Greenways sound lovely and they can really bring life and benefit to an area, and abandoned railway lines are in many ways their obvious paths.  And yet the installation of a path along an abandoned railway track is a step towards making that old route a "never again" rail corridor. 

Times have changed since the 1960s - the peak period for railway lines and tracks to be eliminated.  It's no longer a joke to suggest that tracks might be relayed and trains run again, or indeed that closures in the 60 years since that peak where lines have fallen in to disrepair and perhaps key infrasturcture has become unusable could once again see a flow of passengers on rail.  But yet - to this day - some old sections will, surely, never see a train again.

There is a conflict. Here's an example from the Sussex Express


I don't know the answer on this particular case. I am aware of several Irish examples ongoing - Rosslare Strand to Waterford which was a late opening railway and with long straight sections through cuttinge that would be a really boring walk, and from RTE to the West of Ireland


All three of these examples pit local / regional interests against wider area ones, and also show the conflicts between going greener-by-walking and greener-by-better-transport.  I would love to see all three of these railways re-opening, however, that may be the heart over the head.   

I mused as I changed trains at East Grinstead the other weekend and carried on to Sheffield Park at the lovely countryside the train was passing through, the economic possibilities for a new community or two along there with Croydon and London commuting possibilites, and the prospect of extending from Sheffield Park back to Lewes.  And that's a line closed well over the 60 years ago, and in part ripped up, filled in, dug back out and restored into (heritage) use.  I'm not suggesting re-opening to restore old-time traffic flows - I am looking to make a use of the natural corridor for useful current and future flows.  From Horsted Keynes to Falmer for the University.  From Brighton to Sheffield Park for visitors to the gardens and The Weald there.  From West Hoathly to London, 2 or 3 days a week, for commuters living in that new town.  And from many, many placed to the steam and heritage diesel trains still running off peak on the Bluebell.

More locally to where I live, the old Chippenham to Calne branch has become a "Greenway" and the bridge on it over the A4 arches to add height and would be something of an obstacle in restoring.  I'm not sure of the condition of the viaduct over the Avon, and the site of Calne station was erased for a business estate which in itself was then erased for houring. But yet a rail service Calne to Chippenham and onwards (via Corsham and Box or via Melksham and Bradford-on-Avon) to Bath and Bristol might make huge sense.

The Bristol and Bath path - shares - its right of way with the heritage railway, single track where it used to be double. Into the suburbs of Bristol it has become very busy indeed, but yet a rail solution inbound from, say, Mangotsfield woukd make a huge difference to the city, and a rail link from that to the line to Westerleigh would allow a relief of the junction there.

And then ... Bath to Radstock and Shepton Mallett and perhaps Glastonbury and Wells. Trains sharing the Two Tunnels really is not on (IMHO) - that's an infrastucture that is better used for the current purposes into the far, far future, but perhaps the valley from Limpley Stoke up to Midford and Radstock could be a rail corridor once again.

Holt to Devizes then Patney and Chirton?  Ah - I am wandering here, but the canal along the same corridor provides the Greenway.  The railway is so burst, however, that although it was only closed in 1966 I don't see it re-opening.  As a new railed public transport along the corridor? Guided Busway? Tram?  I will be told, I'm sure, that I must be mad. But then I have been told that before and strange things have happened.

 
There are several examples of greenways on redundant trackbeds subsequently being reopened as railways - the Borders Railway and Airdrie–Bathgate on the mainline railway, the Welsh Highland as a preserved line, no doubt more I haven't remembered.

When the BML2 chap says "it will eradicate all chances of the railway ever re-opening" I would very fervently disagree. Building a greenway preserves the continuous trackbed for potential later reuse - canal restorers have known this for years. Would the Bristol-Bath trackbed still be uninterrupted if there wasn't a path along it? Or the Camel Trail from Wadebridge to Padstow? I doubt it.

You can very easily move the path to the side of the trackbed as and when you're ready to open a railway - that's what happened on the Borders, Airdrie–Bathgate and the Welsh Highland. Walkers and cyclists have less demanding geometry requirements than trains!

 
And in today's news https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq0kly30e7n2o "A better journey with a Thames Valley mayor?" A major difficulty appears to be in deciding what is the Thames Valley. In my previous work they used to say the six unitaries in Berkshire were "like trying to herd tigers" (they were only cats in the days of the county council).

I am not saying there isn't a lot of sense in what is being said but is possibly not the way to get the voters on board.

More talk of a third river crossing, which I have heard for the last 30 or 40 years, it will only happen if you eliminate South Oxfordshire council or its equivalent, and probably change the method of property taxation.