When a blog is not a blog!
Last Friday which was the 6th November, was a lovely day and far too good to stay indoors. We decided on somewhere we had not been to before, The 'Greenway' as it is known is a multi use path, which is laid on the former Honeybourne to Stratford upon Avon railway line. With the shorter days we thought 4 - 5 miles would be just right, importantly we did not want be where there were crowds of people.
Along the way even after all these years, there are many artefacts such as fencing which give away what this used to be. That's providing you know what to look for.
An amazing view of Stratford upon Avon racecourse.
The bridge over the 'Avon' is now only capable of carrying human traffic, its metal decay is somewhat advanced .... I have a built in habit of looking at metal structures, and condemning them. It is rather atmospheric as you try to imagine a steam hauled train going over the river.
Looking south towards Honeybourne.
Now a cuppa would have been most welcome, but sadly the owners had left a large whiteboard apologising for their closure, but promising to be open before Christmas ..... lets hope so.
However the bicycle hire carriage was open for business, I had a close look at both carriages and concluded a refurbishment was imminent ..... somehow I don't think so. I wonder how many years these two will carry on before they fall apart.
Thanks for a most interesting report and photos , what's happening with plans to reopen south ?
ReplyDeleteAre Warks CC still being negative about the railway link from Stratford to Long Marston where 6000 homes are to be built , that's 10000 cars going somewhere every day to work in the next 5 years .
Less then 5 % of tourists travel by rail to SOA so link to London via GWR route to Oxford surely makes sense with only 6 miles of track required to link to Honeybourne .
Keep the blog going , john M.
I've a vague recollection that some money from the new housing development was set aside for reinstating the railway link, but was subsequently reallocated to road development instead, a great shame.
DeleteWe shall certainly be keeping the blog going, we'll try and keep up the pace just so long as we've got something to talk about!
Alez
I think that the 'authorities' often miss a trick when they could install a tram link instead of a full-blown railway. Here in Oxford a tram alongside the A40 to Witney would take quite a few commuters off the road, but those in charge always tell you it'd be too expensive. No vision, some folk.
ReplyDeleteReally enjoyed the blog. Until now i knew so little about the railway line. A candidate for restoration surely
ReplyDeletePaul Wilson
ReplyDeleteTwo things frighten Stratford and the other authorities are the need to clear the first 200 yds from the existing Station at Stratford, but even more the cost of re-instating even a single span over the Avon thet you photographed. If you look underneath the girders you will appreciate that the buttresses either side have collapsed and will nee. re-building first.
Powli
anything is possible if its needed ,and this link is one of many that Govt have listed to receive consideration and money .
DeleteIf they scrapped HS2 , there would be plenty of funding available for many railway projects that have mainline connections . .
Living north of Stratford, we have always avoided the place , fortunately there are many ways to get to the GWSR from home . The town residents want this done , lots of viable case studies show this and Cala homes offered to build a station at Long Marston john M..
Paul Wilson You are quite right as regards HS2, it is why I have always been opposed to it.
ReplyDeletePowli
As I understood it the money allocated to HS2 wouldn't be available for other rail use if it were cancelled. And in any case, the point of HS2 is that it relieves capacity at major bottlenecks which then allows other re-openings to be viable. At the moment even if you do manage to re-open a closed line, there aren't the paths to get trains that would run on it into major stations. So you need HS2 to make further re-openings possible. For the same reason, HS2 should also help improve local services by taking the fastest trains off of lines that could be better utilised serving local populations.
ReplyDeleteThe big issue on HS2 isn't capacity anymore as so many people will work from home and meetings are via Zoom etc .
ReplyDeleteThe people who will benefit are Londoners who can move to Arden Cross New Town at the Solihull interchange where new homes will be cheaper so they commute and house prices will rise around Bham . .
Its unlikely that HS2 will go further than Bham which makes it a waste of investment to travel only 100 miles compared with Europe where major cities are 250 + miles apart which justifies HS links .
Sad that they can't put the Billions to better use in these hard times . The latest cost forecast to just go to Bham is 70 billion from Lord Berkeley , a wise old Lord from nearby . john M.