Hypothetical S&D question

[TravisM]

I was having a discussion with a few friends down the pub a few weeks ago and the topic of the S&D came up.  The question was asked, had it survived the 60’s cuts as a through route, would much of it been singled like the Castle Cary - Weymouth line and had it survived past 1997, who would it been run by?

 

The overall conclusion was SouthWest Trains from Bournemouth to Bath, connecting with Cross Country there.  It was all agreed that the Highbridge branch would probably not survived.

 

What do you guys think?

[phil-b259]

4 hours ago, jools1959 said:

I was having a discussion with a few friends down the pub a few weeks ago and the topic of the S&D came up.  The question was asked, had it survived the 60’s cuts as a through route, would much of it been singled like the Castle Cary - Weymouth line and had it survived past 1997, who would it been run by?

 

The overall conclusion was SouthWest Trains from Bournemouth to Bath, connecting with Cross Country there.  It was all agreed that the Highbridge branch would probably not survived.

 

What do you guys think?

 

Much would depend on which sub division of BR was responsible for supplying motive power at privatisation.

 

Folk should note that Reading to Gatwick services are run by GWR despite the majority of the route being SWT / SWR or Southern territory. This is simply because under NSE, the responsibility for providing motive power was Reading depot.

 

Had the S&D remained open then the most likely that motive power would be sourced from the Western Region Bristol depots. This would in turn lead to it ultimately ending up under GWR and even though it would extend into what were historically Southern Railway areas just like their current Gatwick, Weymouth, Portsmouth or Brighton services do.

 

As for the service pattern - with cross country services long having been diverted via Basingstoke and Reading, any S&D service would only exsist to serve local interests only - with significant rationalisation essential. As you suggest we are looking at a Weymouth branch setup here, single track throughout, widely spaced passing places, big intervals between trains etc. I would also suggest that Bath Green Park would still have been sold off and a simple affair erected at Bath Junction for trains to reverse.

[Dunsignalling]

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Much would depend on which sub division of BR was responsible for supplying motive power at privatisation.

 

Folk should note that Reading to Gatwick services are run by GWR despite the majority of the route being SWT / SWR or Southern territory. This is simply because under NSE, the responsibility for providing motive power was Reading depot.

 

Had the S&D remained open then the most likely that motive power would be sourced from the Western Region Bristol depots. This would in turn lead to it ultimately ending up under GWR and even though it would extend into what were historically Southern Railway areas just like their current Gatwick, Weymouth, Portsmouth or Brighton services do.

 

As for the service pattern - with cross country services long having been diverted via Basingstoke and Reading, any S&D service would only exsist to serve local interests only - with significant rationalisation essential. As you suggest we are looking at a Weymouth branch setup here, single track throughout, widely spaced passing places, big intervals between trains etc. I would also suggest that Bath Green Park would still have been sold off and a simple affair erected at Bath Junction for trains to reverse.

Though, of course, Weymouth's primary services to/from the capital are still provided by the successors of the Southern Region. 

 

However, the lucrative Reading-Gatwick route aside, BR Western Region never made a serious attempt at "saving" anything it took over from other regions. Its MO was always to transfer whatever traffic it could to its existing network, let the rest disappear of its own accord, and close. Under the circumstances pertaining at the time, I'm not suggesting that was wrong, it's just how things were done.

 

The S&D would have been doomed under any scenario, and even Yeovil-Exeter would probably have gone around the same time as the Minehead branch (neatly coinciding with the demise of the Warships) had the vulnerability of the GWR main line to flooding east of Exeter not intervened a couple of years earlier.

 

John

Edited September 29, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[phil-b259]

11 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

 

 

The S&D would have been doomed under any scenario, and even Yeovil-Exeter would probably have gone around the same time as the Minehead branch (neatly coinciding with the demise of the Warships) had the vulnerability of the GWR main line to flooding east of Exeter not intervened a couple of years earlier.

 

 

 

I quite agree - but the original poster was assuming an alternate history in which it had somehow survived.

 

Granted for that to happen we are looking at the Beeching report etc never having happened and a more gradual closure programme taken place thus allowing it to limp on into the era where public opinion had changed.

 

(France never had a ‘Beeching Axe’ taken to its Network like BR did, but it still has closed vast numbers of lines in the decades since the 1960s).

[johnofwessex]

The WR did have various plans to link the Midland line from Bristol with the GWR Bath - Bristol line around Twerton.

 

I suspect however that the 'stand alone' nature of the S&D at Bath would have adversely affected any chance of saving the line, not that the evidence suggested any serious case for retention

[johnofwessex]

That of course and the fact that the timetable was unchanged since about 1924 and very few people lived along the route.................

[Andy Kirkham]

I suppose they could have closed Green Park and built a rudimentary station at the point where it crossed the GW line and offered interchange via Oldfield Park. 

[down the sdjr]

I had much the same conversation on the RTR sub forum about trains that may have run on the S&D in the late 1980s.

Seems class 150s might have been used due to shorter carriage lengthes for the restricted tunnels on the line and maybe class 47s due to thier power.

class 150 dmu in regional railways livery seemed to fit.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

I would imagine it to be a perfect line for the combustible 230's had it lasted long enough.

Community railway, on train staff only, links to civilisation at Templecombe.

Although singling and minimilism would be the order of the day, would it have been a going concern as an alternative route for freight from Southampton/Fawley to Wales/Midlands and beyond?

 

Mike.

[melmerby]

As regards survival, why did the palaver at Templecombe (reversing in out etc.) last so long when a decent platform at low level with lift & stairs to the LSWR platforms would have made operation so much easier?

[down the sdjr]

2 minutes ago, melmerby said:

As regards survival, why did the palaver at Templecombe (reversing in out etc.) last so long when a decent platform at low level with lift & stairs to the LSWR platforms would have made operation so much easier?

Would have been much cheaper to reverse with a DMU, but a question i have thought about many times myself.

[melmerby]

14 minutes ago, down the sdjr said:

Would have been much cheaper to reverse with a DMU, but a question i have thought about many times myself.

I suppose, apart from the need to build another platform, that the distance was considered too far as the LSWR platforms finished short of the S&D bridge and would have needed extending over High Street. All extra capital cost for a line that wasn't exactly a money spinner.

[Joseph_Pestell]

10 hours ago, jools1959 said:

I was having a discussion with a few friends down the pub a few weeks ago and the topic of the S&D came up.  The question was asked, had it survived the 60’s cuts as a through route, would much of it been singled like the Castle Cary - Weymouth line and had it survived past 1997, who would it been run by?

 

The overall conclusion was SouthWest Trains from Bournemouth to Bath, connecting with Cross Country there.  It was all agreed that the Highbridge branch would probably not survived.

 

What do you guys think?

 

The S&D was single for much of its length, not double.

 

Taking a more strategic view, it should probably have been the old main line (Highbridge) which survived and the new main line to Bath that succumbed. So often the way that the late-build railways were the first to close. There was a reason why they were not the first choice to build.

 

Nobody loves Bath more than me, but was it a sensible destination for the S&D with a reversal in the rather constrained Queen Square station to get anywhere further north? And pretty useless for freight.

 

Bournemouth to, say, Birmingham via Highbridge is probably more distance than via Bath. But would it have taken any longer?

[Edwin_m]

Wasn't there a pre-WW2 proposal to build a connection at Midford and a new curve near Limpley Stoke so S&D could access Bath GWR station via Bathampton, plus a connection to the Midland further west?  This would have allowed closure of Green Park and the difficult single-line section and tunnel between there and Midford.  If this has been revived post-war it might have been just the Midford and Limpley Stoke connections with closure of the Midland south of Yate.  However I can't see how any connection at Midford would have been possible without an expensive new viaduct, so probably not worthwhile for a relatively marginal route. 

 

Even with this connection it's unlikely the S&D would have featured in any "Regional Express" network, as the service between South Wales, Bristol and the south coast would still have used the much more remunerative (and probably quicker) route via Salisbury and Southampton.  With no connection and no closure it might have staggered on to terminate at a one-platform station somewhere near Green Park, in which case resourcing from the south end would have been more sensible.  In NSE or SWT days the more populated southern end might have got a better service into Bournemouth, rather as the Chandler's Ford line did into Southampton.  

Edited September 29, 2019 by Edwin_m

[Joseph_Pestell]

8 minutes ago, Edwin_m said:

Wasn't there a pre-WW2 proposal to build a connection at Midford and a new curve near Limpley Stoke so S&D could access Bath GWR station via Bathampton, plus a connection to the Midland further west?  This would have allowed closure of Green Park and the difficult single-line section and tunnel between there and Midford.  If this has been revived post-war it might have been just the Midford and Limpley Stoke connections with closure of the Midland south of Yate.  However I can't see how any connection at Midford would have been possible without an expensive new viaduct, so probably not worthwhile for a relatively marginal route. 

 

Even with this connection it's unlikely the S&D would have featured in any "Regional Express" network, as the service between South Wales, Bristol and the south coast would still have used the much more remunerative (and probably quicker) route via Salisbury and Southampton.  With no connection and no closure it might have staggered on to terminate at a one-platform station somewhere near Green Park, in which case resourcing from the south end would have been more sensible.  In NSE or SWT days the more populated southern end might have got a better service into Bournemouth, rather as the Chandler's Ford line did into Southampton.  

 

The connection between the GW and Midland north of Bath was definitely a missed opportunity. Freight travelling via Filton has to deal with a very steep bank there which has been a real bottleneck until the recent return of the line there to four tracks.

[Joseph_Pestell]

55 minutes ago, melmerby said:

I suppose, apart from the need to build another platform, that the distance was considered too far as the LSWR platforms finished short of the S&D bridge and would have needed extending over High Street. All extra capital cost for a line that wasn't exactly a money spinner.

 

Back then, parcels, unaccompanied luggage, etc. were all important revenue earners for the railway.

 

It would have been difficult to handle them at Templecombe via a long connection to/from a platform on the S&D.

[Edwin_m]

48 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

The connection between the GW and Midland north of Bath was definitely a missed opportunity. Freight travelling via Filton has to deal with a very steep bank there which has been a real bottleneck until the recent return of the line there to four tracks.

A connection at Bath would presumably have been between the GW to the east and the Midland to the north/west, so would only avoid Filton Bank for freight via Chippenham or Westbury (or via the S&D and the Midford and Limpley Stoke connections if built) not via Taunton.  I'm not sure how much that would be.  A west to north curve west of Bath would have provided an alternative route onto the Midland for freight via Taunton, but that would equally have been possible by running through Temple Meads and keeping the Midland open via Fishponds (which would probably also have survived if the Midland line to Bath had). 

 

Putting the four tracks back on Filton bank as eventually done, or not taking them away in the first place, would have been much less trouble than keeping any of these other routes open or reopening them.  The exception might have been if there was significant passenger traffic, but if the modern railway had services between Bath and the north they would also have had to serve the much more important city of Bristol.  I think there are still a couple of trains that avoid Temple Meads by the Rhubarb Curve but these are/were provided mainly for MoD staff at Filton, which wouldn't have been accessible by the Midland.  

Edited September 29, 2019 by Edwin_m

[Joseph_Pestell]

20 minutes ago, Edwin_m said:

A connection at Bath would presumably have been between the GW to the east and the Midland to the north/west, so would only avoid Filton Bank for freight via Chippenham or Westbury (or via the S&D and the Midford and Limpley Stoke connections if built) not via Taunton.  I'm not sure how much that would be.  A west to north curve west of Bath would have provided an alternative route onto the Midland for freight via Taunton, but that would equally have been possible by running through Temple Meads and keeping the Midland open via Fishponds (which would probably also have survived if the Midland line to Bath had). 

 

Putting the four tracks back on Filton bank as eventually done, or not taking them away in the first place, would have been much less trouble than keeping any of these other routes open or reopening them.  The exception might have been if there was significant passenger traffic, but if the modern railway had services between Bath and the north they would also have had to serve the much more important city of Bristol.  I think there are still a couple of trains that avoid Temple Meads by the Rhubarb Curve but these are/were provided mainly for MoD staff at Filton, which wouldn't have been accessible by the Midland.  

 

I totally agree that it would not make much sense for trains from Bath to the Midlands/North not to serve Bristol - but that is what happened albeit with some carriages attached/detached at Mangotsfield.

 

But I see the missing link between the GW north-west of Bath and the Midland as having been a missed opportunity for freight from Southampton to the Midlands and North.

[melmerby]

One of the problems I see when looking at BR was it inheriting all these formerly competing railways and doing very little to integrate them into a cohesive national network. Regionalisation generally only perpetuated the big 4 mindset, when all lines should have been considered together as a whole.

Many lines were duplicates and there were opportunities to link parts of different company's lines with new connections which except in a few cases were rarely undertaken. This could have meant marginal routes may have survived if integrated with more profitable ones into a single main station etc.

 

The West Midlands is an example of what happens when the connections were already in place pre BR.

60s/70s rationalisation meant that only the GWR line between Birmingham and Wolverhampton was lost, all the former GWR routes were able to use New Street and Wolverhampton HL and so carried on.

An upside of this is the resurgence of rail travel meant the routes were still there to benefit from enhanced services.

 

Apart from the Metro the only re-instatement has been from Moor Street, through Snow Hill to Smethwick, which nowadays relieves New Street which is bursting at the seams!

[TravisM]

If it had survived into the days of Regional Railways, it would not had been too hard to imagine a Class 153 trundling along over the Medford viaduct.

[Edwin_m]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

One of the problems I see when looking at BR was it inheriting all these formerly competing railways and doing very little to integrate them into a cohesive national network. Regionalisation generally only perpetuated the big 4 mindset, when all lines should have been considered together as a whole.

Many lines were duplicates and there were opportunities to link parts of different company's lines with new connections which except in a few cases were rarely undertaken. This could have meant marginal routes may have survived if integrated with more profitable ones into a single main station etc.

 

The West Midlands is an example of what happens when the connections were already in place pre BR.

60s/70s rationalisation meant that only the GWR line between Birmingham and Wolverhampton was lost, all the former GWR routes were able to use New Street and Wolverhampton HL and so carried on.

An upside of this is the resurgence of rail travel meant the routes were still there to benefit from enhanced services.

 

Apart from the Metro the only re-instatement has been from Moor Street, through Snow Hill to Smethwick, which nowadays relieves New Street which is bursting at the seams!

Several such connections were put in around Sheffield when Gerry Fiennes was the local manager - I don't recall the full list but Aldwarke was one of them and I think also the link near Nunnery that allowed trains on the Worksop line to run into Midland.  These sought to integrate the former Midland and GC routes many of which were parallel over long distances due to the local topography forcing most lines to follow river valleys.  Most of the connections no longer exist due to later closures and rationalisations.  

 

Elsewhere another example was a connection west of Haymarket so trains from the Caledonian route could run into Waverley, allowing closure of Princes Street station.  I can't think of any similar one around Bristol-Bath, though Midland trains were diverted by the already existing curve between Yate and Westerleigh to use the GWR route into Bristol allowing closure of the Midland routes.  This allowed them to make important connections to and from South Wales and elsewhere, when Bristol Parkway opened a few years later.  

Edited September 29, 2019 by Edwin_m

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Edwin_m said:

Several such connections were put in around Sheffield when Gerry Fiennes was the local manager - I don't recall the full list but Aldwarke was one of them and I think also the link near Nunnery that allowed trains on the Worksop line to run into Midland.  These sought to integrate the former Midland and GC routes many of which were parallel over long distances due to the local topography forcing most lines to follow river valleys.  Most of the connections no longer exist due to later closures and rationalisations.  

 

Much to do with concentrating freight in Tinsley yard.

Not a lot closed though, many ex Mid & ex GC lines carried on as before, North of Nottingham there were three lines side by side in places, MID, GC & GN.

I don't think much effort was made in actually integrating the network.

Nottingham Victoria was better placed than the Midland station and was on a N-S route. I always envisaged some way of connecting with the Midland Lines to the North and at say Loughborough to the South to make a better through route

E-W trains from Derby could enter the north via the GN line and exit the south, the Midland station and associated tracks would be closed as would the GC south of Loughborough.