Brexit - What Impact (Negative or Positive) Will It Have On Our Heritage Railways?

Hello all, as I'm sure most of you are aware by now, the vote on whether to leave the European Union or not has come to pass, with majority voting in favour of leaving.

Now I cannot claim to know of what impact this will have on the Heritage Railway industry, but I can imagine it must have some level of effect, in some shape or form.

So with this in mind, I put the question to members of this forum, what do you personally believe the impact will be on our hobby? Will it have huge or small effect on it?
Will the impacts that come with this referendum be negative or positive ones?

Certainly it could be reasonable to assume that there perhaps will be both positives and negatives to this. Whatever the case though, I think this is a worthwhile topic to discuss.

I leave it you all to decide and display your own opinions here. Let's discuss it.

 

Given that we are relying on foreign investment to fund HS2 and we have just had our credit rating down graded and there is every possibility our economy is about to go in to resection I do not think there will be many institutions who will be willing to take a gamble on funding building it.
on a similar note I dont expect the french will be to keen to build us a nuclear power plant so expect a sharp rise in energy and fuel costs which of course will affect the cost of rail travel.

colin

 

Many railways have received European funded grants, perhaps it is too early to say what will happen to these funds in future/whether they will be replaced etc.

Regards

Matt

 

Well didn't the Brexit campaigners assure us that once the UK isn't paying £350m a week to the EU we'll all be rolling in money for every project imaginable, and of course we all believe everything politicians tell us don't we !

 

The result of the vote has cast uncertainty on the future which will affect funding, certainly in the short term and possibly continuing longer term. EU funding will no longer be made available and additional funding will now be required to fund the exit strategy and set up new trade deals. This will most likely mean that funding to support projects such as the Lynton & Barnstaple extension and GCR bridging the Gap project will need to be reconsidered. The fallout could easily reduce investment for the next 5-10 years unfortunately. It is too early to predict at this stage, but it is possible that our economy doesn't fully recover having burnt our bridges.

I guess one positive is there is likely to be a reduction in foreign holidays with the pound devalued. That could result in more people traveling locally and visiting our preserved railways rather than traveling further afield.

Paul

 

And if the general public are (or just feel) poorer through further recession then ££s spent at out heritage railways will certainly be reduced.

 

HS2 will be canned. I guess we wont need to implement ERTMS. Slightly off topic, our border post on the French side of the chunnel will need to be moved into the UK, which means that we will need to build a detention facility on this side of the portal, or suffer a squatters camp.

 

ERTMS whilst a European scheme is unlikely to end just because we leave.

 

If HS2 is canned, that just leaves one European connected discrete stub into london, with no chord, so there will be no need to implement ERTMS anywhere on the network.

 

Increased fuel costs could have an impact while a weak pound could encourage staycation (although many summer hols are now booked)

Jon

 

The Chinese are paying for HS2..

 

Not only will border controls between Europe be considered so will it between England and Scotland if Scotland leaves the UK.
They will have to use the Euro, that will probably put up rail prices on the WCML and ECML, I can't say about the lines in Scotland however.
I expect the one of the costs of Scotland joining the EU will be adopt the Euro and Schengen. This was a factor in the previous Indyef and would be so in a future break. HS2 cancellation would please many and the money saved would go to other worthwhile projects one hopes. If HS2 cannot be cancelled at least a curtailment maybe possible.

 

Maybe Euro, but definitely not Schengen. for a start simple Geography sows that Scotland is in a different situation to all other Schengen countries. And secondly countries in Shengen are beginning to feel a touch uncomfortable about t, and it's not a requirement.

 

I think aside from the economic uncertainty, it will impact negatively on the big ticket schemes. The current EU funding mechanisms will disappear and no one knows what the government in power at that point will do with the membership money. My gut is that there will be no funding. I see that Cornwall council is pleading for the EU funding to continue (or equivalent) once we are fully out. This is despite Cornwall having a majority voting leave!

 

The Welsh Brrexit leader has now said that the rest of the UK has to make up the loss of the Net benefit that wales got from the EU.

 

Is it even possible for you to make a point without making a snotty personal remark at the same time.? Alas I can't put you on ignore because you are a mod, a post I feel you should be stripped of for being reapeatedly unnecessarily antagonistic. Many threads take on a hostile tone because of your direction.

 

Are you sure its not a requirement of new joiners? Geography is not an issue when it comes to a principle.

 

Apologies, I just looked it up and I was wrong. As you say, It's the principle, but I still don't really see how it could work in practice.

Anyway, all this lot ought to be on the EU thread, this is specifically to do with Brexit and railways, so I'll report my own post.

 

I'll drag you quickly back on topic. HS2 preparatory work was given EU funding, and Scotland would have (eventually) been a beneficiary of its completion. Its completion - in fact even starting it, was always in doubt because of the way the UK faff around when it comes to major infrastructure projects, EU or no EU, and now i think politically and economically its a dead duck.