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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Spending Review appeal for Devon railway link
Rail campaigners are battling for £1.5m government cash in the upcoming Spending Review to make a business case for a railway link in Devon. TavyRail campaign group would like to see a five-mile (8km) section of track between Tavistock and Plymouth reinstated. Services to Tavistock ended in the 1960s during the cuts by Dr Richard Beeching when the railways were restructured. The Department of Transport (DfT) said it was "committed" to delivering transport infrastructure to "boost growth and opportunity". It added: "The Government inherited an extremely challenging financial position, and these projects will be considered as part of the upcoming Spending Review." TavyRail said only £1.5m of the project's £150m budget was needed to complete its business case and obtain necessary reports, with the remainder not required until construction in 2028. Richard Searight, Tavyrail chairman, said the initial outlay would pay for experts to consider whether the line to Plymouth via Bere Alston would be "practical and value for money". He said by 2028 the government would hopefully be in a "more secure" financial position. The previous Conservative government said savings from scrapping the northern leg of the HS2 project could be used to reopen the line between Plymouth and Tavistock. Devon County Council (DCC) submitted a business case for restoring the line in 2022, with hourly trains to Plymouth via Bere Alston. In 2024, the Labour government outlined plans to cancel or shelve a number of rail projects because they were promised without funding or a plan to deliver them. Deputy mayor of Tavistock, Anne Johnson, who is also vice-chairman of TavyRail, said housing plans had been agreed "off the back of the railway" and there was a "desperate need" for it to go ahead. Steve Hipsey, Mayor of Tavistock, said: "The current estimate is that we have about 1,600 people commuting into Plymouth every day along the A386, and that can't be a good thing in terms of sustainability and carbon emissions." "I think the whole thing makes a lot of sense in terms of economy, sustainability and social aspects as well." Lack of South West transport funding criticised Government urged not to ditch Devon rail scheme
Telegraph
23-02-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Britain's most beautiful lost railway lines
It is a rare political decision that is greeted with universal support. But it is surely fair to argue that few of the 'big calls' in Britain's recent history have been quite as derided – both at the time and in retrospect – as the restructuring of the railways in the mid-1960s. The name of Richard Beeching echoes loudly here. Appointed by the Macmillan government in spite of a CV that made no mention of the rail industry, he was the engineer and civil servant who was charged with examining the labyrinth of lines that had mushroomed across the country during the Victorian train boom, and pruning the routes that he deemed unnecessary as well as unprofitable. This he did, producing a pair of reports – the first in March 1963; the second in February 1965 – that took a machete to the thicket. The first identified 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles of line for closure – figures that amounted to 67,700 jobs, 55 per cent of stations, and 30 per cent of the network. The second sealed the deal with its proposed diverting of investment to what was left. The effects were immediate, and seismic. The term 'Beeching axe' has been used ever since. In his defence, there was an element of method to what was perceived as Beeching's madness: some of the 19th-century routes pared back by his knife had certainly outlived their viability. And in later life, he was sanguine about both his 'achievements' and the opprobrium they had brought him, musing that, 'I'll always be looked upon as the axe man, but it was surgery, not mad chopping.' Nevertheless, his reforms caused outrage, left rural communities isolated – and still provoke mutterings of discontent, six decades later. Beeching's ghost can also be a spark for nostalgia – for a romantic vision of a vanished Britain; of steam trains roaring through tunnels, their hoots and toots audible long before they slowed into picturesque village stations. Maybe this is rose-tinted thinking, forgetting the delays and the dirt – perhaps even imagining a stained-glass version of the country which never really existed. However, on the 60th anniversary of the second report, this article picks out 10 railway lines lost to the snip of those bureaucratic scissors, and traces their remains across the vistas that once thrummed with their noise and smoke. Skip ahead: 1. Great Central Main Line 2. Moray Coast Railway 3. King's Lynn to Wisbech Line 4. York-Beverley Line 5. Carmarthen to Aberystwyth Line 6. North Devon and Cornwall Junction Light Railway 7. Wealden Line 8. Waverley Line 9. Durham-Bishop Auckland Line 10. Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway 1. Great Central Main Line Open March 1899 to May 1969 In a letter to this newspaper on September 28 1965, railway supporter Denis Butler, the ninth Earl of Lanesborough, raged that 'among the main lines in the process of closure, surely the prize for idiotic policy must go to the destruction of [the Great Central Main Line]'. The GCML was indeed a crucial rail corridor; an engineering feat of 200 miles, linking London Marylebone to Sheffield (and on to Manchester) via Rugby, Leicester and Nottingham. Written off by Beeching for the crime of 'duplication', it was also the last of its kind. Britain would not build another main line until High Speed 1 (HS1) opened in 2003. Vital signs Inevitably, a line of such length left marks that its closure couldn't erase. The clocktower of the disassembled Nottingham Victoria station lingers in the city's Victoria shopping centre. The platforms of the demolished Rugby Central can be seen on the ' Grand Central Walk ', a five-mile trail through the town. Other parts of the line have come back to life. The Great Central Railway preserves both the name and the route of the GCML between Loughborough and Leicester, steam locomotives chugging along eight miles of track. It has a similarly titled 10-mile sibling in Nottinghamshire. And a short strip of the route in Buckinghamshire is being redeployed for High Speed 2 (HS2). 2. Moray Coast Railway Open April 1884 to May 1968 There is always something special about a train line that shadows the seafront. The Moray Coast Railway was a classic of the genre, tracing the north-easterly edge of the Scottish landmass and the Moray Firth over 25 miles – between the waterfront settlement of Portsoy and the historic town of Elgin (with its ruined cathedral). This was no small achievement. The route needed to avoid the local aristocratic pile Cullen House, after the Countess of Seafield refused permission for the track to cross her land. The unintended consequence was a thing of beauty; the Cullen Viaduct, an eight-arch marvel, completed in 1886, which carried the line on a detour around the estate, and over the Burn of Cullen. Vital signs Some of the line's former route has been absorbed into the Moray Coast Trail, which runs between Cullen and Forres, some 45 miles to the west. This includes the Cullen Viaduct, which hikers can cross at the trail's eastern end. Other infrastructure is also accessible – not least the equally dramatic Spey Viaduct, which once carried the track over the last gasps of the river Spey. The former Spey Bay station, now a private home, is visible from the path. 3. King's Lynn to Wisbech Line Open February 1848 to September 1968 Some of the routes sacrificed to Beeching's reforms were significant arteries. It is surely fair to say that this soft arc of slow-motion train travel – part of a mesh of rails which once spider-webbed across the Norfolk countryside – was not. Just short of 10 miles long in the branch-line section, which forked west off the main King's Lynn-Ely track at Magdalen Road (modern-day Watlington station), here was a service which fell into muddy-booted step with the farmers and field-workers who used it, its carriages ferrying grain, fruits and vegetables up to the coast and its wharves. Never exactly overcrowded, the railway's disappearance from the fens occurred with as little fanfare as its arrival, the landscape so flat and unaltered that you might struggle to believe trains ever traversed it. Vital signs The line has become even less visible of late – the remains of a bridge that once carried it through Magdalen were taken down as recently as 2021. But as local blogger Lewis Collard has documented, another bridge still crosses the relief channel of the river Great Ouse on the eastern edge of the village – and can be sought out as part of a weekend walk between the two parallel strands of Norfolk's most important waterway. 4. York-Beverley Line Open October 1847 to November 1965 In many ways, this 22-mile route across the East Riding was emblematic of the situation that led to Britain having a convoluted rail network in apparent need of simplification. Its advent fell so neatly within the construction frenzy that was the 'Railway Bubble' of the 1840s that its first section, York-Market Weighton, was completed in the year the boom collapsed, via the 'Panic of 1847' (the second section, Market Weighton-Beverley, did not open until 1865). It was also built in spite of the challenging terrain it was asked to cross, the hills of the Yorkshire Wolds. Of course, it was gorgeous as a result, making its way south-east through leafy countryside over an elaborate series of viaducts and bridges. Vital signs Echoes abound. Several stations still exist – in Pocklington (recycled as a school sports hall); in the villages of Kiplingcotes and Cherry Burton, where the buildings are now private homes but the trackbed is framed by defunct platforms. The original York-Market Weighton section – including the glorious 15-arch Grade II-listed Stamford Bridge Viaduct over the river Derwent, which survived a demolition proposal in 1992 following vociferous protests – is now part of the National Cycle Network's Route 66. The Market Weighton-Beverley part of the line, meanwhile, is now the 'Hudson Way' – a 10-mile walking and biking trail (see 5. Carmarthen to Aberystwyth Line Open March 1860 to February 1965 Wales was never fazed by the idea of laying rails up hillsides, and some of its tracks proved immune to removal. Opened in 1865, Gwynedd quarry route the Tallylyn Railway had become the world's first heritage line by as early as 1951 – a decade before Beeching's appointment. However, Carmarthen-Aberystwyth did fall to the cuts, even though it provided a crucial 49-mile link that all but connected the Bristol Channel to Cardigan Bay. It was, to an extent, a victim of circumstance – shoved towards the gallows by a flooding of the river Ystwyth in 1964 that drowned the line at Llanilar, and put the top 16 miles out of action, making closure an easy option. The decision was never popular. As of 2014, the Welsh government has been assessing the cost of reconstruction. Vital signs Significant stretches of the 1860 route are still intact. Five southerly miles of track – between Abergwili Junction and Danycoed – remain in operation; used by the steam locomotives of the Gwili Railway. And much of the northern half of the line is now part of the Ystwyth Trail (details at a 21-mile cycling and hiking route which follows the path of the railway as far as Tregaron. 6. North Devon and Cornwall Junction Light Railway Open July 1925 to March 1965 Unlike some of Britain's more storied lost lines, this route along the west edge of Devon had a brief history of passenger service. It evolved out of a narrow-gauge tramway built to link the area's clay pits to the much busier railways on either side of it, and was never a major conduit – trundling at no more than 25mph, on a 20-mile arc between Torrington and Halwill. The reason for this restrained speed was a (single) track which had to contort its body around a series of sharp bends and even sharper gradients. By the time the curtain fell in 1965, trains made only two return trips per day along the full line. Vital signs While never ideal for rail transportation, all those curves and climbs were testament to the sweeping beauty of an area which sits sandwiched between two great British national parks, Dartmoor and Exmoor. Sixty years on, some of the route (the Torrington-Meeth Halt portion) forms part of the Tarka Trail, the hiking-cycling path which cuts a figure-of-eight shape across the Devon landscape for 180 miles. The platforms (and, in some cases, the signage) for several of the old stations – Meeth Halt, Dunsbear Halt, Watergate Halt, Yarde Halt – are still in situ along the way. 7. Wealden Line Open October 1858 to May 1969/July 1985 Unlike Leeds and Newcastle, which lost many of their surrounding lines to the cull, the rail network of London and the south-east managed – comparatively – to avoid serious damage. There were casualties, of course, and the Wealden Line was one of them. In its 1930s heyday, this 25-mile route between Tunbridge Wells and Lewes was popular with tourists heading for the East Sussex coast – taking its name from the hills of the Weald through which it passed. But falling passenger numbers and crumbling infrastructure meant that, by the time of the Beeching reports, a decision was needed: a cash injection to help fix, for example, the rickety Lewes Viaduct, or closure. In the end, there was a fudge. The lower third of the line, up to Uckfield, became past tense in 1969. The upper third, Eridge-Tunbridge Wells, clung on until 1985. Only the middle third – the 11 miles from Eridge to Uckfield – lives, as part of the Oxted Line across Surrey and East Sussex. Vital signs Two parts of the route have been reborn as heritage railways. The Lavender Line makes use of a single mile of track on the lower third, forging north-east from Isfield to a newly created stop (Worth Halt) on the banks of the River Uck. The Spa Valley Railway preserves the six-mile stretch that was decommissioned in 1985, making part-use of the old Tunbridge Wells West station; (the building is also a Wild West theme restaurant). 8. Waverley Line Open November 1849 to January 1969 With the exception of the Great Central Main Line, the excising of the Waverley Line from the network was arguably the deepest Beeching cut. This 98-mile route was a grand exercise in British unity, linking Edinburgh to Carlisle across the ups and downs of the Scottish Borders. It was also a matter of persistence. The Waverley only connected Edinburgh to Hawick (in Roxburghshire) in its first burst of construction; the remainder of the route, over the ancient frontier and down into Cumbria, went unfinished until 1862. Not always the busiest of services (ticket sales were generally poor along the sparsely inhabited Hawick-Carlisle section), the Waverley was not entirely loved either; even in the Victorian era, late trains led to regular passenger complaints. Its demise was not a surprise. Six of its stations had already shut by 1957, more than a decade before closure. Vital signs Two different pictures have developed on either side of the Anglo-Scottish border. In 2015, the upper 35 miles of track, between Edinburgh and Tweedbank, were reopened as a modern train service, Borders Railway. A small slice of track, Whitrope Siding, has also been rebuilt as a heritage project. By contrast, the English section of the route is largely a case of looking carefully and proceeding on foot. You can hike along the trackbed, next to the A7 and the river Esk, between Longtown and Netherby. The same vague path will take you through a swath of Cumbrian countryside, past the defunct Scotch Dyke station (now a private home, but the platform is visible), and on over the old Thistle Viaduct, which spans the Esk just beyond. 9. Durham-Bishop Auckland Line Open April 1857 to May 1964 County Durham was one of the hotbeds of the British rail boom. It was, of course, the maternity ward of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) – which opened in 1825 as the world's first passenger railway to use steam locomotives. Durham-Bishop Auckland emerged from the network of track spawned by this feat of mould-breaking – and like the S&DR, it made much of its money by shifting coal from the region's collieries towards the docks on the Tees estuary. Its end, though, was sudden. Passenger services ceased even before the second Beeching report, and the track was lifted by 1968. Vital signs Unlike the S&DR, which is now largely part of the Tees Valley Line – and is about to begin a nine-month programme of bicentennial celebrations – there are only faint traces of Durham-Bishop Auckland. Even in Brandon, whose colliery was one the line's key raisons d'etre, the junction of 'Station Road' and 'Station Avenue' now lacks the structure its names refer to. However, nine miles of the trackbed (between Brandon and Bishop Auckland) have been redeveloped as a rail trail – and make for a lovely summer's day walk. 10. Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway Open August 1863 to March 1966 Unlike some of its Victorian counterparts, this 105-mile joining of the dots between the Bristol and English Channels was not a single vision brought to fruition. As its name hinted, the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway was an amalgamation of two earlier lines – the Somerset Central Railway and the Dorset Central Railway – to form a whole that was not always greater than the sum of its parts. While there is no doubt that the 'S&D' served a cross-section of the south-west (including its branch lines, it reached Bath and Burnham-on-Sea at the northerly ends of its route, and Bournemouth in the south), it did not always do so at a speed to its passengers' liking. So ponderous was its locomotives' progress through the Mendip Hills that its acronym was repurposed as 'Slow & Dirty' and 'Slow & Doubtful'. It was also failing before Beeching cast his eye on it, with some of the branches closing in the 1950s (though there were protests at its death all the same). Vital signs Fragments of the railway remain in position. Bath Green Park station is now a thriving market hall. The Two Tunnels Greenway safeguards four miles of the route south of the city, including both the Devonshire and Combe Down Tunnels; the North Dorset Trailway plays a similar card as a 13-mile cycle path between Sturminster Newton and Spetisbury. There are heritage projects, too. The Somerset & Dorset Railway Heritage Trust operates a mile of track at Midsomer Norton South station in Somerset. The Gartell Light Railway is a kindred spirit at Yenston (also in Somerset). And the North Dorset Railway is an ongoing labour of love; its team of volunteers hopes to run trains on restored track at Shillingstone in the near future.
Yahoo
16-02-2025
- Yahoo
Could Heart of Wales railway line be the country's best-kept secret?
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). One spring day in 1963, Dr Richard Beeching published a document on behalf of the British Transport Commission, entitled 'The Reshaping of British Railways'. Squirrelled at the back was Appendix II: Passenger Service, Line and Station Closures. Visit any of those railways in that appendix today, and you'll invariably find the same thing: buddleia growing tall on old track beds; Victorian stations repurposed as holiday lets; quiet places that haven't known the toot of a passing train for decades. The so-called 'Beeching Axe' is infamous for making a certain kind of railway line near-extinct — slow, wildly unprofitable, rural branches, the sort you might find lovingly depicted on tea towels and 1,000-piece jigsaws. But in Beeching's appendix was one notable victim on which the axe didn't land: the railway between Craven Arms and Llanelli, granted reprieve by the Ministry of Transport. It survives as the Heart of Wales line. Ride this remote artery and the views from your window seat are much as they ever were — of heathery mountains, cascading rivers and castles that glower darkly over the rails. The Class 153 that arrives in Craven Arms as I stand on the platform one morning is a single-carriage service barely longer than a country bus. On board, its engine rattles agriculturally and air conditioning entails a tug of war with a stiff window. It's not a heritage line preserved in aspic but a part of Britain's railway network that people use to get to work. Still, in our midst are aficionados. The passenger opposite me reaches for a corkscrew and a bottle of supermarket red, and settles in for the performance. The train begins by cantering over Shropshire farmland, beating out a lively jig. Eventually we reach Knighton — the station is in England, but its car park is in Wales. Beyond the border the landscape changes. Norman churches give way to Methodist chapels; cricket greens to rugby clubs. Gradually the Bronze Age moorlands of Elenydd rise above, the lower slopes dotted with tufts of white. There are reputedly 10 million sheep in Wales and on the Heart of Wales line you become acquainted with most of them. Sometimes they wander onto the track and are chased off by the driver. 'The Heart of Wales line stands on its own, in many ways,' says Owen Griffkin of the Heart of Wales Line Community Partnership, who I speak to over the phone. 'Some people who use the line actively want to travel slowly. They'll spend nine hours riding it back and forth in a day, and bring a picnic with them.' It's gone lunchtime when we cross the grand Victorian spans of the Knucklas and Cynghordy Viaducts, the former guarded by crenelated towers, as though our train were crossing a castle drawbridge. Beyond Sugar Loaf station, we emerge from a tunnel to soar high above the conifers in the company of buzzards. Another part of the line's appeal is occasionally disembarking — exploring little market towns of lace curtains, antiques shops, old drovers' inns and, of course, castles. I stop to spend a night at the New White Lion, Llandovery — a handsome little hotel with rooms themed after local folk heroes. It's a five-minute stroll to the erstwhile castle of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Fychan, a medieval nobleman who led English forces pursuing Owain Glyndwr on a wild goose chase, and was disemboweled for his treachery. He's commemorated with a silver statue overlooking the rooftops of the town. The next day I hop back on the eastbound train to the border. In the gathering dusk we roll through an archipelago of spa towns and villages — Llanwrtyd Wells, Llangammarch Wells, Llandrindod Wells — to which Victorian holidaymakers once came to ease ailments, rest and recuperate. Those historic spas are now gone, the therapeutic waters untapped. But in a way, riding this eccentric train provides its own source of wellbeing. You are massaged by the undulations of the rustic rails, calmed by their clanking rhythms. The timetables on this line are thin, delays are common. Once on board, however, you generally find you lose track of time entirely. Seat from £18. Published in the March 2025 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
National Geographic
16-02-2025
- National Geographic
Could Heart of Wales railway line be the country's best-kept secret?
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). One spring day in 1963, Dr Richard Beeching published a document on behalf of the British Transport Commission, entitled 'The Reshaping of British Railways'. Squirrelled at the back was Appendix II: Passenger Service, Line and Station Closures. Visit any of those railways in that appendix today, and you'll invariably find the same thing: buddleia growing tall on old track beds; Victorian stations repurposed as holiday lets; quiet places that haven't known the toot of a passing train for decades. The so-called 'Beeching Axe' is infamous for making a certain kind of railway line near-extinct — slow, wildly unprofitable, rural branches, the sort you might find lovingly depicted on tea towels and 1,000-piece jigsaws. But in Beeching's appendix was one notable victim on which the axe didn't land: the railway between Craven Arms and Llanelli, granted reprieve by the Ministry of Transport. It survives as the Heart of Wales line. Ride this remote artery and the views from your window seat are much as they ever were — of heathery mountains, cascading rivers and castles that glower darkly over the rails. The Class 153 that arrives in Craven Arms as I stand on the platform one morning is a single-carriage service barely longer than a country bus. On board, its engine rattles agriculturally and air conditioning entails a tug of war with a stiff window. It's not a heritage line preserved in aspic but a part of Britain's railway network that people use to get to work. Still, in our midst are aficionados. The passenger opposite me reaches for a corkscrew and a bottle of supermarket red, and settles in for the performance. The train begins by cantering over Shropshire farmland, beating out a lively jig. Eventually we reach Knighton — the station is in England, but its car park is in Wales. Beyond the border the landscape changes. Norman churches give way to Methodist chapels; cricket greens to rugby clubs. Gradually the Bronze Age moorlands of Elenydd rise above, the lower slopes dotted with tufts of white. There are reputedly 10 million sheep in Wales and on the Heart of Wales line you become acquainted with most of them. Sometimes they wander onto the track and are chased off by the driver. 'The Heart of Wales line stands on its own, in many ways,' says Owen Griffkin of the Heart of Wales Line Community Partnership, who I speak to over the phone. 'Some people who use the line actively want to travel slowly. They'll spend nine hours riding it back and forth in a day, and bring a picnic with them.' Losing track of time It's gone lunchtime when we cross the grand Victorian spans of the Knucklas and Cynghordy Viaducts, the former guarded by crenelated towers, as though our train were crossing a castle drawbridge. Beyond Sugar Loaf station, we emerge from a tunnel to soar high above the conifers in the company of buzzards. Another part of the line's appeal is occasionally disembarking — exploring little market towns of lace curtains, antiques shops, old drovers' inns and, of course, castles. I stop to spend a night at the New White Lion, Llandovery — a handsome little hotel with rooms themed after local folk heroes. It's a five-minute stroll to the erstwhile castle of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd Fychan, a medieval nobleman who led English forces pursuing Owain Glyndwr on a wild goose chase, and was disemboweled for his treachery. He's commemorated with a silver statue overlooking the rooftops of the town. The next day I hop back on the eastbound train to the border. In the gathering dusk we roll through an archipelago of spa towns and villages — Llanwrtyd Wells, Llangammarch Wells, Llandrindod Wells — to which Victorian holidaymakers once came to ease ailments, rest and recuperate. Those historic spas are now gone, the therapeutic waters untapped. But in a way, riding this eccentric train provides its own source of wellbeing. You are massaged by the undulations of the rustic rails, calmed by their clanking rhythms. The timetables on this line are thin, delays are common. Once on board, however, you generally find you lose track of time entirely. Seat from £18. Trip supported by Belmond. National Geographic Traveller (UK). To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click Published in the March 2025 issue of(UK).To subscribe to(UK) magazine click here . (Available in select countries only).
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Calls to redevelop historic railway carriage
An appeal has been issued for a new operator to redevelop a historic railway carriage. The carriage, which is a British Rail Mark 1 design, is at the former West Grinstead Station in Horsham. The station stopped operating when British Rail chairman Dr Richard Beeching announced the removal of unprofitable railways during the 1960s. West Sussex County Council said transferring the railway carriage would save repair costs, but a spokesperson said information on the amount of savings was not available when asked by the BBC. The council added that the ideal candidate will need to "demonstrate the ability to take on, manage and maintain this asset". The spokesperson said: "The purpose of community asset transfer is to enable local communities to take on assets for local community benefit. "This could be to support local people and stimulate local economy. "The community groups interested identify how they wish to utilise the asset to meet local demand." Candidates are required to submit an expression of interest and provide an overview of how they would use the carriage and to prove there is demand from the community. The closing date for expressions of interest close on 3 March. Follow BBC Sussex on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@ or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250. West Sussex council tax to rise by 4.99% Elections postponed as devolution gets green light Plans to build 120 homes in village to be discussed West Sussex County Council
