Moorlands and City Railway

The Shareholders who attended the AGM yesterday were told what the first phase was. A public announcement will be made shortly, but it's getting very complex as the Council are proving to be mere lip service. As was pointed out only SMDC could approve planning for a station but not the actual railway to it!

 

Regarding alton station - these days it's owned by the landmark trust who rent it out as a holiday let. so they'd have to e persuaded to sell up if it was to be used as a station again.

 

Why would they have to sell up? As long as there is access to platforms then surely that would be enough? Isn't it win win for them to be able to have people arrive by train rather than clogging up the roads in Alton!

 

There seems to have been an enormous amount of money invested into MCR by CVR from the scraping of infrastructure, loans secured on tangible assets, interest free loans, write off of share value, with little return apart from running rights to Cauldon not to mention the increased liabilities from a 1st phase. I am beginning to question the wisdom of having 2 of the same directors on both boards and am awaiting the announcement that soon they will be as one with CVR taking on the quest for Leek and Stoke.

Surely a loan of the size mentioned to shareholders should have warrantied a Special AGM to allow for shareholder scrutiny.

It would also be interesting to know if MCR are seeking any new investment in relation to their project following repeated setbacks.

I suspect the issue with SMDC and Network Rail are due to the political landscape changing with a drive down of costs, relentless pursuit of asset realization and ever decreasing liabilities.

 

The station is large, there are three platforms. When CVR makes it to Alton, in about 200 years, then I personally couldn't see a reason why them and the Landmark Trust couldn't coexist happily.

Sent from my HTC Desire 620 using Tapatalk

 

Sadly I suspect that Merlin is keen to keep getting the car parking revenue at Alton Towers....

Jon

 

Yer I bet you right there!

 

Delamere Forest is great for the adjacent camp site. Is the café still going strong?

 

By then we should have a canal running back through there as well (don't worry we've already done the maths and there is plenty of space for everyone!)

 

And I want the footpath, cycle path and bridle path all separate to avoid conflict.

 

Haha I've already had conversations about spooked horses jumping into restored canals when a whistle is blown

 

Has the 3rd platform at alton been filled in or was it a bay? Only ever seen 2 platforms when I've visited.

 

It was a full length bay, the platform opposite the surviving building was almost an island platform. The bay could take something like 12 coaches. Today, there is a thick line of trees growing in where the bay track was. Not sure whether it was manually filled in or just taken by nature...

Sent from my HTC Desire 620 using Tapatalk

 

CVR/MCR don't need the Landmark Trust platform. *If* the station get re-opened, then services can use the island platform, with the Landmark Trust one being simply for run-rounds. However there was thoughts of building a newer station further South closer to the theme park, with a purpose built connection as the surviving station requires a fair walk to access AT. Nothing has been decided upon yet mind, and the Alton link wasn't included in the Council's Masterplan either and I will guarantee the residents of Oakamoor will fight for "their" dog walking route quite profusely, just as they have done at Moneystone.

 

Here's how it looked back in 2010 after some clearance work:

 

You're right, the suggestion was a new station a few hundred yards further on. That way it would terminate on or next to Alton Towers land.
The biggest challenge IMO would be persuading Staffs County Council that Oakamoor Tunnel should be reopened. It apparently has an incredible bat colony. I know that for some canal restorations bats in tunnels have been a showstopper

 

From what I'm seeing with Leek, it's the Council themselves who are the showstoppers before we even get to any engineering/environmental challenges. Unless you can get their picture on the front page of the Sentinel...

 

Don't worry about Staffordshire County Council in relation to the tunnel, it has no standing. The District Council has, but your real fight would be with Natural England.