Moorlands and City Railway

Ah yes, I miss the Mermaid - and the view from the Car Park down onto the Roches (sic) and Ramshaw Rocks. The Cat & Fiddle is still going strong, I've walked up there a few times looking at the old coal mines, yes Coal Mines, up at that altitude.

Incidentally if anyone wants to do the Royal Cottage then (as far as I'm aware) bear in mind it's only open 8 - 10 on Friday and Saturday nights. If you go and Jess decides that she wants your pint, just hand it over and ask if she wants any crisps with it.

Jess is the (LARGE) pub dog, 3 parts Doberman, 7 parts Hound of the Baskervilles. Fortunately she's very friendly, but she is very big too.

 

Don't forget the Yew Tree (with its pork pies) in the list of Staffy pubs not to miss.

 

You've a strange way of showing it Paul. For what it's worth, as far as I'm aware the driver for the reopening to Stoke is not actually passenger traffic, it's freight, from Cauldon Quarry. The same place that started railways (or tramways) in this area back in the 1770s.

Getting lorries off the road, reducing carbon emissions, and the infrastructure from Cauldon to Stoke would have to be to mainline standards. Any passenger service from Leek to Stoke would ride on the back of that. Go and have a look at the Moorlands and City website, if you have any questions about the detail of the business plan ask them, I'm just PWay.

 

Ah yes, the Yew Tree, part pub part antiques museum. At one point it was actually owned by the Knotty and the LMS, albeit not at high altitude.

Staffordshire is waaaaaaayyyyyy under-rated as a county, especially since it has some of the best bits of the Peak National Park.

 

Is the quarry in production?

PH

 

Yes

 

Yes - as is the adjacent cement works. So there's the potential to deliver fuel to the kilns, and bring out cement and stone. The roads in the area aren't great, being steep and sinuous in many places.

 

... and just for the record when Lafarge and Holcim merged they had to get rid of the bulk of their UK aggregates assets. They were allowed to choose whether to retain Cauldon Quarry or Tunstead (which is, I believe, the biggest limestone quarry in Europe), which was previously the haunt of those big ICI bogie hoppers. They chose to retain Cauldon. Which suggests that they see a long term future for it.

Cauldon is also certified to ISO 14001, the environmental management standard and uses a range of recycled materials in its kilns, all of which suggests that site management are keen on managing environmental impacts....

Next...........

 

But Leek isn't on the line to Cauldon, is it? As far as I can gather, the proposed new station at Leek would be a terminus?

 

Leek is just over 1/2 mile or so from the MCR Stoke-Cauldon route, west of Leek Brook Junc. So 90-odd percent of the route is MCR's LBJ - Stoke line.

 

Sheff's spot on (as usual) but opening to Leek is regarded as step 1 in a multi stage process to reopen the whole lot. The Council are keen because it fits into a redevelopment of the Barnfields / Cornhill site and they want to capitalise on any tourist potential.

Outline planning permission has been given for the overall area and it's fair to say that the CVR station (including NSR Museum) would be roughly opposite Birchall Fields (for those who know Leek) and a short walk from the old Britannia House (where I used to work) home of the Building Society which then got taken over by Co-op Bank and then outsourced to Capita. I'd guess there's around a thousand people working there. Word is that Capita are keen on a commuter service, but let's not go there again.

Fear not, for Sybil (Ralphs, Leaderene of the council) is with us.

 

Sounds if the present status of "mothballed awaiting someone really interested in developing the quarry who has access to real money to come along" is the correct one. The rest is, as used to be said, for the birds.

PH

 

Takes deep breath....

Paul

The quarry is actually being worked right now, as we speak, so your comment about waiting for someone to develop it is simply wrong.

As for access to real money, Lafarge Holcim was created by the merger of the two companies in 2015. The company, based in Switzerland has a market capitalisation of approximately £29billion Swiss Francs - approximately £20billion. I would suggest therefore that it does indeed have access to real money.

Not sure what you mean by the rest is for the birds, you do seem to have a strange slant on things. I added the extra details because it underlines the degree to which extractive industry companies have to manage their environmental impacts carefully - which would ted to make them keen to use rail rather than road.

All in all Paul, I think it's time to admit that you got it wrong. The potential developments are considerably more than just daydreams from Gricers as you so patronisingly put it. Maybe you should say sorry and adopt a more constructive mode of expression.

 

How much have Lafarge contributed yet? If the case was so overwhelming it would be in operation by now.

PH

 

Why do you need to know?

Clutching at straws?

 

Ah, thank you. I've looked it up on a map now. It looks to be just under a mile from Leek Brook Jn to the new station site (I'm guessing exactly where that is of course), which itself is about half a mile or so from the town centre.

Assuming though that the quarry does find it profitable to switch to rail haulage, the railway from Cauldon to Stoke is opened up for freight traffic, and that freight operations over the MCR go from strength to strength - would there then be enough money there to make up for the losses that a Leek-Stoke passenger service would probably make?

 

I'm not a party to the detailed negotiations, as I said a few posts above, I'm just a member of PWay. However, the infrastructure would be in place and I believe that the local authorities in both Leek and Stoke are behind it. In any event they see the extension to Leek as the first step.

The main employers in the town, as far as I am aware, are to the west and south of the town, so not far from the station site.

Sorry, but that's as much as I can say.

 

Merely pointing out the truth that very little has actually happened. Quite normal for a large industrial concern to buy assets and then sit on them for an extended period of time. Hence my earlier comment that the present "mothballed" status is the appropriate one.

PH

 

and as I have pointed out, several times now, Lafarge Holcim are hardly "sitting" on their asset (Cauldon Quarry), they are actively using it and have every reason to use Rail over Road. As for why nothing has happened yet, as I said in an earlier post ask them and MCR, I'm just Pway.

You are obviously not interested in facts or the views of someone else, so I see no purpose in responding to your posts any further.

 

Oddly enough I was just thinking the same about you. Bye Bye!

PH