Great Central Dieselisation - What if?

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Re-Woodhead, didn't Beeching suggest that as THE route between Sheff and Man and close the Hope Valley? What caused a change of heart?

[woodenhead]

1 minute ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Re-Woodhead, didn't Beeching suggest that as THE route between Sheff and Man and close the Hope Valley? What caused a change of heart?

Opposition from the many villages along the route I thought, and a strong community of fell walkers who would have difficulty accessing it.

 

Whereas in support of Woodhead would be a couple of farmers and a few hundred sheep.

 

Crowden - some railway cottages, Woodhead - some railway cottages, Dunford Bridge - some railway cottages.  The people that did lose out were east of Penistone but I guess buses sorted them out, or cars.

[Enterprisingwestern]

54 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Opposition from the many villages along the route I thought, and a strong community of fell walkers who would have difficulty accessing it.

 

Whereas in support of Woodhead would be a couple of farmers and a few hundred sheep.

 

Crowden - some railway cottages, Woodhead - some railway cottages, Dunford Bridge - some railway cottages.  The people that did lose out were east of Penistone but I guess buses sorted them out, or cars.

 

Sheffield is still waiting for the "all weather" road to Manchester to this day, 50 plus years is not bad going!

 

Mike.

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, woodenhead said:

At the end of the day we are just musing alternative realities, but I think in the main that it was the class 76 that saved Woodhead in the 1960s, had it not been electrified it would have had less chance once the passenger services ended.

Actually I suspect that had the line never been electrified (and/or the new tunnels had been built with ventilation), it might have survived longer, as there wouldn't have been the additional OHL to maintain but more importantly, freight traffic wouldn't have had to change locos twice en route.

 

4 hours ago, MidlandRed said:

The Midland Pullman and presumably some other through passenger services ceased as a result of the WCML scheme, which as already mentioned, permitted a range of rationalisation of duplicated services, and from the WCML scheme a huge cascade of stock and motive power (DMUs and diesel locos). The other thing is no doubt the freight originating in the Great Rocks area could be operated far more effectively and no doubt with increased capacity resulting from the lack of through and local traffic with which it would have to be mixed and operated. 

I would think the closure of that section of route would yield significant maintenance cost given the civil engineering features through the Peak District, along with ongoing S and T savings and routine track and formation maintenance. 

It was said about the Peak route that while expensive to maintain, a great deal of traffic remained to justify it, but once the stoppers had gone, there was little reason not to divert the services.  Ironically - and with a big handful of hindsight - it would now be the local tourist traffic that would support the line had it survived.  There is no need even now for a through route from the East Mids to Manchester, but being able to access the National Park by rail from the conurbations both ends of the line, would easily support a single line with passing loops between Buxton and Matlock.  

 

The dangerous assumption of the Beeching era, all too often proved optimistic, was that if A to B via C was duplicated by a route via D, you could close the latter as the residents of D would drive across to C to get the train.  The vast majority chose to drive instead to A or B and avoid the railway altogether, so the railway reduced operating costs but also lost almost as much contributory revenue.

 

Apologies to the OP, this is meant to be about the GCML, not the MML..........

[rodent279]

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

Actually I suspect that had the line never been electrified (and/or the new tunnels had been built with ventilation), it might have survived longer, as there wouldn't have been the additional OHL to maintain but more importantly, freight traffic wouldn't have had to change locos twice en route.

I think, 43 years on, I can probably make this available without getting sued or risking anyone's job. This was in a box full of railway documents that were cleared out of my dad's house after he died some years ago. Some will dismiss it as BRB propaganda, but as far as I can see, it all stacks up.

By the1970's, Woodhead was living on borrowed time, and was essentially a solution looking for a problem.

 

Woodhead_route.pdf

[woodenhead]

Nothing in there that doesn't make sense, and as it happens it describes exactly what happened.

 

Reading the details though does show just how much over capacity there was, less than half the capacity with a clear case for keeping all the other lines over Woodhead.

 

People might want to believe it was all a fix up, but mines were closing, freight was having to pay it's way and Woodhead had no redeeming features over the other routes, even it's power system was outdated.

[phil-b259]

7 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Re-Woodhead, didn't Beeching suggest that as THE route between Sheff and Man and close the Hope Valley? What caused a change of heart?

 

Politics - or more precisely legislation passed by Barbara Castle which allowed the Government to subsidise certain services where they were no longer profitable but could be demonstrated to fulfil a vital transport function to small communities.

 

Don't forget that Beaching was hired with remit to get BR profitable and bring an end to Treasury support. Quite obviously with the politicians having been persuaded that goal was unachievable rather undermined the Drs findings as there were lines he wanted to close which could, in actual fact NOT be closed.

 

Thus having effectively been forced to keep the Hope Valley route open because of the political ramifications of going back on this policy, other routes which were not being subsidised where obvious candidates for closure. In the context of Trans Pennie routes there was only one route which was supported by Government subsides - and that was Woodhead

 

[rodent279]

12 hours ago, rodent279 said:

I think, 43 years on, I can probably make this available without getting sued or risking anyone's job. This was in a box full of railway documents that were cleared out of my dad's house after he died some years ago. Some will dismiss it as BRB propaganda, but as far as I can see, it all stacks up.

By the1970's, Woodhead was living on borrowed time, and was essentially a solution looking for a problem.

 

Woodhead_route.pdf 14.71 MB · 29 downloads

Bad form to quote one's own post I know, but reading the paragraph in the middle of the 1st page, even if the southern part of the GCLE had survived from Rugby southwards as a freight route, it would probably have gone the same way as Woodhead in the 1980's, for the same reasons ( i.e. as a freight only route, unsubsidised, freight had to pay its way, it would have been a financial burden, and traffic would have been transferred to other routes).

The GN & GE Joint went for very similar reasons, although it was not a freight-only route.

[The Stationmaster]

17 hours ago, woodenhead said:

But trains out of Wath could access Standedge via Healy Mills and once at Stalybridge re-gain access to Guide Bridge and then the route to Warrington via Woodley, Trafford Park and East Manchester - the route between Barnsley and Woodley could be avoided - all points in the west were still accessible for coal trains via Standedge and trains from Tinsley could have also got to Wath or gone via the Hope Valley route.

 

At the end of the day we are just musing alternative realities, but I think in the main that it was the class 76 that saved Woodhead in the 1960s, had it not been electrified it would have had less chance once the passenger services ended.

You are omitting one of the more significant choices affecting the future of the Woodhead route and that was to concentrate the Trans-Pennine passenger traffic, and some freight, from the Sheffield area onto the Hope Valley line.  That meant the passenger trains could run to/from Sheffield Midland thus, in effect, largely facilitating the closure of Sheffield's other principal station at the expense of a few new connections in the area.

 

If the decision had gone the other way Sheffield would inevitably have been left with two principal stations because Victoria couldn't take over everything that Midland did whereas it was possible the other way round at far less expense  and Midland had greater capacity.

[Northmoor]

10 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Bad form to quote one's own post I know, but reading the paragraph in the middle of the 1st page, even if the southern part of the GCLE had survived from Rugby southwards as a freight route, it would probably have gone the same way as Woodhead in the 1980's, for the same reasons ( i.e. as a freight only route, unsubsidised, freight had to pay its way, it would have been a financial burden, and traffic would have been transferred to other routes).

The GN & GE Joint went for very similar reasons, although it was not a freight-only route.

I'd be interested to know about the GN & GE route closure - and what might have operated it after 1970, someone start a new thread, though - because South of Grimsby there's really only Louth worth serving (although it seems there was a lot of traffic sacrificed by closing the Mablethorpe branch).  I suspect that the incredible number of level crossings between Grimsby and Firsby Junction (something like 30?) must have made operation pretty expensive, but modernisation of those crossings was not justified by the remaining traffic.  It was a similar situation with York to Hull via Market Weighton.

[rodent279]

10 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

I'd be interested to know about the GN & GE route closure - and what might have operated it after 1970, someone start a new thread, though - because South of Grimsby there's really only Louth worth serving (although it seems there was a lot of traffic sacrificed by closing the Mablethorpe branch).  I suspect that the incredible number of level crossings between Grimsby and Firsby Junction (something like 30?) must have made operation pretty expensive, but modernisation of those crossings was not justified by the remaining traffic.  It was a similar situation with York to Hull via Market Weighton.

I had in mind the March-Spalding section of the GN & GE actually. That section of around 18 miles of railway had around 15 level crossings on it, so upgrading it into a modern, fit-for-purpose freight artery would have been no mean feat.

Werrington dive under may well have cost a lot, but how much would closing all those level crossings and replacing with bridges have cost?

[rodent279]

At the risk of hijacking this thread and turning it into yet another Woodhead obsessed thread, does anyone know what capacity and what demand exists across the 3 remaining trans-Pennine routes today?

[woodenhead]

49 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

At the risk of hijacking this thread and turning it into yet another Woodhead obsessed thread, does anyone know what capacity and what demand exists across the 3 remaining trans-Pennine routes today?

I don't have the figures but they need to increase capacity on the Hope route and they want to seriously up capacity on the Standedge route, so I think the answer is not as much as they would like.

 

Slow freights have gone so what does run fit better between passenger trains than they used to, but there are a lot more passenger trains these days on those routes that have eaten into paths.  Even Hebden Bridge has a healthy set of trains throughout the day from 7am to midnight.

[The Stationmaster]

22 hours ago, woodenhead said:

I don't have the figures but they need to increase capacity on the Hope route and they want to seriously up capacity on the Standedge route, so I think the answer is not as much as they would like.

 

Slow freights have gone so what does run fit better between passenger trains than they used to, but there are a lot more passenger trains these days on those routes that have eaten into paths.  Even Hebden Bridge has a healthy set of trains throughout the day from 7am to midnight.

Long time since I went across the Hope Valley but it did suffer at one time from long block sections as a result of the closure of intermediate signal boxes. (it was far from alone in that respect in the 1970s and for at least a couple of decades later in some places. )

[fezza]

I've had a lot of fun over the years with this "what if" scenario as it allows you to build a small modern image main line in the  early 1970s with a large variety of diesels from the WR, LMR and ER (including some rare classes like Hymeks and 27s that did operate on the route before closure).

 

So here goes...

 

How about  WR Hymeks, Westerns and Warships on parcels trains to Leicester? 37s and 47s on inter regionals? 27s and 31s on semi fasts? Peaks on main IC services, with perhaps the odd diverted service from the ECML...? perhaps even the odd Deltic...?