{"id":7982,"date":"2018-03-21T17:48:53","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T16:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7982"},"modified":"2018-03-21T17:48:53","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T16:48:53","slug":"reopening-railway-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7982","title":{"rendered":"Reopening railway lines"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"800px-Beeching2.svg\"<\/a>One of the most exciting developments in transport is reopening railway lines.\u00a0 The Beeching cuts that I have blogged on before were planned to cut most of the UK’s rail capacity.\u00a0 Beeching (an engineer) in the end managed to close about a third of our capacity.\u00a0 This map shows what the route network would have looked like (black).\u00a0 Pretty much nothing in Wales, not much in Scotland and England only main trunk routes.<\/p>\n

Beeching envisaged buses taking over from the rural bus lines and main lines being used for fast freight trains.\u00a0 We know what happened there.\u00a0 Rural buses are almost non-existent and freight has never achieved its full potential (although he was right on the importance of rail freight).\u00a0 In the 1980’s Thatcher proposed closing all but about 1800 miles and turning the routes into roads.\u00a0 Question would you rather have an extra road running by your house or a railway with a few trains an hour?\u00a0 This plan was dropped after huge protest as was the worst of the Beeching cuts.\u00a0 The pullback from both has left our railways viable for for future expansion which either of the above would not have done.\u00a0 Almost ever since the closures campaigners have been trying to reinstate lines.\u00a0 The rise in passenger traffic, climate change, transport chaos on the roads and yes the high oil price has made reopening railway lines viable again.\u00a0 It even now government policy.\u00a0 I was asked to sign a petition this week on this.\u00a0 Which I did.<\/p>\n

In recent years we have seen our biggest reopening yet the Borders railway.\u00a0 Others such as to Portishead are under way.\u00a0 Reopening these lines is expensive and we should aim for the low hanging fruit.\u00a0 Examples of this fall into 3 categories.<\/p>\n

The first is where the lines are poen and currently used for freight only.\u00a0 An example is Ashington – Blyth – Newcastle.<\/p>\n

The second is where the line is only recently been closed so the line has not been built on.\u00a0 An example here is Thornton – Leven in Fife.\u00a0 The track is still down (although needs renewal).<\/p>\n

The last is where much of the existing route is still there and only short stretches need putting back.\u00a0 Many examples here.\u00a0 Bathgate to Glasgow (which I use) was reopened recently all the way allowing Glasgow – Edinburgh travel.\u00a0 The Great central line and Worcester to Derby via Dudley are other ones.\u00a0 Opening the railways lines closed is vital so support your local groups.<\/p>\n

A full list can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most exciting developments in transport is reopening railway lines.\u00a0 The Beeching cuts that I have blogged on before were planned to cut most of the UK’s rail capacity.\u00a0 Beeching (an engineer) in the end managed to close … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[235,13,1],"tags":[236,201],"class_list":["post-7982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rail","category-transport","category-uncategorized","tag-rail","tag-transport"],"yoast_head":"\nReopening railway lines - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7982\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7982\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7982\",\"name\":\"Reopening railway lines - 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