Here we examine the question which you all want the answer to: why bother to re-instate the railway? The Wye Valley looks fine as it is.
Yes, ok, but....
The Wye Valley is not fine as it is. For one thing, the easiest way to Tintern from the South is via Chepstow. The road comes past Chepstow racecourse. This is a very major attraction, and on race days and market days it is advisable to bring an evening meal if you wish to return along the A466 after 5 o' clock. You'll have plenty of time to eat it while you queue for the traffic jam at the race course, then at the roadworks, then at the roundabout outside Chepstow, and finally as you stagger onto the M48 and prepare to drive along the former M4 to join the newer, equally crowded version so you can get out of the area and return home. Sustrans, the cycleway charity, want to solve this problem by building a cycleway up the WVR from Tidenham to Tintern, which will not be of much use to walkers and idle tourists.
In 1985 British Rail asked the nation if you have ever seen the following
The full advert can be found here or here by the way.
Train jams are getting more common, what with a lack of Government investment, and occasionally people cut the signalling wires, but not to the car stage yet. So the train would let you get out of the Wye Valley quicker, and it would also quickly take you back home without having to use the M5 in summer. Cycling will leave you stuck in Chepstow watching the setting sun as you suddenly realise you're not going to be able to stagger up the hill out of the Wye Valley quickly enough to get to bed before the sun does. And if you drive to Chepstow you have to get out again which involves using overcrowded roads - and the greenhouse gas benefits from not driving to Tintern are negligable. The option of driving to Chepstow and then cycling to Tintern becomes almost less friendly than driving the whole way when you take the extra effort that your car has to make to carry your bikes (which screw up its air smoothing) into account. So that's one point to the cycleway for taking traffic off the road in some way and two points to the train for taking traffic off the road and getting you somewhere near home.
For those who say that youths will regularly cut signalling wires, youths will also shout rude comments at cyclists and throw things at them. And for those who respond by saying that the cyclists will be a long way from the youths, remember that if the cyclists get put on the trackbed they'll be in the same place as the signalling wires would be, so the wires will also be a long way from the youths. What's more, trains can use a system called "Radio Electronic Token Block" which means that all signalling done North of Chepstow would be by in-cab radio, which not only allows easy communication from train to signal box but it also has no wires to cut. This system is used on quiet railways, like the Cambrian Coast (Wales) and all the railways north of Inverness (Scotland) as well as a few branch lines in the North of England. We will probably use this system as well, for ease of maintenance, as it is suitable for use on low-profit branch lines but does not prevent a train from going out and working with conventional signalling with coloured lights and wires on the main line. (There is also an option of trying to get some EU money by using their upgraded Europe-wide version of the system instead. It is more complicated, but the principle ends up being roughly the same.) Also, when youths stand in front of a train and insult it, the train, far from being terrified about being beaten up, merely removes their genes from the gene pool. Of course, the train can't do much about people who stand on bridges and hurl bricks at it but nor can the cyclists. So we've just awarded the train another point for generally being harder to inconvenience than the cyclists.
Commuting can also be an issue. Commuting from the Wye Valley means that every morning you drive down a long, steep winding road to Chepstow or Monmouth. Once you are through the traffic systems you join a "fast" road and find your way off to a bottleneck on the outskirts of Newport. There you sit in a queue at part-time signals which only seem to make things worse.
Now Sustrans say you should use a bike. So, every morning, a group of office workers are going to cycle up the hill out of Chepstow and along the winding lanes to Newport. They will arrive there after a long and stressful ride involving dodging traffic and waiting at toucan crossings (road crossings for cyclists and pedestrians) and get the same treatment as pedestrians i.e. a very long wait for an opportunity to cross half the road and then wait twice as long to get across the other half. Alternatively they can catch a train from Chepstow station, but if the bike is left at Chepstow station it will probably ultimately get nicked if it is parked there routinely, and there is little room for it on the train.
We recommend re-instating the railway. You catch a train at a station along the line and get swept into the town centre. A fleet of half-empty buses which have just carried people into town and are going out for the next lot will be ready to carry you out of town should your place of work be nowhere near a railway station. During this you can read your paper, use a laptop to check emails, or catch up on the sleep which your alarm clock deprived you of. If you did that on a bike you would find that you have been abruptly diverted to the local hospital after having a chance meeting with a tired car driver. So bikes get no points because the journey is so inconveniently long and will require you to get to Tintern before you can join the cycleway, and we get one point because we've thought this through, but no more because you have to get to the station before you go anywhere else.
Sustrans would probably argue that the railway will leave more lasting scars on the landscape. Firstly, if it didn't they wouldn't be able to plan this cycleway because the route they want to use would have vanished somewhere. Secondly, this means that cycleways get overgrown which means people can't use them, and puddles form so you get wet and muddy. Tidenham Tunnel will particularly suffer from this, as some of it is unlined limestone, which is porous (water comes in at the top, flows through and comes out at the bottom). So one point each - cycleways will fade away once nobody likes them any more, but the railway won't become completely overgrown.
Weather can be an issue. Tourists were originally put off because of the rain, so it obviously rains from time to time. Now if it rains a cyclist can be well advised to find a better way of getting into work, mostly because you will be soaked to the skin. Not the best state to be in when you turn up to work, particularly if you are going to be dripping on water-sensitive equipment. Your trousers become uncomfortable and have to be changed, your legs feel tired, there is potential for colds or worse, and it will continue raining in Tidenham Tunnel for about two weeks after it stops raining outside. If it snows you will freeze, stagger, and fall off several times, apart from skidding off the side of the trackbed.
Trains, back in 1830, invented this wonderful thing called a roof. Ok, they nicked it from the coach builders of the time, but bikes haven't sorted out how to fit it yet. So bikes are good weather only. Trains can be used all year round, and you'll be fairly dry when it rains (except for water which lands on you during the walk to and from the station. If you imitate the traditional Southern Region commuter, you can also bring an umbrella, which will keep most of the water off you). Stations can be provided with warm waiting rooms, while trains can be warm and dry. And they also have snowploughs which, if used properly, can keep the railway clear of most kinds of snow (soft, powdery snow is an exception, as it clogs up electric motors, and is therefore reckoned to be the "wrong kind" of snow - however, it is not too common nowadays). So one point for the railway.
Electric trains are also carbon-neutral at point of use. By contrast, cyclists emit more carbon dioxide than people sitting in trains. This is bad for the atmosphere. Also, electric trains could store the potential energy which they have when sitting in Tidenham station and use it to haul themselves back up again from Chepstow, which is used in a process called regenerative braking. Cyclists cannot do this. Trains are therefore better for the environment than bicycles. Also (again), many people will drive to Chepstow purely to emit carbon emissions while cycling on the railway. It will come as very little surprise to you to learn that, despite the fact that there are many varied forms of popular ways to spend your leisure time in this country, driving a long way purely to travel in an electric train is not one of them. So people will only use the electric train as a form of transport in its own right, not as another tourist attraction/congestion-causer (of which the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean area has plenty). As a result it will, far from prompting more traffic, take a proportion of it off the roads. So another point to the railway.
Bikes still argue that you damage the environment more with things like trains. However, it is our activities since 1750 and principally since 1800 which have apparently been destroying this fickle planet. Bikes have been invented since 1800. Railways were around before then (1758 to be precise). So bikes are obviously more to blame than railways. Furthermore, bikers use more energy themselves than people who travel by train, and the extra food they eat could alternatively be sent to the Less-Economically Developed Countries. Using this dodgy logic, we can argue that using trains is more beneficial to the poorer countries of the world than cycling. What's more, your bike will probably be bought new for using the cycleway regularly (and subsequently replaced whenever it is stolen or you have a close encounter with the wall of Tidenham Tunnel or a car once off the cycleway) whereas the train will be an old one, partly restored, and we will be saving the atmosphere by not producing greenhouse gases while recycling it. After five or ten years, however, most people will have replaced their bikes and bought a new one, unaware of the environmental impact caused by disposing of hundreds of old bikes, while the train will get an overhaul and come out being mistaken for a new build. So that's one point to the trains for being more environmentally friendly and minus a point for using highly dubious statistics.
Tidenham Tunnel also has a resident bat population. It is not known when this population arrived, but it may have been there since 1876. Sustrans wishes to provide roosts in the roof for the bats, which is asking for trouble. Apart from the possibility of the roosts falling off the roof or the bats doing things on the cyclists passing through, it will also be used by fans of this endangered species (which can be found in any large, covered, accessible space in the UK in large numbers) as a reason for obstructing re-opening the railway (Mr. Cynic interjects at this point to say that this is the aim, but he is reassured and put back in his bed). It is not clear as to why any self-respecting bat should wish to live in the main bore either, since there are a large number of recesses in the tunnel wall which are much more snug, more private and less draughty around the head. So let's just say that the bats are irrelevant to this argument and not award any points; if the bats subsequently fill in a questionnaire registering disapproval at the presence of an operational railway, a suitable abandoned barn or church can be constructed for them to reside in.
Then we have the safety issue. During a recent walk along the Wye Valley your author had to spend a three-mile period ambling along the verge of the A466. It was hardly desirable, but a system for avoiding the traffic was rapidly devised: walk along the road on the right until a car comes along, then step onto the verge and let it pass (making silly faces if bored); once the car has passed, step onto the road and proceed, diligently ignoring cars progressing in the opposite direction and repeating the above when the next car appears. At no point did your author feel that death was imminent. A cycle ride south along the same stretch of road three months previously found that the road was not overly busy and quite safe as long as due care was exercised; again, there was no feeling that death was imminent, except when going too fast down a hill. Car drivers have it worst.
However, during the same walk and four miles further up the line near Penallt your author was proceeding dreamily along imagining the enjoyment of riding up the line in a comfortable train with a suitable beverage, gazing out of the window and with no problems from tired legs. This reverie was shattered by the sound of a cyclist six feet from his right ear, prompting him to jump in alarm and nearly land in the path of the cyclist. Had he done so, he would have been knocked down and rendered incapable of completing his 50th Anniversary of Closure Walk (or, indeed, of reaching a hospital in time, since the Railway Company, in a breathtakingly shortsighted move, ommitted to provide their railway with road access).
In Tidenham Tunnel it is unlikely that either party would have been aware of the other - for that matter, the cyclist would be unaware of their speed - and a collision resulting in potentially fatal injuries for both sides would have been more likely. This would be particularly distressing for your author's mother, as he is yet to have any children, and so we award the railway one point (for providing safe transport for passengers), the previously unproposed new road along the trackbed one point (½ for passenger safety and ½ for the safety of other people) and the cycleway no points (because everybody is constantly in mortal danger).
The fact that the cycleway begins at Brockweir, terminates at Tidenham and does not provide access to Chepstow without the use of a steep hill and busy roads (obstructions which Sustrans normally tries to avoid) means that it really goes from nowhere to nowhere (via one place of any importance which it links to three small villages and a disused quarry). There are already links from Tidenham to Netherhope and from Tintern to Brockweir which, with some love and care, would be far more desirable than a disused railway. Meanwhile the fondness for providing car parks and general interest in cycling along the route for pleasure shown by the promoters and possible users, along with the existence of a giant open-air swimming pool which Sustrans wishes to work with to create a popular local attraction, suggests that the cycleway would be a glorified out-of-town leisure centre rather than a transport link. The railway would provide transport for all, and probably for more people than just inhabitants of Tintern wanting access to Dayhouse Quarry. So it gets another point.
If a cycleway is essential there is nothing wrong with the west bank of the Wye between Chepstow and Tintern and the east bank thereafter. After all, the way in which the current cycleways are laid out would suggest that most people would come from South Wales. There is no need to encourage them to go through Chepstow. If the cycleway is a success then it will result in too many cyclists going through Chepstow (which has spent the last ten years trying to get rid of through traffic), and if it does not cause too many cyclists to go through Chepstow then it will be unable to justify its existence and should not be built. As the cycleway would be purely performing a transport function, cyclists coming to Tintern from the Forest of Dean should be coming down through Brockweir and they can use the path along the west bank of the Wye, which can be upgraded to a cycleway very easily, and isn't as busy as the station is. (If Brockweir objects they can come down a refurbished path down the hill and across the Wireworks bridge).
The cycleway from Chepstow to Tintern along the west bank of the Wye would run from the top of the hill in Chepstow slowly down the hill (on a gradient which nobody going up it would really notice) to the carpark at Tintern Abbey. Along the way it could encourage the closure of the last working quarry in the Wye Valley, which would still disrupt the view from the cycleway if it used the railway. This route would have a much better view (no tunnels and always in the Wye Valley proper) and it is really a shame that we cannot put the railway along it.
The cycleway will also terminate at Brockweir and encourage traffic in a quiet backwater. We aim to re-open the line in one go (rather than have a section from Tidenham to Tintern open while the line is finished to Monmouth, which may create extra traffic in Tintern), and always try to keep a good relationship with local farmers, businesses, and residents - any of which can throw a spanner in the works if they decide that their interests (money, peace and quiet mostly) aren't being met.
So, the cycleway gets 2 points, the road gets 1 point (particularly impressive as it was included only in the safety stakes) and the railway gets 9 points. As this was written by someone who lives near the UK's worst train operating company and cycled to college every day for two years and still/ therefore thinks that a railway is a better option we'd like some lottery funding for our friendly railway please.