Rail extensions.
CHRIS AUSTIN examines the criteria required for opening new lines and stations on the UK rail network
WITH a doubling of passenger numbers over the past decade, and radical changes in the pattern of freight distribution, rail has again become a key factor in economic growth, and in many cases a prerequisite for future housing and business development.
Many communities without a station are now seeking better access to the rail network, and want to feature on the national railway map.
This is all about connectivity. In some cases, the need is for better access for large towns such as Ilkeston. In others, it is about the inaccessibility of the city centre station itself, which was the driving force behind the opening of Cambridge North last month.
The case for new lines and stations has to be based on a need or an opportunity that can best be met by rail. Inevitably, however, many will look to the past to see where stations lost in earlier closure programmes might be replaced.
The great cull recommended in Dr Beeching’s The Reshaping of Britain’s Railways report of 1963 included 1,927 stations and around 5,000 route miles. And the number of closures implemented before 1963 was greater than those proposed by Beeching.
Against this, the number of stations reopened since he stood down from the BR chairmanship in 1965 is 390, while the number of route miles reopened is 270 - larger figures than are generally recognised.
Campaigners, local authorities and business groups have long pressed for a variety of reopening schemes around the country, with some of these campaigns running for many years. Reconnecting Swanage with the main line network on June 13 was the culmination of a 20-year campaign, while the campaigning to reopen East West Rail goes right back to 1973, and the campaign group (OBRAC) has been in business for 40 years. You need a lot of patience and determination in this business!
There is no shortage of ideas. However, resources and funding are limited, and policy has changed significantly over the years.
Before privatisation, BR was both arbiter and delivery agent for these schemes. From 2000, that role could have been taken up by the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA), but following the Hatfield accident the focus was on maintaining the current network, not extending it.
After the SRA disappeared in 2005, there was no agency charged with the sponsorship or management of new line or station projects, and policy lines were confused.
Local authorities tended to take the lead in sponsoring new stations, and all credit goes to the East West Rail Consortium of local authorities who joined together with determination to pursue the project, investing a lot of money in planning for it in the process. Partnership is the way forward, and many more agencies will be involved in future schemes, not all of which are conversant with the ways of the rail industry.
Railfuture and Campaign for Better Transport had long pressed for network extensions and new stations, each informed by proposals from their branches throughout the country on schemes that were supported locally.
Many other individual groups have floated ideas for reopening lines and stations - sometimes from a desire to see a treasured branch line restored, sometimes driven by a clear need in transport, economic or environmental terms. Many of these ideas failed to gain traction or support from other parties, and for many the passionate campaigning for a scheme has been a frustrating process with little to show for years of effort.
With this in mind, Railfuture and Campaign for Better Transport pooled their resources at the beginning of last year to consider what might be done to articulate more effectively the case for new or reopened lines or stations.
A meeting with the Department for Transport shortly afterwards indicated an interest on its part in setting out the ground rules clearly, and providing advice to promoters and campaign groups on the criteria that would apply to such investment.
The result is a guide sponsored
by the DfT and put together by CBT and Railfuture, which sets out the sort of things required to establish a business case for investment. It includes some helpful case studies of schemes that were successful, as well as some of those that did not make it.
The guide was launched at the National Railway Museum in York in July, and is available on the websites of the organisations involved ( www.bettertransport.org.uk and www.railfuture.org.uk). Hard copies can also be obtained from CBT.
The prospects are good, perhaps particularly in relation to the need for new housing and the opportunities to ensure it is provided in areas where rail can help meet the transport need. After years of failure to link land use and transport planning, it is good that DfT recognises the need and has indeed appointed specialist staff to help achieve this.
Rail will not always be the solution to the problem, and a useful series of gateway tests in the guide help to flush out what the objective is and whether or not that is best met by rail.
Similarly, the guide also looks at situations where a local station might meet the need but where there is no local train service on the line concerned, such as Corsham. In other cases, such as Guildford, line capacity constraints will preclude additional stations.
Most schemes have been very successful, such as the Todmorden Curve and Apperley Bridge, where the numbers of passengers using one peak morning train into Leeds exceed the daily passenger total at the station prior to closure in 1965. Not all are successful, however - Stratford Parkway is well below expectations, so the evaluation process needs to be rigorous.
In RAIL 828’s Open Access, Stuart Anderson from Cambridge sensibly suggested a list of lines for reopening. This is work that Railfuture is already undertaking in terms of developing a register of lines that are being (or should be) developed in line with the guidelines set out in Expanding the Railways.
To qualify for a register entry, the scheme would need to have been the subject of some feasibility work, together with a broad assessment of a business case. Priority schemes would be those that have a sponsor, access to funding, planning consents, an established business case, and are well advanced in the Network Rail GRIP process - in other words, almost ‘shovel ready’.
The initial cut of developed proposals is a modest dozen schemes, including: East/West Rail Phases 2 and 3. Manchester’s Ordsall Chord (now well advanced). Halton Curve (Mersey-Dee link). Trans-Pennine: Manchester-Sheffield (HS3). Heathrow western access. Okehampton-Exeter. Bere Alston-Tavistock. Bakerloo Line extension to Lewisham. Barking-Barking Riverside. Metropolitan Line extension to Watford Junction (Croxley link).
Bristol - Metro West schemes to Henbury and to Portishead (despite initial setbacks, it remains a priority).
We have not looked at light rail schemes in this exercise.
Other schemes such as Wisbech and the Midlands Hub are coming up fast, while many more are in the wings in the course of development, to become priority entries in due course.
Railfuture will shortly be publishing an update of Britain’s Growing Railway, the popular gazetteer of lines and stations reopened over the last 50 years, together with those which are likely to open in the next few years. This will update the edition last produced in 2010, and is the authoritative guide of schemes and the reasons for reopening.
The climate for reopenings has changed completely over the past couple of years.
This is evident from the involvement of the Department in sponsoring this guide and the devolved powers that allow agencies such as Transport for the North and West Midlands Rail to set out the economic need for rail expansion so strongly in their strategies and plans.
“After years of failure to link land use and transport planning, it is good that DfT recognises the need and has indeed appointed specialist staff to help achieve this.”