS2

[raleighnut]

What would be even more productive - just upgrade existing lines and reopen ones closed in 60's

Yep unfortunately the Great Central has been built over for a lot of it's length which is a shame. The section between Leicester and Lutterworth particularly so as that could have provided a great link between the freight at East Midlands Airport and the distribution warehouses south of Lutterworth.

 

[Badger_Boom]

What would be even more productive - just upgrade existing lines and reopen ones closed in 60's

You’d need to bulldoze a lot more homes to reopen closed lines than to build HS2.

 

[raleighnut]

You’d need to bulldoze a lot more homes to reopen closed lines than to build HS2.

In Leicester it isn't that they've built houses on the old trackway (they haven't*) but they've used the route for roads and have also built roads across the old lines without bridges and in fact have dismantled all the old bridges and have used the old cuttings as landfill for rubble then built a cycleway on it out to the edge of Blaby (part of NCN 6)
North of Leicester the line is not only intact but is preserved all the way up to Loughborough with the line still being used for Steam Locomotives and a junction with the Midland Mainline track, possibly the worst of the 'Beeching' cuts but the line wouldn't be sensible for high speed trains anyway as there are too many bends/curves for the speed of those Trains through the city so they'd be down to a crawl relatively speaking.

* there are a few industrial units built on the old trackway but they're built where the cutting has been filled with rubble, quite strange to see two 'walls' either side of a road at ground level and then realise that this was a bridge 'parapet' once and the arch is still there but underground now.

 

[Bromptonaut]

What would be even more productive - just upgrade existing lines and reopen ones closed in 60's

As somebody who commuted into Euston during the upgrade of the West Coast Line in the early noughties I can tell you that it's not possible to upgrade a heavily used line without affecting the current service. That was an upgrade to signalling with some track renewal and re-instatement of redundant/removed track. Little if any wholly new infrastructure. Services were reduced with Manchester services running from St Pancras instead and others slowed. There were periods where buses replaced trains, not just at weekends but for three or more weeks.

Major re-alignment for speed, rebuilding stuff for bigger/longer trains would stop the service entirely for years.

 

[mjr]

A colleague once told me that to achieve the same reduction in sound level as one of those purpose built noise barrier fences would require a belt of plantation approximately 1km thick.

1km of woodland by railways sounds good to me. What's the drawback?

What would be even more productive - just upgrade existing lines and reopen ones closed in 60's

Some of the closed ones have already been upgraded into Cycleways or downgraded into carriageways. Does anyone know how many closed lines are unobstructed? I don't think any in Norfolk haven't been built over or turned into roads at some point: the closed Lynn lines are blocked at Wolferton and Hunstanton on the way to Hunstanton (8 miles to the blockage, royal estate housing), Hillington on the way to Fakenham (maybe 7 miles, road on the trackbed), Narborough on the way to Swaffham (12 miles? Nature reserve on the trackbed, endangered species) and West Lynn towards Spalding (2 miles? Road on the trackbed for at least 10 miles). I think even the Watlington to Wisbech line which makes little commercial sense IMO because its Watlington junction faced away from London/Cambridge and it has expensive river and drain crossings missing has lost its route into Wisbech.

Some would make great Cycleways but only the first few miles of two do so far, but I'll be surprised if any return as railways. The most likely is probably the Hunstanton line if Charles ascends and wants his train to get closer than its current terminal at a quarry, as he'll remove the blockage and local government will see it as a way to reduce the holiday traffic problem as well as demonstrate their monarchism with our taxes!

 

[raleighnut]

1km of woodland by railways sounds good to me. What's the drawback?


Some of the closed ones have already been upgraded into Cycleways or downgraded into carriageways. Does anyone know how many closed lines are unobstructed? I don't think any in Norfolk haven't been built over or turned into roads at some point: the closed Lynn lines are blocked at Wolferton and Hunstanton on the way to Hunstanton (8 miles to the blockage, royal estate housing), Hillington on the way to Fakenham (maybe 7 miles, road on the trackbed), Narborough on the way to Swaffham (12 miles? Nature reserve on the trackbed, endangered species) and West Lynn towards Spalding (2 miles? Road on the trackbed for at least 10 miles). I think even the Watlington to Wisbech line which makes little commercial sense IMO because its Watlington junction faced away from London/Cambridge and it has expensive river and drain crossings missing has lost its route into Wisbech.

Some would make great Cycleways but only the first few miles of two do so far, but I'll be surprised if any return as railways. The most likely is probably the Hunstanton line if Charles ascends and wants his train to get closer than its current terminal at a quarry, as he'll remove the blockage and local government will see it as a way to reduce the holiday traffic problem as well as demonstrate their monarchism with our taxes!

What about the Wells & Walsingham line although that becomes a road after Walsingham

View: https://youtu.be/-Yho-qIgjmE

 

[mjr]

What about the Wells & Walsingham line although that becomes a road after Walsingham

It becomes a cycleway south after the short Old Railway Road for a few miles, but the route is blocked through Fakenham by "new" (post-1980) houses and there's no railway returned to Fakenham yet anyway.

It was also obstructed into Wells because a cutting was used for landfill waste. The light railway did a heck of a lot of work digging out thousands of tons to clear it as far as they did, but the way further into Wells is now a residential road and the old station site is a supermarket. The line to the west is blocked by building at Docking and went to the now-closed Heacham station so would be a long way round.

The Mid Norfolk Railway maybe has the best prospects for "reopening" but its route to Fakenham is obstructed and its 25-mile V-shaped Dereham-Norwich route would struggle to compete with the 17-mile quasimotorway soon to be completed. Even at its peak, trains ran hourly and took about 35 minutes between stations on the edges of the centres, while today's buses take about the same time but go right into the centres and there are 4 an hour. Even cycling only takes about 90 minutes - using a bit of the old Holt-Norwich City Station line, ironically. So "reopening" the Mid Norfolk as National Rail only really makes sense if you reopen through Swaffham and King's Lynn to reconnect them to Norwich more quickly than the monopoly bus on that, but then that really is a long way with many obstructions to overcome which would cost a fair amount.

I think most of these are far more likely to reopen as greenways because we can swerve around obstructions much more easily — and even that's not that likely to happen soon.

 

[classic33]

It becomes a cycleway south after the short Old Railway Road for a few miles, but the route is blocked through Fakenham by "new" (post-1980) houses and there's no railway returned to Fakenham yet anyway.

It was also obstructed into Wells because a cutting was used for landfill waste. The light railway did a heck of a lot of work digging out thousands of tons to clear it as far as they did, but the way further into Wells is now a residential road and the old station site is a supermarket. The line to the west is blocked by building at Docking and went to the now-closed Heacham station so would be a long way round.

The Mid Norfolk Railway maybe has the best prospects for "reopening" but its route to Fakenham is obstructed and its 25-mile V-shaped Dereham-Norwich route would struggle to compete with the 17-mile quasimotorway soon to be completed. Even at its peak, trains ran hourly and took about 35 minutes between stations on the edges of the centres, while today's buses take about the same time but go right into the centres and there are 4 an hour. Even cycling only takes about 90 minutes - using a bit of the old Holt-Norwich City Station line, ironically. So "reopening" the Mid Norfolk as National Rail only really makes sense if you reopen through Swaffham and King's Lynn to reconnect them to Norwich more quickly than the monopoly bus on that, but then that really is a long way with many obstructions to overcome which would cost a fair amount.

I think most of these are far more likely to reopen as greenways because we can swerve around obstructions much more easily — and even that's not that likely to happen soon.

The "Big Four" are gone, along with most of their routes. Those routes can't all be brought back, for various reasons. One of the main ones being that rolling stock weight has increased. Lighter, smaller, rolling stock enabled some routes to be possible. To try and get those routes back into viable service wouldn't be possible today.

 

[Eziemnaik]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...arture-whats-the-point-of-hs2-again-vct0q27v7
When Clarkson is the voice of the reason you know the end is nigh

 

[raleighnut]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...arture-whats-the-point-of-hs2-again-vct0q27v7
When Clarkson is the voice of the reason you know the end is nigh

It's not so much about cutting journey times as increasing the capacity of the Railways almost up to pre 'Beeching' cut levels. Roads are already at nigh on gridlock.

Also if we are to trade with 'The Rest Of The World' in our 'post brexit utopia' then more stuff will be flown in probably to East Midlands airport (which they've recently built a Rail link to) and then transported to distribution centres by Rail. You would thin 'Jezza' would welcome less lorries on the roads but then he's always been a daffodil.

 

[classic33]

It's not so much about cutting journey times as increasing the capacity of the Railways almost up to pre 'Beeching' cut levels. Roads are already at nigh on gridlock.

Also if we are to trade with 'The Rest Of The World' in our 'post brexit utopia' then more stuff will be flown in probably to East Midlands airport (which they've recently built a Rail link to) and then transported to distribution centres by Rail. You would thin 'Jezza' would welcome less lorries on the roads but then he's always been a daffodil

HS2 is, or was, passenger only.

 

[raleighnut]

HS2 is, or was, passenger only.

Yep freeing up capacity on the existing lines.

 

[Eziemnaik]

It's not so much about cutting journey times as increasing the capacity of the Railways almost up to pre 'Beeching' cut levels. Roads are already at nigh on gridlock.

Also if we are to trade with 'The Rest Of The World' in our 'post brexit utopia' then more stuff will be flown in probably to East Midlands airport (which they've recently built a Rail link to) and then transported to distribution centres by Rail. You would thin 'Jezza' would welcome less lorries on the roads but then he's always been a daffodil.

Will HS2 really free up sufficient capacity to have an effect on the traffic?

 

[classic33]

Yep freeing up capacity on the existing lines.

But not for freight.
Getting that back onto the rails will take more than one railway line.

Leeds Holbeck, had work started, then abandoned. Returning focus back to Leeds, albeit on more new platforms on the opposite side of the station, currently under construction where it was a carpark before.

 

[postman]

I hope it's better costed than yer London Crossrail .That sounds as though it's going really well.They want more money,Anyway good luck with keeping HS2 on budget.