In message , at 08:31:25 on Mon, 25 Apr
2011, d remarked:

Umm, you are apparently unaware that almost all of the route actually was an
old mothballed railway line with most of the track and stations still in situ
up until the point that they ripped it up to build this busway.

I am perfectly aware of that. What you seem unaware of, however, is what
a poor state it was in ("mothballed" is a bit optimistic), and how much
work was required on ancillary aspects. I don't think any of the
stations were re-openable, for example, all the level crossings were
missing, and several large items like a viaduct over the river were
beyond repair.

Well I don't know, I've never been there.

In that case I have the advantage over you, knowing the locality quite
well, and having followed the project for the last ten years.

But I don't see how a station can't be re-openable given that plenty of
old disused stations have been converted back into working stations
elsewhere or even into family homes.

You'd have to compulsorily purchase them if it was someone's home; three
of the intermediate ones remain, and they do look like stations:
http://goo.gl/maps/cYdT http://goo.gl/maps/Q6gY http://goo.gl/maps/CNlP
but is it cheaper to start from scratch when you've that little to work
with? On the other hand, when you get to the edge of St Ives the station
is now under the bypass, so you'd need to build a brand new station in
the field to the southeast.

As for the viaduct - I presume it had to be replaced anyway so what
difference does that make?

Because it's not clear whether the cost of replacing it was included in
the rail-reopening quotes.

I doubt one designed to carry the weight of 2 buses is significantly
cheaper than one designed to carry 2 or 3 car passenger trains or even
light rail.

Of course not. After all you'd only have to design for two trains at 150
tons each (45ton/car), versus two buses at 14 tons each. Remind me not
to stand under any bridges you've built!

Unless you can some to terms with that, you'll never understand why
reopening as a railway would have been very costly.

I'd be interested to see some figures rather than vague hand waving.

I've posted some, above; as for costings, it's very important to compare
like with like - hence the difficulty with knowing whether the new
viaduct is included, what sort of new level crossings (one on a very
busy road) were proposed, and so on.

One of the objections in Nottingham is that the railway line is now a
nature trail, and the Cambridge busway would have been much more
difficult to justify had they not been able to accommodate walkers and
cycles (and some horse crossings) into the design.

That could easily be accomodated with a railway by having single track
with double track at stations.

That's a novel idea - do you know anywhere there's a railway and nature
trail squeezed onto an old railway track, with sufficient crossings that
people can access the trail from both sides of course.

And 2 busway tracks takes up a shed load more room than even a double
railway line.

Actually not, that's the point - it fits in the same space. Or do you
have some mythical trains that are narrower than a bus, so they can
squeeze through a smaller gap?

And thats before we get onto the issue of the huge amount of CO2 generated
by and from all that poured concrete and the inefficiencies of a bus
compared to a rail vehicle.

As the line would run empty most of the day, it's preferable for the
buses to be carting air around than a train. The buses also have a
larger catchment area (the rival rail proposal only covered about half
the guided bus's route, something that's often forgotten).

But please don't mistake my scepticism about reopening the railway as
support for the guided bus. Both of the schemes are follies.
--
Roland Perry