Jump to content
 

What if Woodhead hadn't closed?


Jim76
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • RMweb Premium
26 minutes ago, jonny777 said:

 

 

In the past, maybe. 

 

There are now no tolls on the Severn Bridge. 

 

Although they were scrapped by the Westminster Government, that was made possible because the construction costs of the 2nd bridge were very close to being met ahead of schedule anyway. They thus felt able to pay off the tiny amount remaining supposedly to provide an economic stimulus for Wales although IIRC it was probably more to do with gaining Political advantage in upcoming elections for a relatively small outlay.

 

The cost of buying out the remainder of the Humber Bridge contract remains very high as a result of the low traffic levels (versus the capacity of the crossing) and as such HM Treasury have repeatedly resisted calls to do so despite the fact that such a move could play well politically and should in theory help the general Humberside area economically.

Edited by phil-b259
  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
40 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I think that you cannot judge the success of any piece of infrastructure by the narrow view if whether it, in isolation, makes a profit. It is the network that matters not a small part of it.

The investors in this bridge thought differently and they have come a cropper. Their problem, they took the risk. I think that this bridge should be taken back into public ownership but the company that owns it should be allowed to fail first. Then the taxpayer can step in and get in the firesale. No more subsidiaries for private enterprise, they should stand or fall on their own merits.

Cheers

 

The 'investors' in the bridge are in fact council tax payers!

 

At the time it was built, the method was to set up a joint board of local authorities to borrow the finance and run the project (not some PFI style body). THEY are the ones who stand to lose out if the costs of construction are not paid back - not a bunch of city investors looking to make a quick buck.

 

If the tolls are abolished then that generates a massive bill to be paid by Humberside taxpayers! The local authorities are no in a position to afford to do that now (just as they weren't able to fund the construction of the bridge from their own funds in the first place).

 

HM Treasury could pay off the remaining construction balance on their behalf if they wanted to - but repeated requests have meet with a flat NO from Whitehall (on the grounds of how much of the original loan is still owed). Instead Whitehall have simply extend the amount of time for which tolls may be charged to reflect the low levels of traffic (and thus income) the structure carries.

 

The fact that this has been necessary makes it perfectly clear that the bridge is not the 'Success' everyone assumed it was going to be at the outset.

 

  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
30 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I thought it was the need to actually replace the tunnel which was held to be in a poor condition. I believe the geology in that part of the Pennines is pretty difficult and there were issues in maintaining it with corrosive water etc.

 

 

Thats correct - the LNER and BR had in fact started work trying to pit electrification equipment into the old tunnels, but it was very much a case of the more repair / strengthening work they did, the more defects and structural problems they found. Hence the decision to cut their loses and go for a new tunnel.

 

33 minutes ago, PenrithBeacon said:

Whatever, it's closed and nobody seems to notice much of a difference excepting those who have a bee in their bonnets.

There are three routes from Manchester to Yorkshire still and it seems to be enough for the traffic presenting itself.

Cheers

 

Spot on!

 

Just because something is relatively new doesn't mean its useful

 

Unfortunately like some other railway based hobby horse projects (Waverly route complete reinstatement, BML2, etc) people let their passions get in the way of / override the fact based evidence which shows their ideas fall very much into the 'solution looking for a problem to solve' category.

  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
On 31/08/2019 at 23:32, Lemmy282 said:

Diesel haulage through the tunnel had to be kept to a minimum, remember there were no ventilation shafts and it was lined with Portland cement, which would degrade with the diesel fumes.

 

There was at least one vent shaft - though as benefits a electric railway this was less than ideal for frequent diesel operation. As such I think there was a restriction of no more than 4 diesel hauled trains an hour (2 each way) permitted so as to allow time for the fumes to disperse.

  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
29 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

Unfortunately like some other railway based hobby horse projects (Waverly route complete reinstatement, BML2, etc) people let their passions get in the way of / override the fact based evidence which shows their ideas fall very much into the 'solution looking for a problem to solve' category.

I would add the Somerset and Dorset to that list; a railway that without the wonderful photographic efforts of people like Ivo Peters, considerably fewer people would have even heard of.

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Back to Woodhead, IF it AND the London extension had remained open, I wonder whether the 1500v DC electrification could have been usefully extended?

 

IMHO no, because there's no way the GCR London extension would ever have been electrified before the far better connected. busier and more useful WCML, ECML and Midland Main Line - The last of which of course is still not wired now !

 

 

3 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

The closure proposal was partly based on the stated necessity to replace all the overhead wiring, this was a blatant lie, amply demonstrated if you look at the OLE west of Hadfield. Apart from the insulators it's all the original wiring so this could easily have been done for the rest of the route.

 

But to what purpose ? The passenger traffic had already gone, and with the change in freight flows away from yard-to-yard working, the lifeblood of Woodhead, the Fiddlers Ferry coal, was incredibly inefficient, every train requiring three sets of loco(s) and therefore crews, and for loaded trains from Wath a fourth set as bankers. And as we know now that traffic has gone, for good. Imagine the outcry if BR had spent millions (not that it ever could) on re-electrifying Woodhead, and building new locos only for that investment to have been shown to be a waste after what, 15 or 20 years !

 

Edited by caradoc
Spelling mistake
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
3 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Back to Woodhead, IF it AND the London extension had remained open,

 

And thats the problem - I really cannot see it surviving however you try and twist history.

 

Even if you assume nationalisation hadn't happened (or WW2 for that matter which so ran the railways into the ground that the post war Government simply couldn't aford to compensate the big 4 properly and made nationalisation pretty much a certainty), I fail to see how the motorway revolution and road transport would have not happened.

 

In the 1930s many UK planners were very interested in the German Autobhan network and wished to replicate that while mass production plus technical advances were making cars, lorries and buses ever more affordable options. Without WW2 to curtail ambition we would have most likely seen motorway construction taking place in the 1940s.

 

In the face of such an onslaught its highly likely that you would have seen railway companies retreat and avoid ruinous competition for what traffic remained. Would they have managed to keep going till the upsurge in rail travel we have seen over the past 3 decades took hold - I doubt it. That means the Government would have to step in with taxpayer support for socially viable services and a demand to cut out 'waste' in the system.

 

 

 

  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
17 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

I fail to see how the motorway revolution and road transport would have not happened.

 

In the 1930s many UK planners were very interested in the German Autobhan network and wished to replicate that while mass production plus technical advances were making cars, lorries and buses ever more affordable options. Without WW2 to curtail ambition we would have most likely seen motorway construction taking place in the 1940s.

 

I agree and this assessment is the answer to an earlier post, which I didn't respond to, repeating the old conspiracy of growth in road traffic being the result the Tories supporting the road lobby.  It seems to have happened in virtually every advanced economy in the Western world, many with much more left-wing governments than ours.

I may be an ardent railway enthusiast but it's not a conspiracy that a road vehicle is a very convenient means of getting from A to B.

  • Agree 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
3 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

I thought it was the need to actually replace the tunnel which was held to be in a poor condition. I believe the geology in that part of the Pennines is pretty difficult and there were issues in maintaining it with corrosive water etc.

 

I thought the 1950s tunnel was in reasonable condition which is why the high voltage cables were moved in to it from one of the old ones several years ago (the one they were in getting worse, and I vaguely recall the other old tunnel had already collapsed).

  • Agree 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, daveyb said:

I know it's off topic, but with your reasoning, I don't think the Humber Bridge would ever have been built... it's a huge road bridge from one dying industrial area to another dying industrial area and incomplete links at both ends.

 

I agree with the rest of the post entirely!

 

The Humber Bridge was built for purely political reasons, and is arguably the most spectacular example of transport mis-investment in the country.

 

It was built to win a close by-election in Hull in 1965 or 1966. Labour under Harold Wilson had a wafer-thin majority and needed to hold the seat. Barbara Castle went up to Hull to speak in support of the Labour candidate, Kevin Macnamara, and promised Hull that Labour would build a bridge across the Humber. Labour duly held the seat.

 

To justify the Bridge, the civil servants planning the alterations to the existing county boundaries in the late 1960s invented the concept of Humberside, carving most of East Yorkshire off and stapling it together with Grimsby and Scunthorpe .

 

This meant that Hull - where Hull Corporation would become a second tier authority - would not be subject to Tory E Riding of Yorkshire , since Labour-voting Grimsby and Scunthorpe would be carved off Tory Lincolnshire to form a new, securely Labour county called Humberside. This monstrous amalgam would be stapled together by the Humber Bridge, which would allow two entirely unrelated and physically separate bits of the country to be packaged and presented as a single county

 

The whole thing proved massively unpopular with everyone affected, and steadily demonstrated over a quarter of a century- in the face of sustained denial by the Civil Service - that Humberside consisted of two quite separate parts , which had in common only their shared desire to be separate from each other

 

Not surprisingly, nothing at all was done about the Humber Bridge under Edward Heath , or until after Labour returned to power in 1974...

 

The bridge actually links Hull with a market town of 5000 people (Barton-on-Humber) . It is a direct replacement for a ferry which in the years immediately before the Bridge had been reduced to a one-boat service, and wasn't visibly over-stressed by that

 

Almost 40 years after it opened, the A15 from Barnetby Top to the Bridge remains the quietest dual carriageway I know, and for most of its existence the Bridge has been coned down to one lane each way to reduce wear...

 

Having grown up in East Lincolnshire with family on both sides from Hull, I'm fairly familiar with this one....

  • Agree 1
  • Informative/Useful 5
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
6 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

The Humber Bridge is a PRIVATE Road which is NOT funded by general taxation

 

 

It's a public body consisting of several local Authorities and the Government has topped up it's finances to keep it solvent. (money from general taxation!)

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
8 minutes ago, melmerby said:

It's a public body consisting of several local Authorities and the Government has topped up it's finances to keep it solvent. (money from general taxation!)

 

I said Private Road - as opposed to regular public highway. There is nothing to stop a state body owning a 'private road'.

 

The status of the body which owns a 'private road' is irrelevant -  the point is such infrastructure sits outside the traditional highways structure (i.e. roads administered by Highways England or Local Authorities) and will have its own bespoke rules and regulations which apply to it only, usually due to a specific act of Parliament.

 

It will also not be funded on the same basis as the rest of the public highway network, relying on bespoke arrangements (in the case of the Humber Bridge that being tolls) to generate funds.

 

 

Edited by phil-b259
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
On 23/01/2020 at 09:17, woodenhead said:

To keep the line open as a passenger route needs passengers and between Penistone and Hadfield there are only sheep.

I once stood for the Borough Council which covers the western portal of the tunnel. (Didn't win).

The electoral register for the Woodhead part of the ward on the northern side of the reservoirs contained just 32 names.

  • Informative/Useful 2
  • Funny 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
50 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

I said Private Road - as opposed to regular public highway. There is nothing to stop a state body owning a 'private road'.

 

The status of the body which owns a 'private road' is irrelevant -  the point is such infrastructure sits outside the traditional highways structure (i.e. roads administered by Highways England or Local Authorities) and will have its own bespoke rules and regulations which apply to it only, usually due to a specific act of Parliament.

 

It will also not be funded on the same basis as the rest of the public highway network, relying on bespoke arrangements (in the case of the Humber Bridge that being tolls) to generate funds.

 

 

Splitting hairs, It's still publicly owned not some private company.

The tolls don't pay for it's upkeep so funds from General Taxation have been used to prop it up which is contrary to what you said.

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, caradoc said:

Imagine the outcry if BR had spent millions (not that it ever could) on re-electrifying Woodhead, and building new locos only for that investment to have been shown to be a waste after what, 15 or 20 years !

 

I hope I'm not quoting you out of context here but that made me smile!

How many times did BR do just that through the fifties, sixties and beyond? Some of the locos concerned barely lasted more than five years.

 

  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
41 minutes ago, melmerby said:

...

The tolls don't pay for it's upkeep.....

 

Actually I believe they do. They certainly pay the wages of the toll collectors etc because these are only necessary by virtue of the tolls being in existence in the first place.

 

Basically its a bit like roads built in new housing estates - they only get adopted by the highways authority when the developer has completed them to the standards the highways authority demand.

 

In the case of Bridges like the Humber Bridge, the relevant acts of parliament are usually such that the road will only become the responsibility of the designated highways authority (most likely Highways England in this case) when the tolls have been paid off and the current management structure is dissolved.

 

Dartford provides an example of this. The original act of parliament authorising construction of the QE2 bridge there explicitly said tolls and the associated PFI agreement would finish once the cost of the QE2 bridge (and the remaining costs of the tunnels which was added to the bridge cost) had been paid off. This was planned to be around 2008 after which the crossing would revert to the control of the DfT / the Highways Agency (as was) - but such is the volume of traffic said costs were actually paid off by 2002!

 

(This is why the Government rushed through legislation to keep the tolls at Dartford in 2000 in the guise of a 'congestion charge' because otherwise it would be illegal to continue charging them).

 

With the Humber Bridge the reverse is true - the original acts of parliament have had to be modified as it was clear that the timeframe when tolls could be charged was insufficient to cover the build costs as the local authorities have made it clear they were in no position to fund the shortfall and the DfT didn't want to step in either.

 

Its worth noting that the channel tunnel was built on a similar basis - it is in fact a design, build and operate concession which specifies that all the channel tunnel assets will revert to Government ownership after XX years. Due to the project going massively over budget this agreement has been extended twice by the British and French Governments so that they do not end up with a big loan bill still left to pay at the end of the concession.

 

Edited by phil-b259
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
On 22/01/2020 at 22:56, Ben B said:

  I gather some reclaimed track from the route went into the Snow Hill tunnel and station in Brum though.

Only about 20 lengths which was used for a temporary connection for delivery of materials to the Snow Hill lines from the Moor Street end. All of the final track was new. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, caradoc said:

 

IMHO no, because there's no way the GCR London extension would ever have been electrified before the far better connected. busier and more useful WCML, ECML and Midland Main Line - The last of which of course is still not wired now !

 

 

 

But to what purpose ? The passenger traffic had already gone, and with the change in freight flows away from yard-to-yard working, the lifeblood of Woodhead, the Fiddlers Ferry coal, was incredibly inefficient, every train requiring three sets of loco(s) and therefore crews, and for loaded trains from Wath a fourth set as bankers. And as we know now that traffic has gone, for good. Imagine the outcry if BR had spent millions (not that it ever could) on re-electrifying Woodhead, and building new locos only for that investment to have been shown to be a waste after what, 15 or 20 years !

 

 

What happened to the Fiddler's Ferry coal trains after the closure of Woodhead? Were they re-routed or did FF just get coal from another location?

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
10 minutes ago, montyburns56 said:

 

What happened to the Fiddler's Ferry coal trains after the closure of Woodhead? Were they re-routed or did FF just get coal from another location?

I don't know about the years immediarely after closure of Woodhead but from 1995 coal was mainly imported through Liverpool's Gladstone Dock terminal I believe. 

  • Informative/Useful 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Lantavian said:

 

This isn't how transport planning works. First you identify sources of traffic, future demand, etc and then you work out what new routes and upgrades to existing infrastructure are needed to carry it. 

 

You don't start off by deciding that some old tunnels should be reopened and then try to make up new strategic routes to justify them re-opening.

 

That's why railway enthusiasts should never be allowed to run national transport policy.

 

I was thinking that the flows are already there - East coast ports and Europe to the Northwest and Northeast, all of which is currently carried on congested routes with limited capacity (ECML, WCML, NNL). As for future flow planning I am sure that much demand has already been told to go away because there is insufficient capacity. Sixteen miles of Woodhead, a few new chords, and a few miles reinstated across the open plains of Lincolnshire from March should somewhat boost capacity for freight and free up a good few paths on the ECML and WCML. I know that some parcels traffic could not be carried because overnight possessions on pinchpoints would make it nonviable - more alternative routes could see this type of traffic become feasible if diversionary routes are available.

  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Suzie said:

 

I was thinking that the flows are already there - East coast ports and Europe to the Northwest and Northeast, all of which is currently carried on congested routes with limited capacity (ECML, WCML, NNL). As for future flow planning I am sure that much demand has already been told to go away because there is insufficient capacity. Sixteen miles of Woodhead, a few new chords, and a few miles reinstated across the open plains of Lincolnshire from March should somewhat boost capacity for freight and free up a good few paths on the ECML and WCML. I know that some parcels traffic could not be carried because overnight possessions on pinchpoints would make it nonviable - more alternative routes could see this type of traffic become feasible if diversionary routes are available.


 

Of the trade that arrives in east coast ports, the majority of non-bulk trade heads off by road.   Bulk (eg iron ore to Scunthorpe) can be by rail.  For a lot of trade, it would cost more to move it by rail than road given the inherent extra handling.  As an aside, new investment is predominantly justified by incremental new traffic (for existing traffic to justify new investment, you’d have to prove relieving  the congestion benefit created new demand elsewhere on the system.)

 

i think there is a fair point,  as alluded to in the toll debate above, that road users do not pay for the costs of their infrastructure.  The exceptions being Dartford and Severn River crossings and the M6 Toll.  If Government policy shifted to either direct road user charging and/or introduced a meaningful carbon tax, the economics of shifting goods comparatively small distances by rail might change.

  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
31 minutes ago, Clearwater said:

i think there is a fair point,  as alluded to in the toll debate above, that road users do not pay for the costs of their infrastructure.

 

Well they do in a way because its not exactly cheap to insure service or run a fleet of HGVs these days and road tax for HGVs is not insignificant either. The big problem however is that those costs are spread about so can easily get overlooked - particularly as the more use the vehicle the less those fixed costs become as a percentage of the overall cost of making the road journey.

 

We see this at work with the private car too - I freely admit to driving to work because I feel I need a car anyway so the when comparing costs its fuel versus train ticket cost and fuel generally works out cheaper.

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
1 hour ago, Suzie said:

 

I was thinking that the flows are already there - East coast ports and Europe to the Northwest and Northeast, all of which is currently carried on congested routes with limited capacity (ECML, WCML, NNL). As for future flow planning I am sure that much demand has already been told to go away because there is insufficient capacity. Sixteen miles of Woodhead, a few new chords, and a few miles reinstated across the open plains of Lincolnshire from March should somewhat boost capacity for freight and free up a good few paths on the ECML and WCML. I know that some parcels traffic could not be carried because overnight possessions on pinchpoints would make it nonviable - more alternative routes could see this type of traffic become feasible if diversionary routes are available.

 

Pinchpoints are being addressed where a positive business case can be made - the Werrington diveunder being one example, the Bacon Factory curve in Ipswich built a few years ago being another example.

 

Its worth remembering part of the justification of HS2 is to free up paths on the WCML for freight - HS3 across the Pennines would do the same there while also providing passenger benefits.

 

You also need to remember that as with passenger traffic there is no way you can make the financial numbers work simply on diversionary capability (something supporters of the LSWR route round Dartmoor frequently fail to understand). Putting back March to Spalding would never have made any sort of financial sense - the Werrington diverunder does the same job at a fraction of the price.

 

The justification for Woodhead died with the UK coal industry and no amount of artful language can change that brutal truth.

 

  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Bacon Factory Curve is one of those key new chords that in this case gets traffic from Felixstowe to March. Werrington gets it on to Doncaster in a roundabout way avoiding the ECML, now how to get it across the Pennines from Doncaster without getting stuck behind a pacer...

 

A new chord from the Goblin to Northumberland Park and reinstating the 4-track West Anglia (not sure that the existing Chord to Seven Sisters will be much use) will provide a connection from Thamesport and HS1 via LTS to March that will be electric as far as Ely so scope for a bit of infill wiring Ely to Peterborough to make a big improvement.

 

A few little things can make it all work.

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
5 hours ago, Suzie said:

now how to get it across the Pennines from Doncaster without getting stuck behind a pacer...

 

This is perhaps a key issue, that the (apparent or real) default policy of giving priority to passenger services needs to be carefully considered.

Do you delay a freight train so that at the end of a restricted passenger route, it misses the only available freight path for four hours and has to lay up in a loop until the driver runs out of hours, needs to be relieved by another driver arriving by taxi and the containers eventually arrive at the port six hours late (and possibly miss the ship, so delay the goods for days or even weeks)? 

Or do you delay 20-30 heavily-subsidised passengers on the Pacer by 10-20 minutes, which means one or two of them might miss a connection and will be entitled to a £50 refund from the industry?

Which is more important? 

  • Agree 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...