Ashley Hill

[Ashley Hill]

In the Filton Bank quadrupling passive provision was made for any future reopening of Ashley Hill. Is there a genuine desire to reopen Ashley Hill in a similar way to Saltford whose residents are actively campaigning?

[Ashley Hill]

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bris ... ey-2997303

Hello,whilst not Ashley Hill does anyone know if this Ashley Down proposal is likely?

[C2759]

Apparently, one of the current requirements for station location is that the track has to be level at the proposed site. As an example, there have been proposals for some years now to reopen Cullompton (GW main line in Devon) which I think Network Rail generally supports, the problem being that there is no available site on level track for it. I would guess the same problem would arise for most locations up the bank from Lawrence Hill to Filton. It would make the job much more expensive, not to say intrusive on operation of services during construction, if the trackbed has to be dug out to create the relevant length of level track.

[76026]

Regarding Cullompton... according to

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... d-stations,

one of the ten successful bids for the first round of the government's 'Restoring Your Railway' Ideas Fund is to reinstate Wellington (Somerset) and Cullopmton stations.This means they will get money 'to enable them to progress their proposals towards developing a business case'.
I hope the level track issue is high on the joblist the people behind the bid...

If these stations were reopened, I wonder how many trains would stop at them? I guess most stops would be by Bristol - Plymouth / Penzance trains. I wonder whether the new stations would strain Taunton - Exeter capacity on Summer Saturdays?

[railwest]

>>>I wonder whether the new stations would strain Taunton - Exeter capacity on Summer Saturdays?....

Well, they could always do what the 'real' GWR did at both places and put the platforms on loop lines...

[the green mile]

...agreed, but don't you think the additional cost of the trackwork and signalling might drive a coach and horses through the proposal?

[Robin Summerhill]

...agreed, but don't you think the additional cost of the trackwork and signalling might drive a coach and horses through the proposal?

I think the answer might be ÔÇ£that dependsÔÇØ ÔÇô post COVID-19 there might, just might, be a new normal.

Personally I see little point in speculating about the future of public transport because there are too many variables. At the moment we are being discouraged to use public transport for anything but essential journeys, and I suspect that there are many people who would be ÔÇ£allowedÔÇØ to use it but are afraid to do so because of the risk of infection, real or imagined.

If and when all this is over I somehow doubt that we will be going completely back to the old ways. We donÔÇÖt know whether, for example, home working will catch on reducing commuting and therefore pressure in the peaks; we donÔÇÖt know whether foreign holidays will become more or less attractive both through infection hot spots and the possibility (as things appear to be going at the moment) of us all having to cough up for a Shengen visa if we want to go to an EU country. Everything is still up in the air.

What is probably not up in the air, however, is that the government will need to stimulate the economy at the end of all this. A new bout of Thatcherite monetarism would probably cause riots in the streets next time around. The government will need to kick start large scale investment programmes, and it may well be that the railway network could benefit because of that.

All that is a long way of saying that I donÔÇÖt think anything should be ruled in or out at the moment based on the established way weÔÇÖve been thinking for decades. It may well be that a couple of loops at Wellington and Collumpton could be seen as sensible expenditure in the future.

Then again, if public transport demand permanently collapses after the pandemic, and timetable planners can go back to drawing timing graphs with a 4ÔÇØ brush, it might not make any difference if there are a couple of extra stops on the main line.

Has anybody got a crystal ball handy?