Somerset and Dorset Rebuild

Oh well please yourselves sceptics. It was a mistake even joing this short sighted group! im gone. I imagined people here had 'open minds' but sadly not BYEEEE

 

Hardly negative vibes, only a dose of realism. Asking what the use of a reinstated S&D seems reasonable, as does pointing out the difficulties of having a level crossing reinstated seems fairly reasonable to me.

 

You might "know what you know", but you clearly don't know just how much you don't know.

Perpetual gridlock in Somerset? There isn't. There really isn't.

Anyone who has built on a disused trackbed is a squatter and can have their property demolished just like that? That's really, really, not how things work.

 

just as well someone quoted his post so we can all see what a dreamer he must be. Is he someone we know perhaps? He was up very late, still it's not a schoolday.

 

Had the poster of #136 only taken the time to read back one post in the thread to #135, they may have had pause to think a little more seriously about the difference between a well considered scheme and - well, I'm not sure what exactly, though the suggested use of a JCB as the means to cut through the requirement for logic is I suppose somewhat novel. What @DisusedBranch wrote in June 2016 applies pretty well word for word to February 2018.

Tom

 

And its all the other level crossing that you would have to reinstate.... as a ball part figure for an MCB-CCTV or OD crossing you are looking at £1,000,000+
How many crossings will you need.....and I know the ORR would have a few words to say too.

Its a nice idea but would cost mega bucks and where is the demand/market?
From my humble view there isn't one

 

Pity the fun ended so soon...

 

Good to see some robust debate...

I found the restoration group's website, which might help one to evaluate the scheme, and those behind it. As far as I can see no-one involved is mentioned by name, something which tends to spook me.

Apart from that I leave you all to judge for yourselves: http://www.somersetanddorsetrailway.co.uk/

 

My judgement is formed abovc all else by the "page last updated" footers - March 2, 2015.

 

This website was on my monthly trawl when it first appeared, but pretty much dropped off my radar following months of nothing much happening to advance their case.

Many of us have chewed the fat, here and elsewhere, over whether whether the S&D or the DN&S would be a more suitable candidate for resuscitation, should conditions dictate any requirement for additional capacity.

So far as I can glean, the only likely drive to reinstate either appears to be underpinning any need for passenger services with container traffic to/from Southampton, in which event, the DN&S, even accounting for difficulties caused by road developments around Newbury and Winchester, looks by far the more logical option.

With a bit of imaginative planning (hardly a noted DfT forte, I'll grant you!), the DN&S could also serve to better plug both Eastleigh and Bournemouth airports into wider regional transport infrastructure, taking quite a bit of pressure off overloaded airports and their associated road links elsewhere.

The S&D could really only usefully serve Bournemouth and even then, the DN&S would match journey times from just about every significant source of traffic one might name.

A semi-detached, but relevant point is the general lack of any effort to get airfreight off roads and onto the railways, though with moves, in one or two cases, to connect major road distribution hubs to the rail network, perhaps this could yet change.

Although, had it survived, the S&D might now be a useful (though hardly a critical) line, the sinuous single track nature of the route and ferocious gradients are other factors which mitigate against reinstatement and I can't, for the life of me, see that it could handle significant levels of traffic without monumental outlay being required to overcome it's inherent historic limitations.

 

Is this a JV with the Trawsffynydd by any chance ?

 

The S&D is one of those lines that has no useful purpose apart from nostalgia. Thanks in part to IvoPeters, every enthusiast has a soft spot for it but a resurrected S&D would bear no resemblance to the original, one only has to look at the part rebuilt Waverley Route to see that.

 

So, as I live in Frome, I am familiar with the Bath end of the line, so heres my feasibility study.

To make it simpler I will adopt the post WW2 proposal of diverting traffic via Limpey Stoke to Midford which gets round the problem of what to do with the trains when they get to Bath, however there may well be capacity issues at Bathampton Junction.

The first significant settlement is Radstock pop 5000 - where a significant section of the line has been built over and of course there is the level crossing question right by a major road junction. Reinstate the viaduct at Radstock and a rather awkward road bridge at Silver Street takes you to Midsomer Norton station (pop 10000) but not much parking space here.

Dig out Chilcompton Cutting - access via a single track lane, kick out the gun club and you come to Chilcompton (pop 4800) As far as I can make out much of the trackbed has disappeared beyond Chilcompton, some of it in a quarry and head to Shepton Mallett (Pop 10000)

Likely cost - enormous Population served 30000 ish, sure fire hit (not)

 

Both were essentially "political" routes built either to further incursions into the competition's area or to frustrate the competition's similar intentions. It cannot have helped the survival prospects of the DNS that there were a large number of skew bridges with appalling visibility which created a very real traffic hazard even with the traffic volumes and speeds of the nineteen fifties.

PH

 

Whilst I agree with most of that post, I would challenge that particular point. The S&D would be a much shorter route between Bournemouth and anywhere in south Wales or the Bristol area. However I can't see the Bournemouth area accounting for much traffic, and the much more significant catchment around Southampton still has an adequate route to/from Bristol via Romsey, Salisbury and Westbury.

 

I think I made it sufficiently clear that the only case I can see for resurrecting either route would have to be made on capacity grounds, in which case I definitely don't see the tortuous S&D as the more viable of the two.

Personally, I reckon a leftfield idea I've occasionally entertained, to reopen Maiden Newton to Bridport as a mixed gauge route (to cater for network traffic as well as giving Fire Fly and Iron Duke somewhere to show their paces), has more chance of success .... and I'd only give that a 10% liklihood of creating any serious debate, let alone seeing it happen!

 

The S&D is a non-starter, but the DNS even more so, especially given the expenditure at Reading to facilitate freight moves to and form Southampton

 

T'was specifically as a longer term backup for that key artery that led me to even mention the route. Since it isn't all that likely to happen under any forseeable circumstances any time soon ......

On the S&D front, I could envisage a modest extension to the preserved bit, but since both that and the nearby-ish Avon Valley seem to have enough on their plates already, even that seems optimistic ...... and as you may have noticed by now, I'm not generally given to bouts of groundless optimism!

 

Can’t see the DNS ever being reinstated due to all the development north Chesil station. You now have a large university camps on the old track bed and with in the next few years the M3/A34 interchange is also going to be upgraded which will also be on the old formation of the line and not forgetting the A34 north of Winchester runs on the old track bed.

 

It's Steve Sainsbury's isn't it who runs the new S&D website. And a load of Facebook pages, all of which you get banned for questioning the reality of things. Not sure if S&D is also Steve but it has similar style wording, and never letting freedom of speech happen as anyone like that is classed as "negative" or a "troll" or many other words. This is one of the reasons I prefer nat pres. At least you are free to have your say, whether it's for or against, without being banned.