Re-opening Britain's Railways (Part 3): Dumfries - Stranraer and Glastonbury

The main advantage of re-opening the Stranraer - Dumfries line would be for freight. Freight could be moved from Stranraer (or Cairnryan) through Dumfries and directly to Newcastle creating a direct East-West link from NI to Europe. Passenger services could also use the route, including the re-instatement of the direct Stranraer - London services (including the sleeper) and also include significant improvements on the Stranraer - Ayr - Glasgow line to reduce the journey times to something reasonable. For such a nationally significant transport link, both the road and rail connections have been sadly neglected by both the UK and Scottish governments.

As someone who lives in Street, thanks for noticing us! I‘d love a rail connection more than I can say!!

The coastal line between Exeter and Torquay is regularly closed due to weather related track and infrasstructure damage.Trains to Plymouth and onward to Penzance are curtailed by the closures. Now that the Exeter to Okehampton section is up and running again it would make sense to reconnect the line between Okehampton and Gunnislake, thereby ensuring train services to Plymouth and through Cornwall are maintained

Fraserburgh/Peterhead - Aberdeen, to help a very depressed corner of Scotland. In fact one could argue that it was the closure of this line which led to the area becoming depressed in the first place, by cutting off easy communication with Aberdeen. Aberystwyth - Carmarthen; Teign Valley Line, to supply an alternative to the GW main when the sea pounds Dawlish.

I definitely agree with the Stranraer to Dumfries reopening. You could even have a service that takes people from the late boat from Belfast and meets up with one of the Caledonian Sleeper services to London. In Ireland, the Great Northern line from Derry to Portadown would also be on my list for reopening.

Can’t believe that no-one’s mentioned the 11 miles between Skipton and Colne. Trackbed still intact and would restore a through route all the way from Leeds to Manchester.

I think The Borders line should be reopened in its entirety from Edinburgh to Carlisle. Although the line is very popular between Tweedbank and Edinburgh,two huge mistakes were made. The first mistake was obviously not reopening the full length of the line. To get to Galashiels from Carlisle one has to rely on a two hourly bus journey. The second mistake was the absolute short-sightedness of building a single track railway with passing loops between Edinburgh and Tweedbank. What is worse is the fact that new bridges which were built on that route were not future proofed for a double track railway. I would also say the Dumfries to Stranraer line is a must for reopening.

Loved the dismissing of Tesco in Castle Douglas at 1.55.

The Formartine/Buchan line in Aberdeenshire really needs re-opening, a whole corner of the country is cut off. Same in Lincs - Louth should be reconnected. A line that was never built but would be great is Bournemouth - Exeter. Then a South Coast service could run from Brighton to Exeter avoiding the busy GWR route.

Frome - Midsomer Norton Carmarthen - Aberystwyth Leicester - Burton upon Trent/Aylesbury via Rugby Stoke on Trent - Leek Bedford - Northampton Bangor - Amlwch Full reopening around Liverpool and Manchester for Merseyrail and Metrolnk expansion

Okehampton-Tavistock North-Bere Alston gets my vote.

THANK YOU for talking about this - no one in government has the foresight to improve links to NI by rail instead of road. As a student from NI who studied in England and avoids flying as much as possible for carbon reasons, I am well used to the 13 hour sail&rail detour via Glasgow. This line would be a godsend. Think expresses and sleepers to England etc. Freight would be more difficult (all Ireland rail review has ruled out a rail link to Belfast harbour) but there is a large amount of unaccompanied freight on the boat which could easily be shifted to rail. While I’m sure it would be physically possible to link Belfast Port to the rail network, the port of Larne might be more cost effective if the line was improved.

I think we’re talking ‘pie in the sky’ here! There’s more chance of seeing Lord Lucan riding on Shergar at Aintree than any of this happening!

Barnstaple to Torrington including Barnstaple to Ilfracombe. North Devon has suffered badly from rail closures.

Now HS2 is dead a direct route from the East Midlands to Manchester can easily be reinstated by reopening the Matlock to Buxton (Great Rocks) section closed int he 1960's (surprise surprise) only 13 miles long it was the Midland Railway main line.

I would reopen the line from Barnstaple to bideford(as Torridge[the part of Devon where bideford is located] was discontinued from the railway when beaching swung his axe)

Penrith to Keswick in the Lake District is an obvious one to me. This line survived Beeching but was run down by BR to such an extent that closure became inevitable by 1972. Much of the infrastructure still exists too.

Dumfries to Stranraer - what a massive boost to the area where there's no railways at all. Having lived southwest of Castle Douglas, it was so poorly served for public transport. Just an FYI - Dalbeattie is pronounced Dall'beet'ee

The Woodhead route (Manchester to Sheffield) really should never have closed. If opened today it’d certainly relieve the strain on ‘Hope Valley’.

Those I can think of: Skipton - Colne Ivanhoe Line Uckfield - Lewes Stratford-upon-Avon - Honeybourne Walsall - Lichfield Market Harborough - Northampton Melton Mowbray - Nottingham (Tram-train) Leamside & Stillington Lines in the North East Wensleydale Line full connection between Northallerton - Garsdale Full reopening of the Borders Railway to Carlisle Line out to Stocksbridge from Sheffield (possible Tram-train) And so many other routes, most of these being "missing link" type of reopening where they would boost capacity and improve service. Now that HS2 is sadly being cancelled, even though it's unlikely to happen as the tories and Keir Starmer's labour couldn't give a toss about the railways, it would be great to see investment put into such schemes that would provide tangible improvement to the rail system in this country