Opening a train line?

[S10GTA]

How would one go about reopening a train line?

Many years ago the line from Totton to Hythe was closed to the public and only remained in use by Esso for one train a day (iirc). This stopped around a year ago. The track has been well maintained to date.

Recently there has been call for the line to be reopened to the public to ease congestion on the A326, but this has been vetoed by the powers that be.

So my question is, how would you go about opening the line as a private individual/consortium? The idea being it offered a service from Hythe to Totton, where you could change onto the main line.

I couldn't fund this, but would be interested to know where you might even start?!

[S10GTA]

Here is a wiki page on the line

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawley_Branch_Line

and a BBC news report

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-258...

Edited by S10GTA on Thursday 30th July 09:35

[williamp]

start with railtrack, as they own the track. ask them!

[ianrb]

williamp said:

start with railtrack, as they own the track. ask them!

You may want to try Network Rail, since 2002.

[RB5Bird]

We still go down the Fawley line. Not that often anymore, but there are a few a week. Marchwood is down there, and after that it is single line working with a token.
If they reopen the line, I hope they put some proper signals in, semaphores are quite hard to see in the morning sun and trees!

[alangla]

Ask one of the historic railways? They usually bought their line from BR when it was no longer required. I'm not sure if any have bought from Railtrack or Network Rail, but many of them have connections to the network & some (e.g. North York Moors) are allowed to operate their own trains, so your private line could offer a service to, say, Southampton or Portsmouth via NR lines. Unlikely to be approved given how busy the lines are in the South East, but you can always try