A NEW fleet of light trains running through Ramsbottom to Bury - to connect Rossendale to Manchester - could use some old parts from ‘recently retired’ London Underground trains.

Last week, Rossendale Council was given the go-ahead to create a strategic outline business case for a new rail link, with £150,000 funding from the Department for Transport and Lancashire County Council.

Councillors will put £16,000 towards a business case project to show the benefits of the proposed links against its costs. 

The blueprints propose a small fleet of battery-powered  Vivarail class 230 trains using ‘upcycled’ body shells and bogey sets taken from old London Underground District Line trains.

The Isle of Wight uses retired London Underground trains and recently reopened after a £26m upgrade.

The new electric trains would be refitted and redesigned, according to the plans. The electric trains would operate along the existing Rawtenstall, Ramsbottom and Bury line, home to the East Lancs Railway.

But there would be three new stations at Ewood Bridge, Stubbins and Buckley Wells in Bury, which would also be a Metrolink tram interchange.

The overall aim is to offer regular commuter services from Rossendale, through the Ramsbottom area, into Bury, enabling onward travel into Manchester while also allowing the East Lancs Railway to run its heritage train services.

Battery-powered light trains are seen as a ‘high quality solution’ because they offer good acceleration and would minimise the need for railway infrastructure upgrades on the existing East Lancs rail line which has a number of limitations.

Rossendale Council leader Coun Alyson Barnes has welcomed the funding for the business case and said new train-tram links would boost the area’s ecomomy. But she also emphasised much work was still to be done.

The City-Valley Link plan states:  “Infrastructure and signalling are expensive to upgrade and changes are difficult to reverse.

“Where new trains are being procured, capacity improvement can be achieved through inherent speed and acceleration improvements.

“‘Agile’ trains are a preferable means of increasing capacity over complex infrastructure upgrades, where possible.

“Infrastructure maintenance costs will increase with a more intense service and the time available for repairs will decrease. Design, installation and maintenance of complex infrastructure or signalling must be considered in context of staff and skills available.”

The line sections between Bury, Ramsbottom and Rawtenstall are around four miles long and take 10-18 minutes to traverse. Only a single train is permitted in each section at a time. Rawtenstall station can only handle a single train with the current signalling arrangement, the plan explains.

Limited crossing loop capacity is a key constraint. For example, two of the three platform faces at Bury’s Bolton Street station are regularly occupied by ELR services. Platform faces at Ramsbottom are occupied with some service pattern and Rawtenstall cannot be used to cross trains in the absence of new signalling.