'Trespassing' properties demolished on the new Waverly Route!

...how about this then?- thus presenting the argument that every railway closure since the mid twentieth century was a temporary one! Click on the following!

dying roads, vibrant rail: clearing trackbed trespassers!

 

Calling them "trespassers" is wrong though, it is using an emotive word (one that has a legal meaning) to stir up feeling and is a lie, surely? Were not the houses legally built on land purchased from the rail property disposal board or whatever it is called? One could equally call railways "farmland trespassers"!

 

Sorry but having read the New S and D blog in the past the person who writes this comes across as a bit of an idiot with strong opinions.

 

The strong opinions bit I agree with but the blog writer himself professes to his own intelligence and qualifications in economics (a little immodest to us perhaps but being modest doesn't always win arguments does it?) so I would hesitate to use the expression "bit of an idiot" although people are perfectly entitled to air their opinions. Whilst the site does seem a little OTT I have to admit to taking some dark pleasure in seeing the wrongs of the past put right as regards the reopening of some of our railway lines. There is no doubt that there was vociferous and genuine opposition to the closure of the Waverley Route and it was economically, environmentally and socially wrong to do it. It's just being undone now but of course it costs money to do it. Hindsights's a wonderful thing but I'm personally glad that routes like this are being at least partially reopened. I'll go so far as to say that we will see much more of this in future.

 

A strange understanding of the law relating to land ownership etc.

Doesn't the photo at the top of the blog page shows a railway "trespassing" on the public highway?

Richard

 

The blogger clearly has a serious bee in his bonnet about climate change and how rail will be dominant in a 'post-oil' future. Where we'll get the oil from to lubricate the electric (and wood-briquette burning, if the University of Atlanta has anything to do with it) trains of the future heaven knows.

Personally, I think rail will be far more important in the future especially in long distance continental travel - as the cost of flight becomes prohibitive. However, I think too that there will at best be only limited reopenings, as I think we have mentally come too far down the right of the individual to travel individually, and I think that electric and possibly hydrogen cars will become the norm.

Anyway, back on topic, I do admit to having some satisfaction at the mistakes - if you can call them that - of the past being reversed.

 

Go back to using whale blubber I guess ...

Oh, wait...

 

Presumably, sufficient bio-lubricants will be capable of being produced without using up all the land needed for food production (as would have been necessary - and then some - for George W Bush's great ideal of bio-fuel to replace all fossil fuel). Far less lubricant is needed than fuel, so if alternative means of power are found and widely used before the oil totally runs out, the lubricants can continue to use up remaining oil much more slowly for a period of time. I am sure the engineers will also tell us how lubricant free bearings are now a reality.

Given the sheer scale of "Railway Mania", it is clear that far from every line will be reopened, quote apart from the fact that new formations serving different markets would be more sensible in many cases (and quite probably cheaper!). There is a huge difference between us preservations wanting to reopen and preserve a closed line, and the modern network seeing the need for further track. Clearing and repairing 100 year old formations, and spending a fortune on compulsory purchase of houses can easily be a greater long term cost than building new and serving what needs serving now.

Whether there are any English reopenings depends on finances - getting down the cost of new railways and the ever increasing cost of oil. Whilst this country has a major problem that its people love using electricity but don't like any of the means of generating it, at least electric railways are far easier to provide and have a long track record of working, unlike total electrification of the road vehicle fleet!

Steven

 

I'm sorry but car hating myopic idiots like this are what the public transport lobby needs like a hole in the head. I have recently encountered fools in the LRTA who fell about laughing at the congestion that Metrolink will cause on the A62 in Oldham, who consider that all housing beyond walking distance from a tram stop is perverse and should never have been built, and who will try to persuade you that "tail pipe" emissions are killing 250,000 of us every year!

The author also makes a living by interrogating tachograph discs - hypocrites!

We live, and will continue to do so, in a diverse economy. Those who want to live close to, and commute etc by tram are free to do so. I don't, don't wish to, and will fight to the last breath against the ranting zealots who wish otherwise.

 

Justification is relative to your state of being and lifetime. Golf courses and footpaths are no problem. The blogger implies that roads will fall out of use with the onset of Peak Oil-in any case I believe that the proposed Strathspey extension involves the retro re-alignment of a stretch of road. Things change-10 years ago the KESR would not have dared speak about a level crossing over the A21-now its going to happen. In 1980 I predicted that all the locos would leave Barry Scrapyard-all said that was nuts-ok we lost 2 (but the wheels of the Prairie live on!). In 1990 if you had said that a new A1 would be running on the main line in the first decade of the next century-committal would have threatened! Anything is possible-absolutely anything... Now Ralph that route to Sandbach -was that part of the Knotty?

 

Reading that makes we think of the Dunton Green to Westerham branch line which is now under the M25, will be an intresting day when they close that road to re-open that railway line!

 

Rose Grove shed will be interesting too...

 

The blog in question is being written by the same guy behind the 'New S&D', which to anyone familiar with it probably says it all frankly... presumably the same policy of deleting comments which arent fully supportive remains.

Chris

 

Whilst there are some schemes that do make sence such as reopening a closed part of the Plymouth to Oakhampten line to give another route from Devon to London , OR Lewes to Uckfield , there are some that in my view just would not be value for money, even in preservation, there is not unlimited funds to reopen every last closed line as much as we would all love to see it, if the track bed has been built upon or viaducts removed then how many millions does that add to the bill? of course some lines should never had been closed in the first place such as Shanklin to Ventor on the isle of wight given the very low cost to electrictfy it , if it had been done at the time The A21 if it had been made into a dual carrageway would have been not possible at all so i guess that some persons bad news at the time has prooved to be a god sent for the Rother valley people who are now rebuilding the line , but that in its self brings its own problems , one thing is that once connected to Robertsbridge the Kesr will change and the purists probbally won't like it

 

"Love using electricity" - you mean like some sort of addicts' fix? Ooh, gotta use me some more electricity. No. People like being warm and like having cooked food and like their X-boxes and big TVs and the other trappings of today's society. I doubt if many give a damn whether the gadgets are enabled by electricity or donkey power. It is effectiveness and convenience that is the issue. Come up with a cost effective easy to use grass-cutting powered vacuum cleaner and it'll sell.

"don't like any of the means of generating it" - I doubt if many people actually care how it is generated, so long as it is there. Oh, sure, if you ask someone, "Should electricity be generated by dirty coal or dangerous nuclear or nice clean planet saving renewable wind power?" then they know which way to answer. But ask them, "Should electricity be generated by unreliable wind power or reliable coal or cheap nuclear?" then you'll probably get a different answer. IMHO.

 

No suggestions that those other well known "tresspassers" - cycle paths might get evicted as well!