I like trains, especially when they run on time and have seen how lines closed in the so-called Beeching cuts can be reopened.
The line from Crediton to Okehampton in Devon was reopened to passenger traffic in 2021 and late last year, the Northumberland Line from Newcastle to Ashington was reinstated with further stations on that stretch to be reopened this year.
So, what chance for the reopening of the Penrith to Keswick line, closed in 1972 or the Waverley Line from Carlisle to connect with the reinstated line from Tweedbank to Edinburgh?
While there has been much talk of reopening the Penrith to Keswick link, the prospects of this happening seem to go up and down faster than a fiddler’s elbow.
A bid for funding was lost in 2020 and the trackbed has been taken over in some places and some of the infrastructure has been damaged by what appears to be, ever increasing storms.
In any case, if there was to be any reopening than it is unlikely to be a fully functioning railway with regular, year-round, scheduled services, and more likely some sort of heritage line. Without the former, is there any point?
The old Waverley Line, closed in 1969, is another matter altogether.
Having invested in the Borders Railway, the Scottish Government have shown some interest in extending this to Carlisle and in 2021, £10m from the Borderlands Growth Deal was allocated for a feasibility study to extend the line across the border via Longtown, to join the West Coast Main Line (WCML) at Carlisle.
While any discernible progress has been slow and, let’s be honest, the reinstatement of some of the railway infrastructure will be expensive, there must still be grounds for optimism.
Just look at how much is being spent on Carlisle Railway Station and its environs. It is hardly a prelude to reopening the line to Silloth Docks!
Investment in transport across the UK has been skewed heavily towards the South East.
Per head, across the UK, £687 was spent on transport in 2023/24. In London, the figure was £1,313 while in the North West it was £729, ie: barely half and most of that was focused on the Manchester/Liverpool belt. Even less was spent in the North East (£541).
The disparity is even more in focus when we consider the money squandered on HS2 which was supposed to open up the north with a high-speed link but will now simply provide West Midlanders with a reduced journey time to London?
Without increasing capacity on the WCML between Birmingham and Preston, the gazillions spent will do nothing for the transport needs of Cumbria.
Thanks to major investment in London, the South East and the channel tunnel, it takes less than 2 hours 30 minutes to get from the capital to Paris but an hour longer to get to Carlisle, and 2 hours 45 minutes to Oxenholme.
And, as we have seen, flooding problems north of Carlisle have caused issues with the WCML, problems which could be alleviated by having an alternative route into Scotland from Carlisle.
Okay, to get from Carlisle into Edinburgh via Avanti or TransPennine Express takes one hour and 22 minutes and it would be longer on any newly opened Waverley route.
But what the Waverley extension could provide is railways for all the towns in the north Cumbria and borders area, particularly Longtown and Hawick.
Of course, the issue facing the railways right across the country, is who would use them, when and why. Are we now so used to the convenience of the car which can take us from point to point especially when going shopping we ignore public transport?
Do we use railways only for those special events – Carlisle/Barrow-in-Furness/Windermere to Manchester Airport to catch a holiday flight?
Is the train just a way to get to work from Millom or Wigton without having to worry about parking in Barrow or Carlisle?
Until the country decides what it wants to spend on transport and why, is there any hope of any of the lines laid waste in the 1960s and 1970s being brought back to life?
About Cumbria Cat
Born in Cumberland and, now, back living in Cumberland, having spent most of the past 50 years in some place called Cumbria, this cat has used up all nine lives as well as a few others.
Always happy to curl up on a friendly lap, the preference is for a local lap and not a lap that wants to descend on the county to change it into something it isn’t. After all, you might think Cumbria/Cumberland/Westmorland is a land forged by nature – the glaciers, the rivers, breaking down the volcanic rocks or the sedimentary layers – but, in reality, the Cumbria we know today was forged by generations of local people, farmers, miners, quarriers, and foresters.
This cat is a local moggy, not a Burmese, Ocicat or Persian, and although I have been around the block a few times, whenever I jump, I end up on my feet back in my home county. I am passionate about the area, its people, past, present and future, and those who come to admire what we hold dear, be it lakes and mountains, wild sea shores, vibrant communities or the history as rich and diverse as anywhere in the world.
