Quarry wagons: A constant source of complaint

COUNTRYSIDE campaigners have welcomed Government plans to improve rural rail services - a topic of intense interest in the Yorkshire Dales - but regret the possibility of even larger "juggernaut" lorries being allowed onto rural roads.

A Government white paper published last week promised to improve rural rail services, particularly for the transport of freight, but says no old lines axed by Dr Beeching more than 40 years ago will be re-opened before 2014.

This was both good and bad news in the Yorkshire Dales, where efforts are already underway to move more quarry stone by rail - quarry wagons on the narrow Dales road are a constant source of complaint.

But the delay on possible re-opening of once flourishing lines is a disappointment. There is already an active campaign to re-open the Skipton-Colne line, which would allow Dales passengers to travel west to Manchester, Liverpool and other north west destinations without having to start their journeys going east to Leeds.

And in the northern Dales, campaigners have longed hoped to re-open the line from Hawes eastwards to join up with major east coast lines - or even extend it westwards to meet the main west coast system, a section never completed in Victorian times.

The white paper has been given partial approval by the Campaign to Protect Rural England, saying, "It begins to tackle the huge challenge of reinstating rail as a primary mode of transport for the benefit of town and countryside. But the Government should have gone further in backing rural rail services."

It adds: "We are extremely concerned that though promoting rail freight improvement, the Department for Transport is still considering whether to allow trials of 'super trucks', lorries nearly double the weight and length of the Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) which already thunder through the countryside.

"These huge road vehicles could undermine the viability of rail freight and send mixed messages about Ministers' commitment to rail."