transport madness

Blot on the landscape - and what for?



How modern transport should blend in!

My in box has been full of stuff about the laughable Cambridge Guided Busway. This extraordinary white elephant has still not been opened, and costs are still spiralling. Will we ever know what this idiocy was ever about? Or perhaps it's just a very long-winded way of preserving the trackbed without letting the Peak Oil cat out of the bag?

The simple fact is that this piece of essential transport infrastructure needs to be rebuilt as, preferably, a heavy railway or, at the very least, a modern interurban tramway. The cost would be around 30%/15% and ridership would be far higher. Fuel use would be around 25% of that for the buses and who knows what the maintenance costs are going to be?

This is why cold hard economics needs to be applied to transport investment rather than agenda-laden posturing by idiotic politicians who are desperate to keep Peak Oil below the radar.

We all know that buses are considered to be the most unpopular form of public transport. It is almost impossible to prise people out of their cars to use them, whereas many car drivers are happy to switch to trams which are seen as modern, clean, fast and efficient. Buses even try to disguise themselves as trams to tempt people out of their cars by being given smart modern lines, but it won't work. Passengers need the added security of a FIXED route to convince them that the new transport system is here for the foreseeable future, rather than buses which use pubic roads. Okay, the concrete tram-like tracks of the guided busway suggest a similar commitment, but we can see that they are just a stage towards modern transport - ie the eventual replacement of the method of propulsion to overhead wire (trolleybus fashion) and the eventual replacement of concrete by steel rail (giving a 75% fuel, efficiency and cost saving). But why not just build the railway/tramway in the first place?

People locally HATE this monstrosity and will boycott it until they get their trams or trains. I fully expect to be reporting on the replacement of this joke by a modern tramway or railway within ten years.

The extraordinary thing is that this lunacy is being threatened on two other essential rail routes - Fareham-Gosport and Luton-Dunstable!!

busway impressions

I'd promised a piece on busways weeks ago so I thought I'd do an impressionistic piece rather than a straight narrative as a few people have had a lot to say on this.

1. Today, after finishing nights I decided I would pay a visit to the guided busway near the A14. This busway replaced a railway that although closed to freight in 1992 still had track in situ and was reckoned to cost £50m to reinstate for passenger use. Instead the Tories on the local council decided to spend £116 million of taxpayers’ money on a guided busway, which only 4 persons voted for, with 2400 against!

With a spring 2009 opening date, things are obviously not going too well, but as they have spent so much money you will be told how much of a success it is, but my view as you might guess, is that it is just a pile of sh*te. It isn’t a road, nor is it a railway, but it looks more like a plateway as seen in the NRM and tried 200+ years ago. These boffins ought to get out their history books as see what has gone on before. I’m sure this was tried in Devon, a long, long time ago. Oh well, when it snows, floods etc, or the track needs tamping they’re going to find out how bad the whole thing is. All this to travel by bus! Smooth enough to drink coffee onboard they claim? Rightyo? Utter b*llocks there then?

And the freight will still be on the A14? I like trucking!

Anyway, like the open level crossing for the busway? Different rules apply there then? Someone will eventually jump the lights, as per railway crossings!

Ignore the weeds, they won’t grow much ...


2. 3800 voted for the return of the railway, 4 for the buses!

http://www.castiron.org.uk/

sounds like EU style democracy?

3. When the guided bus nonsense is finally abandoned, I have little doubt that nobody will be accountable for wasting the public's money. I believe that the Glasgow one is now being abandoned -any info? I don't think the Aussie one has been deemed a success either. I have also heard that there was a collision on one (info?) and both rail and road inspectors refused to get involved. Surely this comes under ROGS? 'Rail and Other Guided Systems'? (My italics) I think Cast Iron may well be able to stir things up big-time if there is an incident! But like you say Steve; you couldn't make it up.

4. Apparently according to a comment on your blog, Dunstable is next in line for a busway? Again the track is still in situ.

Do they Tory road brigade feel more threatened by the fact the rails are still there, and they need to deal with these former railways first?

Long term they’ll lose…

5. I got this today Steve. Guess what? Guided buses are excluded. What cr*p! They're guided for crying out loud! Other Guided Systems - Hah!

http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/rogs-gdnce_270709.pdf

6. Caught the local news for Gosport last night (Meridian I think it was) and the Guided Bus fiasco has been given the go-ahead there now. The usual crowd of dip-sticks were interviewed for (pro) vox pop, and some bloke who was against it cuz his garden backed onto it, then a huge bunch of 'genuine' antis were shown but none were interviewed to give their view. Biased reporting I think it's called!!

7. Yeh; you're right Steve - the dozy sods try and drive alone railway lines so it's anybody's guess how long it'll be before there is a crash of some kind - head on twixt bus and car probably. Did you get my email re the ROGS? What a bloody fiasco! The guided buses are specifically excluded. Is it guided or what?! There was definately a crash on one somewhere and both road and rail investigators refused to have anything to do with it! Checkout the Glasgow one (found it somewhere on the web) It's being abandoned in favour of a tram apparantly. Incidentally, I've got a funny feeling that the inventor of this has actually come out and said it's a nonsense.

8. http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/transport/guided/

just heard on the local anglia bbc news that the busway is being delayed again and won’t now open until November….

Just in time for a bit of snow hopefully?

My own twopennyworth - This is all good fun - except for those communities that are going to suffer this barely believable misallocation of resources. I think this government, cravenly backed by certain opposition councils, is frightened of what will happen when the hornets' nest of rail reinstatement really takes off, for we are talking HUGE sums of money, and to get that they will have to accept and declare the reality of Peak Oil. We'll probably be drip fed the information, look out for a slight backing away from Climate Change and more emphasis on 'energy security', still a clumsy attempt to cloud the issue but at least a step in the right direction. This will probably all come out when the government (whoever it is) needs to start building nuclear power stations.

Busways will come and go, like monorails and other impractical pretend trains. I firmly believe that St Ives will get its trains back, but they may need to wait a few more years. In the meantime consider the busway as a custodian of the trackbed, a rather more expensive Sustrans!

None of this will affect the New S&D of course ...

prepare the stocks

(Evercreech Junction 1968 Jeffery Grayer)

I was leafing through a copy of Colin Maggs' 'The Last Years of the Somerset and Dorset' and found the chapter on the run down of the line really interesting. The S&D was closed despite an assurance from the (surprise surprise!) Labour government of the day that no major railway closures would be implemented without a review of the Beeching Report. Evil witch (surely an oxymoron?) Barbara Castle went ahead and closed the line anyway, making it the longest line closed under Beeching. The bits about the poor people of Wellow and Shoscombe (in particular) having to cope without their trains was heartbreaking. At one point a minibus was put on to replace the trains! Nobody on this side of a lunatic asylum could ever claim that was progress. From having fast modern transport using a dedicated right of way they were suddenly thrown back a hundred years and forced to crowd into a six seater bus that was expected to crawl along little single track roads and then fight its way through the Bath traffic. (This is starting to sound like the Cambridge Guided Busway LOL!)

This madness needs to be dissected in the 21st century to find out what really inspired the closure of the original S&D. Perhaps a few of the perpetrators are still alive and can be called to account. The deliberate switching of freight to less direct routes, the deliberate running down of stations and rolling stock, the dreadful timetable that made almost every journey unbearable if not impossible, the refusal to consider track rationalising or using DMUs - the whole thing was a national disgrace.

It merely confirms to me that the S&D should never have closed, which basically means that there is now no reason for it not to be rebuilt.

Next year the new limited company charged with rebuilding and operating the line will be born. Hopefully the board will, as well as including prominent local businesspeople, have the Chairs of Midsomer Norton, Shillingstone, the New S&D and Washford as members.

At the same time I'll be working on 'The Case for the S&D' taking an incisive look at the hard-to-believe mischief used to deprive hundreds of thousands of people of their trains. And the now unarguable case for bringing them back.

I'm glad I'm on THIS side of the fence and not theirs!!

turning points

(Abingdon 1985)

I was looking at the Waverley route site yesterday and one of the FAQs was - Why was the route shut down previously – was it not lack of passenger demand? Why should it be any different this time?

I liked the answer so much I've modified it and nicked it for the sidebar!

The original Waverley Railway line was axed after the Beeching Plan which predicted a national decline in rail traffic. It focused entirely on long distance intercity passenger and freight services without due regard to the needs of local areas. Since then there have been major improvements to rail technology. Railways are now increasingly important to solve local travel needs and reduce the environmental impacts of road traffic and road congestion. There has consequently been a major resurgence in the demand for rail travel. As a result there is much more government emphasis today on improving public transport in order to provide an integrated public transport network.

This really does hit the nail on the head. The Waverley route was closed really late in the hate campaign - 1969. It was, like the S&D, a main line. It served several large towns, particularly Hawick and Galashiels. Nobody locally wanted the line closed. It left the whole of the Scottish Borders devoid of any real transport.

Devolution has led both Scotland and Wales to push well ahead of England in restoring rail lines that should never have closed. The new Waverley route will not have as large a population catchment area as the new S&D. Yet they are years ahead of us.

To me the real turning point was in 1976 when the possible closure of the Settle and Carlisle was reversed. From that date there have been no major rail closures in the UK. Lines and stations began reopening soon afterwards, even in England. The Channel Tunnel was built as a rail tunnel only. The new link to the London Olympics is rail only, there is no car parking. The world is changing, and this is before Peak Oil really hits. Petrol and diesel are still incredibly cheap, yet already our railways are busier than they have been for over 50 years.

And now 'our' government is beginning to soften us up for the end of generally available personal private powered transport. New railways and tramways, road pricing, congestion charges, Sustrans as custodians of future rebuilt rail routes, even busways are part of this process.

More on busways next post. Make sure you're sitting down when you read it!

you couldn't make it up!

I know this looks like some sterile Photoshop fantasy, but this madness is actually happening in Cambridgeshire. This is the guided busway that some loonies have been building - on a railway route would you believe - between Cambridge and St Ives.

In the words of one of our members - I have been meaning to go over and photo some of this meaningless busway before it opens, just as a warning to other railway re-opening schemes just what can be imposed by government if you're not careful.

I doubt very much that this would ever happen through the Mendip Hills, but it just goes to show that rather than accept the fact that they were wrong to close these lines in the first place, they will re-open them as busways instead, as it can mean less loss of face.

They won't last into the future, as its really a poor mans' railway, albeit at twice the cost!

I have to pinch myself looking at these pictures. What the hell are they thinking of??

This line has a vigorous campaigning group, seeking to have the (previously intact) route restored, electrified and ready to carry hundreds of thousands of former car users into Cambridge and on to the network. Instead they get this total joke, an oil-using monstrosity that peters out on the outskirts of Cambridge to just push more (inevitably almost empty) dirty buses to fight their way through the congestion to the sanity of Cambridge railway station - at more than twice the price of a restored railway (three times the cost of a modern tramway or light railway)!

So what poor St Ives gets is a time-limited joke, more oil guzzling buses that aren't even flexible. No solution to future freight transport. A one-off system with no ability to expand, a soon to be overgrown 'showpiece' that is unlikely to tempt anyone out of their cars once the novelty's worn off. It's already looking tatty, even before it's opened. It'll be no use in the snow. All it will do is encourage the citizens of St Ives to call for the restoration of their railway ASAP. What a total joke.

Mick Knox cleverly likens it to the Haytor Granite Tramway (below).



That also was a one off, and you can still see its remains high up on Dartmoor. This will be the perfect monument to this hopelessly failed government - an overgrown anachronism. A badly thought out 'solution' to the end of cheap oil, that appeals to no-one, doesn't do the job and was a total waste of money. All it tells us is that they have no intention of allowing us to own private transport in the future.

This caused a major upset in Cambridgeshire. 3800 people voted for the railway, 4 for the busway. 4!! And I doubt even they will use it ....

teasers

I've got a host of posts lining up but still not recovered from swine 'flu so thought I'd just put a few teaser pics up to hold your interest and as an aide memoire!

Hopefully I'll get them done over the weekend.

rail future

Things have been buzzing around New S&D headquarters this week - and not just because of the swine flu! I've had a host of emails, letters and phonecalls. I will eventually dilute them all down to blog posts, but I'm still not 100% by any means ...

One thing we have done is join, as a group, Railfuture. It is the campaigning arm of the long-lived Railway Development Society Ltd. They must feel vindicated after all these years now that rail reopenings and developments are on everybodys' lips. Yet bad habits die hard and there is still a feeling of 'they're out to get us - this time with busways!' which I find more amusing than alarming! Fear not - busways are a 21st century version of the Blennie Railplane.

We'll be placing an ad in their next issue as this is a targeted market for us. I'd also advise all of you to join as individual members as this is a really good cause. Their website is here.