Here's an advent question to which there is no definitive right or wrong answer.

Four maps of the railways as they were 60 or more years ago - and on some of them you can see parallel and duplicated routes and (in my personal opinion) both lines who's closure was a correct and natural thinning out, and lines that if we had them today would be busy steel highways.

On as many of the maps as you would like, do you dare comment along the line of "if only that had been reatained" where we might be today, or even more daring for the Coffee Shop "there is a line there would be no point in re-opening in a new form today".

I am not posting this on "the lighter side" as these may be real though for where we might be in another 60 years!   As we move towards larger mayoral authorities ...

"northern East Anglia"


"South Wales - the Valleys"


"Western Cornwall"


"Northern Wiltshire"

 
Starting off ... on the Wiltshire map - a left field suggestion that the line to Calne is perhaps one of the ones that would have been busiest today had it not been culled.  Electric trains from this growing town - which would have become a popular commuter town - to Stanley Bridge, Chippenham, Thingley, Corsham, Box, Bathampton, Bath Spa, Oldfield Park, Saltford, Keynsham, St Annes Park, Bristol Temple Meads, Bedminster, Parson Street, Ashton Gate, Clifton Bridge, Pill and Portishead.

Using dutch style 2 way connections, train from Calne pulls into Chippenham cross platform from train from London. Interchange both ways, then express leaves (Bath, Bristol, Weston, Bridgwater, Taunton) ahead of the Portishead train which with all its extra stops all be into Temple Meads ahead of the next London express.

Visions are important - including those that guess ahead beyond the current government and beyond 2035.  Also vital but in parallel is the need to get the current system and service reliable, on existing stations and timetables.

 
I’d vote for the ‘Midland’ line from Bristol Temple Meads to Yate via Westerleigh.

The loss of this line has led to a situation where London to South Wales trains have to share the same two tracks as north-south trains from the West Country between Filton and Westerleigh - a significant bottleneck. It also means there is no chance of reintroducing suburban services to Fishponds or Staple Hill.

This line is lost for good, sadly. The route is very firmly established as a linear park, and it would not serve Bristol Parkway (which was built after it closed). If the lost capacity is to b restored, it will probably involve putting in four tracks between Parkway and Westerleigh. I don’t expect to live to see that happen!

 
I'm thinking that the citizens of any town the size of Devizes would feel the lack of a railway station and the services it once provided

In South Wales, many of the lines shown were there mainly to serve the myriad of collieries and it's difficult to say that they are needed to the same extent today.  The line from Pontypool Road westwards to Quakers Yard (Merthyr Tydfil) would surely be useful these days

 

I agree about Devizes. I have travelled there a few times by bus, and the roads to there can get hideously congested. And, without knowing if it is the case, I suspect the area on Melksham's eastern side is ripe for yet further development (no doubt Graham will know, and I think may have already posted about this?).

I am definitely not knowledgable about railway history, but am I right in thinking that the line through Devizes roughly equates to the line that was originally considered to run between London and Bristol before it was diverted to the small village of Swindon?

 

You certainly had through services London to Bristol via Devizes - but the original line via Swindon and Box tunnel was selected because it could be very easily graded where the (later) line via Devizes has a steep gradient - parallel to the Caen Hill flight of locks.

The 2021 census gave up 19,472 in Devizes and 19,732 in Calne which was my suggestion - close call on which I selected to suggest for "I would want it back", perhaps because of the Devizes Gateway project which should provide decent rail transport there and there enormous issues of getting a line in again on any alignment,  and the likely spread of wanted destinations.  Calne to Chippenham looks like a far more deliverable project than rails under the castle again in Devizes.

 

This has reminded me of travelling from Kingston to Bath age dot, and the routing on the tickets included words to the effect 'Valid via Devizes'. This was perhaps c. 1967 or 8, so, a few years after that route had been put beyond use.

I think it was the same trip that the (short and chubby diesel) loco got into trouble after Swindon and started emitting a *lot* of smoke. Also, it may have been that trip that on the return journey I recall, on the north side of the line after leaving Swindon's station, a well populated graveyard of steam locos laid up in sidings.

Mark

 

Having set the question, I should suggest an answer myself.  But I don't know east Anglia very well.  From what I read (but it may be biased by differential local emotions) I would wonder if Kings Lynn to Hunstanton, Lowestoft to Yarmouth South Beach or a line via Dereham to Wells-next-the-se would have been the one to keep.  I could be surprised though - if you tell me that Melton Constable County School to Sheringham of all the lines shown should have been saved, with good reasons I could believe you.

 

And I will leave the members who live or work west of Plymouth to answer for definite if you dare.
* Passenger trains to Fowey still?  And if so - via Lostwithiel or via Par?
* Passenger trains to Helston
* Passenger trains from Newquay westward to Redruth
* Passenger trains from Bodmin Road to Bodmin and Wadebridge

 
This map dates from after the closure of the majority of the Midland & Great Northern Joint network in 1959. There are a few stubs from these left on here but most of these went in their mid 1960s. There has been the idea floated of (re)opening a line from County School to Fakenham & then Holt, this joining up the preserved railways and forming a circular route but how actually useful that might be is not clear to me - or indeed how easy.

 

As a fairly regular visitor to Norfolk, and having dealt with some development projects there, my vote would have been-

1 - Keep open the Hunstanton line - had this been done, it might even have electrified when they did King's Lynn (why could they stretch to this in 1992, but not Oxford or Temple Meads in 2016?). There have been a few studies into re-opening the line, although the extensive town centre station site in Hunstanton has been partly developed. The line was subject to flooding, so costs to protect it may have been a factor. Hunstanton has grown quite a bit in recent years, and is a reasonably popular day out destination from Cambridge.

2 - Also keep open King's Lynn - Swaffham - Dereham - Norwich, to provide an east-west rail link across the county, and connect some of the larger towns (Swaffham 7000+, Dereham nearly 20000) with Norwich and King's Lynn by rail.

Wells has only about 2000 people, and the closing of its last rail link did allow the quirky narrow gauge Wells & Walsingham Railway to be created. Wells also had a link to Burnham Market to the west until the floods of 1952 washed it away, and it was not reinstated.

 

The real missing line in Norfolk is Norwich Kings Lynn via Dereham.  It takes about 1 1/4 hrs by very busy road. 

 
I think Bodmin Rd-Bodmin-Wadebridge-PADSTOW is the only one most likely to be well-used if it were still operating today, especially if extended to Plymouth as a metro-type service. Helston would need an east-facing junction/reversal at Gwinear Rd to Truro via Camborne, Pool/Carn Brea, and Redruth to make it run from somewhere to somewhere. Fowey via St Blazey had no direct connection to the main line at Par. A Fowey-Lostwithiel service might serve the summer tourist swarms into Fowey as a heritage line. Newquay to Truro via Perranporth was very circuitous.

 
The route that would have worked well would be Newquay to Fowey, but not via Lostwithiel. The former mineral tunnel route from Par (Pinnock Tunnel) to Fowey being used instead.