GWSR - Cheltenham Spa and possible extensions

I can assure you the midland is far from being "choked" sometimes nothing passes for nearly a hour then 5 or 6 try to get through in ten minutes. A bit more equal spacing between trains, a new station where the carriage sidings are, to allow 4 platforms faces onto the main and two loops for the Paddington and other terminators would free that bottle neck.

 

If the GWSR's infrastructure is in any way similar to that of the SVR a lot of instability can be avoided by the simple expedient of ensuring all culverts are clear and running freely.

 

I am not sure that NR would adopt this great way round solution just to avoid the GWSR

 

Not true - BR saw the line as a duplication so closed it when the derailment gave them an excuse. Current localised nstability is due to 40 years of blocked culverts

 

If the prediction is wrong then the 'need' is of course absent. I just do not think the prediction is wrong. We are talking decades further but perhaps a little earlier than that if current trends are maintained ...if.

All this stuff about HS2 and capacity - if the Great Central had not been closed it would not now be closed and neither would the MR Buxton route. Indeed HS2 phase 1 uses lots of the GCR formation (which itself was laid to international (Berne?) gauge . If you look at the maps for the further northern HS2 phases, it will be seen that again, lots of abandoned formation is to be used.

They will all be needed in my view. But to repeat, only if I am right.

 

It wouldn't be to just avoid the GWSR. It would be a far cheaper option.
With all the works that would be required from Lansdown jnc to Hunting butts, upgrading and signalling the length of the GWSR, another 4-5 miles from Broadway to Honeybourne. Suddenly a 1.5 km chord seems very attractive.

As for being "great way round", Lansdown jnc->Honeybourne is about 21 miles direct along the GWSR route. Lansdown jnc->Abbotswood roughly 15, Norton Jnc->Honeybourne around 13, so 28 miles, roughly in all. That's a difference of only 7 miles.

 

I do find it amusing that on the roads, we are told more capacity can be achieved by having lower speed limits. Yet on the railways......???????

 

AARGH!! One of the great myths of the GCR! The Berne Gauge was formulated in 1909, a decade after the GC London extension was built. However, you are right in that it was built to allow for Continental style stock with minor alterations - slewing etc.

Sorry to be a pedant. Anyway, back to topic!

 

Quite so; BR was happy using it as a diversionary route on a minimum care and maitenance basis but couldn't justify the investment in curing the instability. As a result BR decided to take a chance on the Midland route coping. Basically it has for 30-odd years but there is a limit to what one can get on a two-track mixed-traffic railway. Restoration as a through route would probably be in the Airdrie to Bathgate cost range but with major savings on the length maintained by the GWSR.

People shouldn't get frightened; after a lifelong career in the public service I am well aware of how politically sensitive any "hostile takeover" of a heritage railway would be. I can't see it happening apart from on a partnership basis. Certainly the accepted forms of compensation just wouldn't be appropriate to a co-operative organisation that trades, but not for the purpose of producing profits for shareholders.

 

I did put a question mark after the Berne suggestion - so thanks. On capacity, the SoS is now saying that's why we need HS2, not the speed. It is true that the capacity of a road goes up when the vehicles travel at lower speeds. It's the braking distance that decides that and how many times have you seen a jam form through idiots not keeping their distance and a constant speed. It's different with trains because they are signalled and flighted. What one has to consider is that if more capacity was needed would it not be likely that existing formations would be favourite? I think it's obvious, but respect those who think otherwise. One of the most difficult things to achieve in planning applications is a 'change of use'. So using an old railway formation to build - a railway - is a no-brainer (as the Chitern nimbys on the old GCR sections will discover when the inspector makes his report to the SoS).

 

I seem to recall that there had been a number of slips in the Chicken Curve area before the GWSR took it over (indeed, when it was looked at to plan the latest repair, evidence was found of several separate repairs over the decades after it was built), all rooted in the fact that when it was originally built, the builders had just dumped the material on top of the existing soil, not dug out a footing first to 'lock' the embankment to the ground. Yes, the drains (and rain) were a factor in the failure, but I don't think it was just drains and rain.

Noel

 

Thank you. The original embankments on the line were made of clay. This was illustrated in some of the photos of the recent chicken curve repair. The clay could actually be peeled off the land that the embankment was built on. If I remember correctly, there have been slips since the 1920s.

 

I think GWSR are learning the lesson that they can't just run trains - they need to maintain the infrastructure

 

You may be right, but it overlooks if the GWR itself (when it gets to Honeybourne) may want a southern connection itself at some point. After all, the potential to run into Cheltenham spa station would be useful for railtours crossing the GWR (which they presumably will want to do if they travel the cotswold line) and a southern connection would be useful to make racecourse station easily accessible to the national network rather than running over the entire line. So if the GWR wanted a link, and partly funded it, it would presumably be a better option than NR building a chord themselves. Perhaps thats one reason why they have yet to built it.

As for the line, talking with a chap who has volunteered on the line its clear they had problems with Chicken curve well back into GWR times. I gather the GWR even produced a document in the 1930s showing how it repaired damage, ie with sleepers and lots of ash. The suspicion was that the contractor didnt do the job properly when it was initially built, which may well be correct. There have been subsidence problems and flooding issues on the Badminton line, which was built at exactly the same time. The difference is there BR put money into keeping it open, here BR really wanted to use it till it fell apart then shut it.

 

It's only a no-brainer to people with brains. On the Moorland and City Railways line there were people who took the view that planning permission should be required (so they could object) because the vegetation had grown to a height that made train operation impossible at that time. It took quite a time to convince them that de-vegetation and repair work is not development.

As far as totally dismantled railways are concerned, planning permission, either in its own right or combined with a TWA Order, will be required and with it an EIA. However, if the ex-railway landform is still there with cuttings and embankments, possibly even the bridges, and if there is a long history of railway use of the strip of land, everything is much easier. That was the basis for Airdrie to Bathgate, the Waverley line and the Larkhall branch on the national network as well as many heritage railway extensions, most obviously the whole of the GWSR.

Where something immovable has occupied the original trackbed, every divergence, even just by a house-plot width, increases the opportunity of challenge. As at Galashiels, it is often better to bite the bullet, demolish and keep to the original route. Both the housing at Galashiels and the tip at Imberhorne are sad examples of decisions made in the post-Beeching period when the idea of the railway returning seemed out of the question. One shouldn't be too hard on individuals; these were communal decisions made in the light of the economic, transport and social outlook of the time.

Coming back to Cheltenham, the main advantage of restoration through the town (apart from the possibility of a more convenient station) would be that the railway would reach the old four-track reservation south of Lansdown and that is a generous reservation because of the extra width between the Midland and Great Western tracks. The diversion north of Cheltenham is probably better if one can live with a two-track railway north of Lansdown; if this needs to be widened the historic route starts to look better.

 

Here is the GWSR's page on the prior history of that area.

It's more than a suspicion - this page has some pictures showing how one can 'peel back' the clay of the embankment from the earth it was laid on! Needless to say, with that poor a connection between the material of the embankment, and the ground underneath, slips are all to easy...

Although in defence of the original contractor, geo-engineering knowledge when the line was built was at a very early stage, and they may well not have known of the need to do something better than just 'pile it up'.

Noel

 

Yes I agree with all that. It's what they call now 'win win'. GWSR gets to the heart of Cheltenham and NR get their freight relief route plus useful inter urban pax service restoration for the local councils. So it's in fact 'win win win'.

 

"My previous post mentioned the sad turn of events at the other end of the line at Stratford. That was not developer's opportunism but Highway Authority's opportunism, aided by short-sightedness by the Planning Authority, and now people are trying to find a viable way round a problem entirely of the public authorities' own creation."[/QUOTE]

It appears that NR has its sights on reopening the line to Stratford - if that is so, I imagine financial and planning restraints caused by the HA will be overcome.

 

Running into Cheltenham Spa from the current southern end of the GWSR, near the Prince of Wales Stadium, should present fewer infrastructure challenges than many other similar projects; for instance, the GCR's 500metre 'gap' is going to cost around £15m to cross, and the infrastructure challenges on the Borders Railway include some major works, including a long flyover to cross a road roundabout. Some writers have pointed out difficulties with the line converging with a high-speed mainline (at the Spa station) but in fact there is a lot of space to make the lines not too close together and indeed to have a platform placed in between, and for there to be unconnected run-round facilities. Having said that, a set of points to physically connect the line to NR for occasional use would seem desirable. The major problems would seem to be the care of raised structures within the town, which would suggest that they would be best owned and maintained by the council and leased to GWSR (and possibly NR for some freight workings, maybe), and the flyover bridge near Waitrose which is reportedly not 'railway supportable', and would either need replacing or having a railway bridge placed alongside.
But overall, the trackbed has been generally safeguarded, and it should remain an objective for the GWSR to work into Cheltenham Spa in the future. I personally think the town of Cheltenham, once all these issues are overcome, will be proud to have a heritage line running right in to their main railway station.

 

I see there some plans being considered for Lansdown station.....

Blueprint for £15million platform project at Cheltenham Spa Train Station | This is Gloucestershire

More detail (pdf download)....

http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=55015&p=0