Help Save the Monsal Trail!

sauyeelee
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Joined: 29 Sep 2021, 10:18pm

Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by sauyeelee »

The proposal to convert the route back into a railway would destroy the trail for walkers and cyclists. Information and petition are here:

https://www.change.org/p/department-for ... re_initial
Richard Fairhurst
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

It is no sooner going to become a railway than I am going to become Pope. By all means sign the petition, but there is no foreseeable threat to the Monsal Trail.
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rareposter
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by rareposter »

Another thread about it here:
viewtopic.php?p=1535283#p1535283

As mentioned above, it'll never happen but the local councils like the conversation as it keeps people thinking that they're Doing Something and have Grand Plans for the area and all that.
boris
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by boris »

Your Holiness,

I have signed this as I love the trail, having ridden it many times since before it was done-up. It is wonderful.

I would like to know how many tons of freight a railway would take off the roads , though, and how much money it would make.
rareposter
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by rareposter »

boris wrote: 30 Sep 2021, 5:03pm I would like to know how many tons of freight a railway would take off the roads , though, and how much money it would make.
Depends on what the freight is and if it's unique to that area (for example a quarry or coalmine having a direct rail line). The tunnels along Monsal would need complete re-boring if it was to be cleared to W10 or W12 gauge freight. (W12 is the refrigerated container size - all new and most upgraded rail is built to accommodate that).

Freight isn't about "making money" as such, it's about transporting goods as quickly and cheaply as possible. Rail freight can be very cheap to move bulk loads around but equally it can require very specialist equipment at each end and (again, depending on what is being carried) the potential for onward journey via lorry anyway so you need to consider distance it needs to travel, volumes/weight transported, final destination(s) of the product and the infrastructure to enable that, available time (fresh food obviously needs to be moved far quicker than, say, a load of quarry stone).
pga
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by pga »

I am in two minds here. My wife and I moved to Manchester when we got married and regularly travelled to our parents' homes in Nottingham and Stamford by the railway. We objected to the closure of the line at the time. The public inquiry was held in Sheffield and the day it was held the rail unions called a strike so we were unable to make our objections at the inquiry.

However, as a cyclist I was pleased that the old railways in the Peak District became such wonderful cycling and walking routes. However, in the early days some were for walkers only and I was part of the group that campaigned for these to be opened up for cyclists as well. It seems so long ago that I can barely recall the campaign details.

There is often talk of re-opening old railways but rarely anything comes of it. So I guess that the route will stay as it is.
mumbojumbo
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by mumbojumbo »

Bring back the trains-there are many other routes for bikes, and many roads in PD are quiet enough.
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TrevA
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by TrevA »

mumbojumbo wrote: 3 Oct 2021, 7:39pm Bring back the trains-there are many other routes for bikes, and many roads in PD are quiet enough.
Why? The train line would go from Manchester to Derby, there’s already a viable alternative via Sheffield. It would only benefit locals and tourists between Buxton and Matlock and there’s already a more than adequate bus service between the 2. Freight can and does go via the alternative route.

There may be other routes for bikes but they invariably involve big hills, except for the Tissington and High Peak trails. The Monsal trail only has a very gradual climb up from Bakewell and it’s traffic free, so suitable for the less able and for families.
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millimole
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by millimole »


TrevA wrote:
mumbojumbo wrote: 3 Oct 2021, 7:39pm Bring back the trains-there are many other routes for bikes, and many roads in PD are quiet enough.
Why? The train line would go from Manchester to Derby, there’s already a viable alternative via Sheffield.
Indeed.
The counter to this proposal is to campaign for the currently in-use line (Hope Valley Line?) to be improved to allow faster running, larger freight, and additional track to allow faster services to pass the slower ones. All of this would be cheaper and less disruptive than the emotional call to reopen the Midland route.
It'll never be reopened, but it's worth airing the issues.
Leicester; Riding my Hetchins since 1971; Day rides on my Dawes; Going to the shops on a Decathlon Hoprider
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TrevA
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by TrevA »

To quote the poet John Ruskin:

There was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell, once upon a time, divine as the Vale of Tempe... You Enterprised a Railroad through the valley – you blasted its rocks away, heaped thousands of tons of shale into its lovely stream. The valley is gone, and the Gods with it; and now, every fool in Buxton can be in Bakewell in half an hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton; which you think a lucrative process of exchange – you Fools everywhere.
— Fors Clavigera: Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain
Sherwood CC and Notts CTC.
A cart horse trapped in the body of a man.
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Teggletone
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by Teggletone »

Whilst I agree that the Monsal Trail is an excellent cycle route it is, in places, a boring trudge for walkers. Far more interesting for me are the walk paths along the meandering valley bottom- much more interesting than Dovedale. For me, highlights are the stepping stones in Chee Dale and the dams and sluice gates at the mill sites. [These are the mills towards which there is a "breath taking view" from the trail!] There are extensive limestone quarries south and east of Buxton and their output is removed mainly by rail routes which still exist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEPXMmjtvPs&t=5032s I recently used a German "cross country" train on a passenger only route. The line had been singled for economy reasons and, through a long tunnel, there was an illuminated cycle path obviously behind a safety barrier. Grant whatsisname please take note!
grufty
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by grufty »

Tegglestone wrote
" recently used a German "cross country" train on a passenger only route. The line had been singled for economy reasons and, through a long tunnel, there was an illuminated cycle path obviously behind a safety barrier. Grant whatsisname please take note!"

Just this morning we cycled across the Oxenholme to Windermere line, and we were struck by a similar thought. Why not have both?
Better than the noisy, smelly cycle track along the A591, and easier gradients!
rareposter
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by rareposter »

Just this morning we cycled across the Oxenholme to Windermere line, and we were struck by a similar thought. Why not have both?
Putting a cycle route alongside a railway at the point it's built is generally very easy indeed - you already have the "road" there for construction traffic access so all it requires is some tarmac.

Trying to retrofit it to an existing railway line where you have fences, farmland, vegetation, tunnels, cuttings etc is a nightmare.

At one point in the early days of HS2, there was a plan to have cycle paths alongside a lot of it and the economic case for it was off the scale. The additional cost was nothing in the grand scheme of things although there was the slight issue that councils would then have to build connecting routes into towns/cities etc along the way so (in its initial phase) it didn't really connect to much, you'd have had to link it up afterwards. Naturally, that got binned off more or less immediately.

Cost saving... :roll:
Lodge
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by Lodge »

If one could have both cycle/walking path and a train line that would be ideal. Whilst I really enjoy cycling, and have used the Monsal trail many times (it's not too far from where I now live), I also like trains (for multiple reasons).

We used to live in Switzerland a few years back. Over there it's not unusual to have both a single track train line side-by-side with a cycling/walking path. Very pleasant they are and fascinating to watch the trains going past. That said they're not the high-speed inter-city express lines but local trains.
lbomaak2
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Re: Help Save the Monsal Trail!

Post by lbomaak2 »

A plan has been prepared to "re-provision" the Monsal trail if the existing route is ever returned to railway use; I don't know the details, but it would avoid those boring stretches through the tunnels.

The railway would make a major reduction in costs and CO2 emissions for the quarry companies, if they could transport their stuff directly southward (all downhill), instead of their heavy trains having to grind their way up via the Hope Valley line.

For passengers, it's not just journeys from Buxton to Matlock, but connecting Buxton area with Derby, Matlock to Manchester and beyond, etc. Derby to Manchester via Sheffield (or Stoke) is slow! And if more visitors to the Peak District could come by rail, it would take some cars off the roads.
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