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Next Stop Holt Central?

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by Joe Petroni, Aug 18, 2010.

  1. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    As I understand it, the deviation was never intended to facilitate the use of the F.R. as a scheduled all year round public transport provider.

    My point remains. It is difficult enough to finance any form of rural public transport without the extra capital and revenue cost needed to meet the dreams of gricers in La-La land.

    P.H.
     
  2. TonyMay

    TonyMay Member

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    exactly. Let's say you live in Bleaneu Ffestiniog and want to go and do some shopping in Porthmadog. According to http://www.expressmotors.co.uk/downloads/1_gaeaf06.pdf the bus, which is roughly every hour or so, takes about half an hour or so to make the journey. The ffestiniog train takes about an hour and a quarter to make the same trip. I also expect the prices are not comparable either.
     
  3. Meiriongwril

    Meiriongwril Member

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    Please Mods - can you rename this entire site "Buses are Best"?
    Seems we have given up on railways here ... ;)
     
  4. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    :rofl:
     
  5. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    But it was designed to facilitate through travel for tourists, the carriage of whom the FR had come to rely on between the wars, over the full length of the line and showed what could be achieved by gricers when they put their minds to it.
     
  6. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    What on earth has this got to do with providing a reasonable public transport service for the rural poor or elderly?

    P.H.
     
  7. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    And what on earth have tour ramblings about how good buses are got to do with the NNR extending a few hundred yards into Holt Central?
     
  8. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    This thread started with reference to the Norfolk Orbital Railway, a classic example of gricers inflating rural transport problems into satisfying their own fantasies with little regard for those who actually suffer such problems.

    Presumably the reference above should read "your" rather than "tour"! It's all subjective I know but I don't think any ramblings on this thread are mine.

    P.H.
     
  9. Martin Perry

    Martin Perry Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator Friend

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  10. So are you both saying that every single proposal to re-open a stretch of disused railway should be greeted with shouts of "Bravo. Yeah! Brilliant idea" and expecting people to chuck money at them?

    OK, let me see... I propose re-opening the Forfar to Brechin railway, a rural branch which closed to passengers in 1952 and completely in stages from 1958 to 1967.

    Running through (still) very sparsely-populated countryside, the parallel main line is also closed and lifted and you can do the equivalent journey on the dual carriageway A90 in around 10 minutes. But we at the Pieinthesky Railway Society think it's a great idea. The only major physical obstacles to the reopening are two crossings of the A90, a housing estate at Brechin and various developments at Forfar. This would necessitate stations on the outskirts of each town. But we at the Pieinthesky Railway Society still think it's a great idea!

    Alternatively, to save the millions needed to cross the A90, we could open a park & ride adjacent to the dual carriageway at each end. That just leaves the many millions required to do the rest of it. Piece of cake! We've got a Facebook page and everything!

    We think this is a fantastic scheme and we know you will too. Because it's reopening a railway, innit? So it has to be brilliant!

    Please make donations to our PayPal account at...

    Come on Meiriongwril and Spamcan - where's your money?
     
  11. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    DisusedBranch is spot on! Some of these groups have the approach to reality of Marie Antoinette.

    P.H.
     
  12. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    So as road is so wonderful, what's your answer to the ever increasing cost of motoring and the finite supplies of oil? Nobody has said ALL proposals should see the light of day but you seem to think otherwise. Enjoy the "cheap" fuel while you can.
     
  13. Joe Petroni

    Joe Petroni New Member

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    It certainly looks like some preliminary work has been done if you refer to the NOR website; Norfolk Orbital Railway

    There is no level crossing required to cross the A148. The first crossing would cross the old Cromer Road, which is a reasonable distance back from the junction of the A148. The second one would cross Station Street, where you are correct in the potential issues in siting a crossing across the mouth of a major junction. To aleviate this, the proposal is to make Station Street one way onto the bypass only.
     
  14. domeyhead

    domeyhead Member

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    "So as road is so wonderful, what's your answer to the ever increasing cost of motoring and the finite supplies of oil? Nobody has said ALL proposals should see the light of day but you seem to think otherwise. Enjoy the "cheap" fuel while you can".

    I'm afraid you are only proving DisusedBranch's well made point. You can dream as much as you want but when you start trying to justify preserved railways schemes on the basis of public transport requirements you are living in cloud cuckoo land. Yes oil is more expensive and ever and road use is higher than ever. So are you saying people will flock to the railways like lemmings in some dramatic sea change of observed behaviour? The Ffestiniog example was made quite plainly. People will not sit on a train if it takes longer than a bus and they will not sit on a train if it only runs every two hours from 9 - 5 and if you only have a LRO you are going to take longer than a bus, so you don't even get past first base. It is nothing to do with being a "road lover" - it is to do with pragamatism and common sense.
    If even schemes like Lewes - Uckfield - projecting over 1 million passenger journeys per year on what is more or less a clear trackbed cannot get funding then where are you going to get equivalent figures to justify an expansion even to Holt Central or whatever let alone the Mid Norfolk Orbital aspiration.
    Whether you like it or not you are only going to be carrying existing enthusiasts and tourist passengers a bit further for a bit more revenue, give or take the opening boom. Now build your business case out of that and present the ROI if you can.
    It's good to see some clear thinking on some of these hopeless dreams.
     
  15. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Who said I was dreaming? Nowhere in this thread have I advocated the pursuance of the Norfolk Orbital Railway or any other major reopening scheme. I wish people would read what I've written before making comment.
     
  16. Meiriongwril

    Meiriongwril Member

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    Spamcan81 is spot on! Some of these contributors have the approach to reality of Robespierre! ;)
     
  17. domeyhead

    domeyhead Member

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    Meaning what, exactly - that an extended tourist railway is the answer? Is that your definition of an approach to reality? If not then what?
    There are probably thousands of solutions to the current oil price from changing the fuel source to avoiding the need for travel altogether, but all you are doing is clapping like a seal, so what is your point?
     
  18. There is one huge flaw in your analysis, Spamcan. And that is that trains also have to be powered somehow.

    Steam trains use coal or oil, both finite resources. Diesel trains use oil, a finite resource. Which leaves electric trains - the electricity for which has to be generated somehow. It isn't just magicked out of thin air.

    So what are the options for generating electricity?
    Coal - a finite resource.
    Gas - a finite resource.
    Oil - a finite resource.
    Nuclear - cheap and clean, but there are risks and the NIMBYs flock to their keyboards every time a new nuclear plant is suggested.
    Wind - has major possibilities but hundreds, if not thousands, more wind farms will need to be built before it produces anything like a significant proportion of the UK's electricity. And the NIMBYs get their knickers in a twist about those, too.
    Solar - This is the British climate, remember!
    Wave - has possibilities, but the technology is very young and the NIMBYs with sea legs get their kecks tangled about that too.

    Somehow, somewhere, the UK has to find ways of generating zillions of kilowatts of electricity in the coming decades. And once it's got round to doing that, I suspect that electric cars and the infrastructure to charge them will be as common as petrol/diesel vehicles and petrol stations are now.

    We all know that fossil fuels are gonna run out at some point. But sheer common sense says that, whatever the replacement is, it will be developed just as readily for road transport as for rail. So using it as a pro-rail argument is utterly irrelevant!

    I am certainly not against the development of new preserved railways, but it does irritate me the way that everyone with an interest in railways is expected to go "Yeee-hawww" at every spotter who has pie-in-the-sky, unrealisable dreams of a 12" to the foot train set and starts blethering about them on the interweb.

    There is a huge gulf of difference between (a) having a common sense, mature approach and (b) being anti-rail - a difference that you and your trolling chum Meirlongwril seem naively unable to recognise.
     
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  19. Exactly! (And, for the fairness of balance, the "beebarpaholics" too!)
     
  20. damianrhysmoore

    damianrhysmoore Well-Known Member

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    I don't think that the NNR's rational for extending will rely entirely on whether it makes business sense. The NNR was not set up as a tourist railway. It was set up to preserve some of the M&GN, or perhaps if we want to split hairs, the main shareholder, who set up the railway, the M&GN JRS is a preservation movement. I agree that any extension needs to be feasible in the long term but that is not the same as making business sense. The Bluebell Railway will probably never make back the costs of removing the Imberhorne tip in additional revenues but they are doing it because they're enthusiasts and it gives them a direct rail connection and they get to travel over a viaduct but mainly a whole load of the emotional reasons that makes someone stick their hand in their pocket and the point is that the return on investment for those enthusiasts is the realisation of a dream rather than a dividend in their pocket. Anyway, it isn't the M&GNJRS/NNR who are progressing this at the moment and until I see an appeal from them in Joint Line I think it is reasonable to assume that it is not part of their current plans.
     

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