£96bn Integrated Rail Plan

[Aire Head]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

So we can now get Bradford in bottles? Intriguing!

 

If you know where to look 

[Ohmisterporter]

Relocating Bradford was tried over a century ago when Morecambe was known as Bradford-by-the-sea.

[ess1uk]

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/npr-boss-claims-irp-plans-will-take-longer-to-deliver-than-scrapped-proposals-25-11-2021/

 

[peanuts]

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/direct-rail-route-plan-to-slash-25-minutes-between-hull-paragon-and-liverpool-lime-street-3478884

[woodenhead]

2 hours ago, peanuts said:

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/direct-rail-route-plan-to-slash-25-minutes-between-hull-paragon-and-liverpool-lime-street-3478884

This sounds like a positive news story to cover up changes which will result from cuts elsewhere on the TPE services from May 22.

 

Services up the ECML were proposed to be cut back.

[ess1uk]

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/this-integrated-rail-plan-will-get-north-back-on-track-and-prove-its-critics-wrong-over-high-speed-rail-grant-shapps-3502601?amp

[corneliuslundie]

Well he would say that wouldn't he! (presumably written by the department's PR man)

Jonathan

[Mike Storey]

Quite so. The man, or his PR team at least, have simply announced the authorisation of money either already earmarked (HS2) which has been reduced, or money previously cancelled and simply re-instated (MML Electrification, in part). West Yorkshire Mass Transit has not been "approved", merely the design development stage. Any monies to actually build it will largely have to come from elsewhere. Trans-Pennine is a mix of already "approved in principle" electrification, although that has been increased thank goodness, and a much reduced NPR ambition, which excludes, for both HS2 and NPR, exactly what will happen around Leeds, money for the delivery of which is not included. ECML Upgrades are a simply a continuation of a longstanding programme.

 

In short, a cacophony of half-truths and utter deviations from the correct narrative. £96 billion over 22 years (with more to spend if such claims of "approval" are warranted) equates to just £4.5 billion per year, or roughly what Railtrack then NR were spending already on enhancements, and little of it is actually "authorised" until various bills pass through parliament. That may be realistic with current industry constraints. But what he does not mention is what else has been cut just to spend this, like CrossRail 2, electrification to Swansea, Dawlish diversion, Norwich in 2 hours, Leamside, etc etc. not to mention the supposed re-opening of a dozen or so Beeching-cuts routes.

[The Stationmaster]

On 22/12/2021 at 13:37, ess1uk said:

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/this-integrated-rail-plan-will-get-north-back-on-track-and-prove-its-critics-wrong-over-high-speed-rail-grant-shapps-3502601?amp

Oddly he didn't point out that even the much reduced central part of the NPR 'idea' isn't listed for work to start before 2040. Hmm - well he is a politician I suppose so that means don't really pay any attention to what I say because it will never happen while I'm in office.

[62613]

On 22/12/2021 at 13:37, ess1uk said:

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/this-integrated-rail-plan-will-get-north-back-on-track-and-prove-its-critics-wrong-over-high-speed-rail-grant-shapps-3502601?amp

Looks more like an attack on his political enemies. As Mike Storey says, much of what was announced is rehashing of programmes stalled by previous (Conservative) administrations. We were supposed to have a fully - electrified Trans - Pennine railway in time for the December 2018 timetable change; where is it?. The big widening on the Trans - Pennine route is, no doubt, that from Huddersfield to Thornhill, which we all heard about 18 months ago.

On his new Middlebrough - London service, how much influence over whoever is running the service did the DafT have? I know it's a stand - alone government operation, but, really?

[DY444]

On 02/01/2022 at 11:26, 62613 said:

Looks more like an attack on his political enemies. As Mike Storey says, much of what was announced is rehashing of programmes stalled by previous (Conservative) administrations. We were supposed to have a fully - electrified Trans - Pennine railway in time for the December 2018 timetable change; where is it?. The big widening on the Trans - Pennine route is, no doubt, that from Huddersfield to Thornhill, which we all heard about 18 months ago.

On his new Middlebrough - London service, how much influence over whoever is running the service did the DafT have? I know it's a stand - alone government operation, but, really?

 

It's very easy to lay all of this at the feet of politicians but there's far more to it than that. 

 

If the NW in-fills, Cannock, Goblin and GWML had been delivered on time and to budget would other projects have been stopped or drastically reduced in scope?

 

If the HS2 cost had not ballooned enormously would the cost/benefit of the Eastern leg be so diminished as to cause its curtailment?

 

If Crossrail had been delivered on time and to budget then would Crossrail 2 have been scrapped?

 

If you were SoS at the DfT would you trust the industry to turn all of that round on a tranche of future projects?  Even as pro-railway I can't honestly say I would.

 

It's also often forgotten that Labour weren't exactly pro-electrification in the pre-Adonis years.  It was a Labour SoS at the DfT when the now infamous report saying electrification was no longer needed was issued and it was under a Labour administration when de-electrification of parts of the ECML was under active consideration.

 

Obviously public expenditure during Covid hasn't done the railways any favours but furlough and all the rest of it seemed to be popular with the public and plenty of politicians backed it and many wanted more.  That was always going to have to be paid for eventually and unfortunately the railway's poor track record in delivery made it a simple and obvious target for cut backs.

 

Edited January 4, 2022 by DY444

[fezza]

Most 'left behind' towns aren't interested in HS2 or where it goes. They just want their local stations and railways back that were cut or closed in the 1960s. If any party wakes up to this fact they will reap the political rewards.

 

I travelled on the Okehampton line during the holidays - despite the station being way outside the centre on the top of a hill it was very well used. Sod all the prevarication and feasibility studies. Build it and they will come.

Edited January 4, 2022 by fezza

[TheQ]

On 18/11/2021 at 12:03, Michael Hodgson said:

If the Conservative and Unionist Party is sincere about wanting to keep the UK united, HS2 really ought to be extended to Glasgow and Edinburgh, never mind Leeds.  

Railways in Scotland are under the control of Wee Willie Crankie, every time Boris spends a pound in England (per person), she gets £1.20 to spend (Per  person), you might ask her what she's doing with the money..

Edited January 4, 2022 by TheQ

[62613]

5 hours ago, DY444 said:

 

It's very easy to lay all of this at the feet of politicians but there's far more to it than that. 

 

If the NW in-fills, Cannock, Goblin and GWML had been delivered on time and to budget would other projects have been stopped or drastically reduced in scope?

 

If the HS2 cost had not ballooned enormously would the cost/benefit of the Eastern leg be so diminished as to cause its curtailment?

 

If Crossrail had been delivered on time and to budget then would Crossrail 2 have been scrapped?

 

If you were SoS at the DfT would you trust the industry to turn all of that round on a tranche of future projects?  Even as pro-railway I can't honestly say I would.

 

It's also often forgotten that Labour weren't exactly pro-electrification in the pre-Adonis years.  It was a Labour SoS at the DfT when the now infamous report saying electrification was no longer needed was issued and it was under a Labour administration when de-electrification of parts of the ECML was under active consideration.

 

Obviously public expenditure during Covid hasn't done the railways any favours but furlough and all the rest of it seemed to be popular with the public and plenty of politicians backed it and many wanted more.  That was always going to have to be paid for eventually and unfortunately the railway's poor track record in delivery made it a simple and obvious target for cut backs.

 

Fantastic amount of whataboutery there! The giveaway might be that the Manchester - Leeds Transpennine Electrification thread started in 2012. The promise was made by a Conservative minister, and so far, it hasn't happened.

 

Since most of the money for furlough was paid for by borrowing, it won't start to be paid off for at least 5 years, I would think

[DY444]

56 minutes ago, 62613 said:

Fantastic amount of whataboutery there! The giveaway might be that the Manchester - Leeds Transpennine Electrification thread started in 2012. The promise was made by a Conservative minister, and so far, it hasn't happened.

 

Since most of the money for furlough was paid for by borrowing, it won't start to be paid off for at least 5 years, I would think

 

It's only "whataboutery" if you believe the inability to deliver railway projects to time or budget has no bearing on whether Government continues to allow railway projects to proceed.  Meanwhile back in the real world, the real giveaway might be that the original Trans Pennine announcement was made before the railway contrived to make a total pig's breakfast of the projects already authorised at that point.

 

Every single electrification project in England and Wales bar one started since the Adonis announcement has been delivered late and run substantially over budget.  The one exception being Bedford to Corby.  If those projects hadn't been messed up, the conversation now would be different and to pretend otherwise is naive. 

 

Edited January 4, 2022 by DY444

[mdvle]

32 minutes ago, DY444 said:

It's only "whataboutery" if you believe the inability to deliver railway projects to time or budget has no bearing on whether Government continues to allow railway projects to proceed.

 

While not saying NR and parties are innocent, the government shares a significant part of the blame.  Whether it be imposing unrealistic timetables, a pattern of demanding (whether directly through conversation, or indirectly through a pattern of what they approve) unrealistically low price estimates, continued interference (HS2 still be debated, changed, etc. a decade after initial announcement - all of which increases costs) or even the feast/famine nature of political announcements that prevents the creation and retention of the necessary experience that allows large projects like electrification to be delivered reliably.

 

(and this isn't unique to the UK, it can be found in many places where governments like to constantly meddle and then express surprise at the cost of such meddling).

[mdvle]

6 hours ago, fezza said:

Most 'left behind' towns aren't interested in HS2 or where it goes. They just want their local stations and railways back that were cut or closed in the 1960s. If any party wakes up to this fact they will reap the political rewards.

 

I think I would reword it and say they want their local station back with a direct service to X, where X is whatever the major destination is for that local population.

 

I don't think they will be as enthusiastic if that local station reopens with a Class 153 or modern equivalent shuttle service to another station where they have to change trains to get to X.

 

My suspicion is that most of those closed local stations will be the latter (which is one of the reasons they were closed in the first place as the car/bus gave a direct service the railway couldn't), and so I don't know that the enthusiasm can be counted on.

 

6 hours ago, fezza said:

I travelled on the Okehampton line during the holidays - despite the station being way outside the centre on the top of a hill it was very well used. Sod all the prevarication and feasibility studies. Build it and they will come.

 

Do I think Okehampton will be judged a success?  Yes.

 

But judging the popularity based on the line opening just in time for the Christmas holidays when the combination of aggrieved SR fans will have flocked to it to ride on it during the Christmas holiday time off work, plus add in the usual people riding it because it is new, plus people using it to Christmas shop all means ridership will be higher than normal.

 

A better judge will be say mid-February.  Where the comments on here about traffic issues getting into Exeter mean it will still be judged a success, but the ridership will likely be a lot lower than what you experienced.

 

Okehampton though was almost a perfect station to reopen, unlike many/most of the closed stations.  Because it is a former mainline station it offers a direct run into it's major population centre (Exeter), and better yet it offers a direct run into the city centre station (Exeter Central) instead of dumping you at Exeter St. Davids (though St. Davids will be an option for some).

 

But, to stay in Devon, I don't for example think there is any great demand despite your generalized claims for the Brixham branch to reopen, or the Moretonhampstead branch.

[fezza]

Put it this way, if Padstow, Bodmin, Ilfracombe, Bideford and Brixham had survived until 1975 they would still be with us today and everyone would be amazed that they were ever threatened with closure. I agree that any reopenings need to be part of a wider plan for improving connectivity, rather than as isolated short branches.

 

Okehampton reopened because it was cheap to do; the test of government policy will be whether more costly reopenings ever take place.

 

Part of the problem is that we are a country bound by regulations, planning laws and red tape that pushes up restoration costs. If there is to be a return to public transport there needs to be a radical rethink that bring down costs of tram trains and the like.

[The Stationmaster]

18 hours ago, fezza said:

Put it this way, if Padstow, Bodmin, Ilfracombe, Bideford and Brixham had survived until 1975 they would still be with us today and everyone would be amazed that they were ever threatened with closure. I agree that any reopenings need to be part of a wider plan for improving connectivity, rather than as isolated short branches.

 

Okehampton reopened because it was cheap to do; the test of government policy will be whether more costly reopenings ever take place.

 

Part of the problem is that we are a country bound by regulations, planning laws and red tape that pushes up restoration costs. If there is to be a return to public transport there needs to be a radical rethink that bring down costs of tram trains and the like.

Some truth in that argument but also a flaw.  The railway to Bodmin survived in good condition, and regularly used, for more than a decade after 1975 and the stations at both ends of the branch were still there but nobody seriously proposed restoring a regular national network passenger train service to the branch.  Various of the West of England branches were lost causes due to the seasonality of passenger traffic and the rapid decline of freight traffic which together led to costs massively exceeding revenue especially on the longer lines such as Padstow and and Ilfracombe.

[fezza]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Some truth in that argument but also a flaw.  The railway to Bodmin survived in good condition, and regularly used, for more than a decade after 1975 and the stations at both ends of the branch were still there but nobody seriously proposed restoring a regular national network passenger train service to the branch.  Various of the West of England branches were lost causes due to the seasonality of passenger traffic and the rapid decline of freight traffic which together led to costs massively exceeding revenue especially on the longer lines such as Padstow and and Ilfracombe.

To be fair it wasn't until the Speller Act that anyone seriously proposed reopening any lines, although several lines with little traffic continued as attitudes changed.

 

It is also worth pointing out that people travel a LOT more today than they did on the 1960s, the population has gone up by nearly 10 million and a lot of new housing has been dumped in rural areas. All these provide cautious reasons for optimism and with climate change there must be a brighter future for some of these schemes.

[mdvle]

On 04/01/2022 at 13:28, fezza said:

Put it this way, if Padstow, Bodmin, Ilfracombe, Bideford and Brixham had survived until 1975 they would still be with us today and everyone would be amazed that they were ever threatened with closure.

 

The danger of re-imagining history is that it gets changed to suit the outcome the person wants, usually by assuming nothing else in history changes as a result of the tweak that has been imagined.

 

If all those branches had somehow survived then they could well have been then closed in the 80s when the next government decided they needed to find a way to cut how much BR was costing the treasury.

 

Even today there is no justification to re-open Brixham and it would fail if it was attempted, the people of Brixham would be far better served with a large parking lot at Churston if service could be extended from Paignton.

 

And despite the nostalgia, the same is likely to be true for most of those other mentioned stations.  They were all closed for valid reasons, and wishful thinking doesn't mean that those valid reasons have disappeared.

 

[corneliuslundie]

I think East Anglia illustrates this. It had one of the highest rates of car ownership in the country before the M&GN etc closed. They were using car rather than rail, so the railway closed through lack of custom even though there were plenty of people travelling around and, for a rural area, quite a dense rail network. Carting around sugar beet for a couple of months a year and holiday ,makers from the Midlands for a month doesn't make for a viable railway system.

Jonathan

[fezza]

18 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

The danger of re-imagining history is that it gets changed to suit the outcome the person wants, usually by assuming nothing else in history changes as a result of the tweak that has been imagined.

 

If all those branches had somehow survived then they could well have been then closed in the 80s when the next government decided they needed to find a way to cut how much BR was costing the treasury.

 

Even today there is no justification to re-open Brixham and it would fail if it was attempted, the people of Brixham would be far better served with a large parking lot at Churston if service could be extended from Paignton.

 

And despite the nostalgia, the same is likely to be true for most of those other mentioned stations.  They were all closed for valid reasons, and wishful thinking doesn't mean that those valid reasons have disappeared.

 

The more you read histories written by BR managers of the time, the more you realise that the places selected for closure were more the result of internal BR politics, beady eyed officials looking to please their bosses and poorly thought out assumptions about what the future would look like than any rational plan. And that's before you look at the absurd data collecting processes behind the Breeching report...

Edited January 6, 2022 by fezza

[cessna152towser]

On 04/01/2022 at 11:25, TheQ said:

Railways in Scotland are under the control of Wee Willie Crankie, every time Boris spends a pound in England (per person), she gets £1.20 to spend (Per  person), you might ask her what she's doing with the money..

Ongoing electrification -  Shotts route now completed.    Pollokshields to Barrhead under construction.

Re-opening lines.    To avoid political argument I also include those lines re-opened since 2000 by previous administrations.

Hamilton to Larkhall

Maryhill to Anniesland

Stirling to Alloa

Airdrie to Bathgate

Newcraighall to Tweedbank

and coming next Thornton to Leven, currently disused single track goods line being replaced by new double track and electrification.

 

[corneliuslundie]

And to add to Fezza's comment above, it seems from my reading that traffic was diverted away from some routes or refused to show that they were not economic, I have a feeling that I have also seen examples of timetables changed so that connections were no longer made. The major problem I think was that many senior managers at that time were convinced that railways were finished and the sooner many lines were closed the better. So they collaborated with the politicians to achieve that end. Little effort was made to retain traffic and some such as livestock was turned away. There were numerous honourable exceptions of course, professional railwaymen and women trying to keep the system running against the odds.

But inevitably expenditure on motorways etc and more efficient cars undermined the role of the train in private passenger transport, and since that is the only part of the railway system noticed by many people the railways were seen as being superseded. 

At the same time in many industrial areas heavy industry which provided much traffic was in decline, with newer "light" industries moving direct to road transport. 

So many lines would have lost their raison d'etre anyway, but others were sacrificed on the altar of the private car.

In fact we are lucky that so many lines and stations survived. Sing "The Slow Train" to yourself and notice how many of the stations remain open .

Jonathan