Somerset and Dorset Rebuild

Hi Tom

I think you have missed my point, I know that places such as Bath and Bristol are wonderful to live and work in, what I am saying is that I get sick and tired of all this money being thrown at London for new transport infrastructure project such as cross rail one and now cross rail Two and also HS2 but for what benefit does it achieve for the average person? In most cases it will be used as a means to get to work. This will lead to more new office blocks and more housing in an area which does not have all the resource that it needs, such as hospitals, health care provision and out of town shopping centers, while some town centers are falling into decay and the lack of shops, it is reckoned that if you took all the shops in the London area, about one third of them are either empty or have some form of charity shop in them.

The coming of the internet was supposed to have change our way of life for the better, all it has done is to make people slaves to an IT system, I bet that at least one of you reading this, will have just done something for your work, while you are at home on the pretense of if I get it done now I don't have to worry about first thing tomorrow. Yet come tomorrow you will still be playing catch up and the boss will expect you to do more for less.

We all need to see the bigger picture, the Internet is the biggest change to our way of life, yet we still have the 9 to 5 job culture of going to an office in the UK. why?

I am convinced that the average UK life style has become far worst for more people than they will admit too. I read somewhere the other day that most people who are buying a home are just three pay days away from losing that home if they were made redundant.

I don't know if that applies to anyone on this list, but I do know my nephew's and niece are having real problems finding places around here in North Kent to either rent or buy as it is just to expensive for them.

I am very much pro rail and while it appears that most don't want to see a rebuilt S&DR because it might not suit there particular life style, the problem for those who currently rely on public transport is a problem we need to address some how and soon. Other euro countries appear to have over come their transport needs with a modern up today transport system so why can't we have the same?

This group is called National Preservation and while we are not discussing the building of a new steam locomotive, I do think we have a duty to ensure that the old abandoned railway system is put to good use and is reused where ever possible.

While this discussion is about the S&D I would add that as far as HS2 is concerned it is the right railway but in the wrong place what is wrong with reusing the old GCR route where possible?

I am sorry if this sound like a rant, may be it is, but it is time for us all to take responsibility for our joint heritage be it railways, our own home town, or what ever it is that floats your boat, me I think London has got to big and it is about time we invested in plans to grow other Cities around the UK to the same size ( if required) as London. But before we do, we have to have in place, a plan to build sustainable transport links in what ever form they may be required.

 

How exactly is re-opening the S&D going to improve anything set out in your first few paragraphs? I completely agree that work needs to be done on Bristol's public transport system - in my view it is the worst of any major city in the UK. But the S&D is not going to help that one bit.

 

The internet was never going to see the end of office working as a good part of most office based jobs is intereacting with your fellow workers or customers.

What has happened however is that the decline of manufacturing and extractive industries mean that many places have lost their reason for being and have become dormitory towns. As a result, yes Bristol and Bath would have been better served if the lines to radstock and the mangotsfield line still existed. That is hindsight however and there are plenty of parts of the S&D would not serve any places of size within a reasonable commute.

As to house prices and what happens if you lose your job, I think in all four houses I have owned I would have struggled in the early days of my mortgages within three months of losing my job.

 

It does, notably through Calvert, but the route and steam-era alignment and construction is of very limited use for a high speed railway serving Manchester and Leeds via Birmingham.

 

That's ok, Brum passengers can change at Rugby or Leicester

Seriously: although I do think HS2 is needed, I am glad it's not following the Great Central route - I wouldn't want the preserved Great Central to be adversely affected!

(Someone will be along in a minute to say "but it would solve all HS2's problems because it was built to Berne Gauge. No, it wasn't, no matter how many books you've read that in. So, back to the S&D...)

 

In other news I hear that Michael Eavis is thinking of moving Glastonbury festival somewhere else...

 

Only as a temporary measure - the festival has a fallow year once in every five years, to give locals and organisers a break. Strangely, the organisers are now considering holding a festival at Longleat so then they wouldn't get a break! Apparently the Longleat festival will not be called Glastonbury, but I imagine everyone will call it that anyway!

And....back on topic......


Keith

 

Certainly a better idea than reopening the S&D.

Railways In 'Used As Public Transport System' Shock!!!

Three? Try being self-employed...

WTF? On the last page you were talking about people 'not giving a dam about the country side', but now you want it to be built on, to expand more of the UK's provincial cities, all as an excuse for having old railways reopened. So who's not giving a damn about it now?

Ironically, with you talking about the internet, by far one of the biggest impacts it has had on society is a radical democratisation of communication. In my opinion, that's probably the biggest down side of the lot.

 

There are three certainties of life:

1. Death

2. Taxes

3. Whatever subject you use to start a Nat Pres thread, it'll gravitate to a debate on why you are wrong to bring the subject up and will become negitive

 

Not wrong to bring the subject up, just mistaken to insist that a reopened S&D would either be a particularly useful piece of public transport infrastructure, or anything other than a complete waste of (presumably public) money, when there are many many more useful things to spend it on, including other rail schemes which actually pass through densely populated areas, or (probably most sensibly) decent bus services.

 

Agreed. And if I go back to the original post, a rather unfortunately worded question (and subsequent follow-up) that made clear that the focus was in the "wouldn't it be nice" (© @paulhitch) area, rather than a more interesting exploration of why it is that such a famous and charismatic line as the S&D didn't see a successful major preservation scheme, whereas other more modest lines have developed into successful preserved railways. A discussion that might then have led onto what it is that has allowed some preserved railways to flourish and extend, while others have had much more modest results.

 

The S & D is a railway close to my heart, it is local to me, I worked with a number of its former staff when I worked at Bournemouth and I support the efforts of preserving artifacts, verbal memories and stations with a length of running line for hostirical purposes.

The wife and I visited Sturminster Newton the other Sunday, the longer term goal for the Shillingstone project. It was dead, nothing open (apart from the co-op) leave the S& D in the past, even if it had escaped closure it would be a single line with a few request halts.

Enjoy Ivo's videos and pictures.

There is no business case to reopen any of it apart from the bottom section to Broadstone but then to Wimborne and back down to Christchurch via West Moors somehow.

On another track (excuse the pun) whist travelling down the A34 on Monday, the amount of stationary northbound traffic clogged with vehicles that were carrying ISO containers. I said to the wife, pointing to the redundant DNS trackbed alongside us, that's where that freight should be. Railways carry freight. Cars carry people.

 

That's absolutely untrue to say 'whatever subject', lynbarn. There are many threads on NatPres which have had constructive and positive lives and haven't become 'negative' at all.

What is true is that threads crop up on a regular basis where somebody goes "Wouldn't it be nice if... (insert name) line was reopened" and "I am going to buy and restore (insert name of railway vehicle), I want your money to help me."

The certainty here is that that the originators of such threads never, ever seem to bother doing even cursory research into the real world practicalities of their pet "Wouldn't it be nice" idea before they sign into NatPres and start tapping their keyboard.

There are many talented and experienced railway preservationists on NatPres who freely offer their time and advice. In addition, there are many people with plenty of real world wisdom and common sense. Unfortunately it seems to be a shared personality trait of "Wouldn't it be nice..." posters that, if anyone doesn't agree with their idea, rather than going "Oh yes, good point. I hadn't thought of that", they stick their fingers in their ears, go "LalalalalaIcanthearyou" and accuse those who respond as being 'negative' or start waffling on about the 'can do' attitude that this country apparently "used to have" in some distant, rose-tinted, mythical version of the past.

And so we get a regular series of these threads all of which tread the same, tired old path that has been trodden many, many times before. It just gets a bit wearying.

I am sure that anybody who did proper homework and then came on this forum and presented a credible, well-researched, real-world case for reopening a particular railway would receive a sympathetic and constructive hearing.

The problem with this particular thread was that you kept moving the goalposts in order to try and get the answer you wanted. You started justifying it by saying Wells is 'the only UK city without a railway connection' (which (a) isn't true and (b) city or not, Wells only has a population of circa 10,500). You then started using 'people not giving a damn about the countryside' as a reason, then asking 'what will happen when there are no fossil fuels to run cars?' Then you upset the people of Bristol and Bath and you ended up talking about expanding other cities in order to stop London expanding so much... all as seemingly endlessly-changing reasons to somehow justify reopening various different parts of the Somerset & Dorset railway.

You asked for people's thoughts about your idea and received a lot of constructive feedback on this thread from various NatPres users. The problem was not responses being 'negative' at all, but the fact that they were being realistic and, unfortunately, didn't agree with your vision. So in effect you spend seven pages of the forum determinedly not listening and then accuse people of being 'negative'. Which I think is just a little disingenuous.

 

Topic deleted closing my account, like the many closed minds on here lol.

 

I'm not sure post is actually serious, (Railtrack no longer exists btw so how did you contact them? ) the question is what useful purpose would a reopened S&D serve? I really don't think Gove meant going around relaying track on every trackbed of lines long closed. There are much better things on which to spend the huge amount of money this would cost.

 

Mmmmmm.............matron!

 

I will be very surprised if Rail Track do own much of this track bed, as the property section of BR sold off the land and in a lot of cases the adjoining land owners had the right to buy the land back, also these houses will most likely have the legal rights to it if shown on the land registry records.

 

Try getting consent to reinstate the level crossing in Radstock..............................

They wanted it removed in the 30's