"The Historical Railways Estate in Britain" by Hélène Rossiter, Head of Historical Railways Estate, National Highways: 11 March 2024

The Historical Railways Estate of National Highways was created in 2013 when the old BR Property Board was abolished during a reduction of non-governmental bodies.

Thus, National Highways took over the management of non-operational railway properties on behalf of the Secretary of State for Transport. HRE's role is to keep such properties safe, and unusually for National Highways (formerly known as Highways England) it embraces Scotland and Wales.

Ownership is confined to the structures, not the solum that links them, and involves much interaction with highway authorities where an old railway passes under or over a road or has itself been repurposed as a road.

Often roads may be carrying much more traffic than envisaged in the original design, and in addition to safe management, account has also to be taken of society's appreciation of our built and natural heritage and of our modern interest in active travel.

Hélène comes from a conservation and heritage background and was brought into National Highways to help turn things round after a controversial infilling at Great Musgrave (see below). Of over 3100 HRE assets the largest proportion is the 1333 overbridges. The rest comprise 434 underbridges. 353 abutments, 139 retaining walls, 125 land holdings, 113 embankments, 103 culverts, 89 viaducts, 86 side-bridges, 61 parapets, 51 airshafts, 30 abutments, 19 piers. 9 pipes, 4 staircases, 3 roadways and flumes, 2 level crossings and aqueducts and just 1 each of an adit (a horizontal passage to an underground mine), rockface, tunnel portal, footbridge, wall and weir. Funding comes from the Department of Transport under a protocol agreement, with £9M provided in 2023/4 to manage inspection and safe maintenance, parcels of former railway land and property, letting of properties and transfers of assets to local authorities or other bodies.

Being a small team of just six engineers reporting to Hélène, HRE is not paid to repurpose assets itself, but actively seeks engagement with players who have that ambition. The lenses through which it reviews each asset to support future scheme planning are the Restoring Your Railway programme ; community uses; heritage rail opportunities ; active travel potential with Sustrans, planning authorities and local groups ; public safety; environmental concerns; and value for money since there is a finite budget and proposals must ensure appropriate use of public money. Increasingly with climate change, old structures suffer from damp and show their age, with modern uses imposing demands for which they were not originally intended. A risk-based approach takes a five-year timeframe, and adopts transparency in anticipation of the level of public interest that was encountered when an overbridge was infilled at Great Musgrave in Cumbria.

The lens review system makes sure that any decisions on infill or demolition have undergone a full and transparent process with consideration of all options. Infill was only ever delivered as a safety measure where there were concerns, for example with local authorities not enforcing weight restrictions so that if left unattended the outcome might be the collapse of an arch. At Great Musgrave the infill has been removed, restoring the bridge to full capacity, and in order that they may be part of the solution the lobby group formed to contest its infilling is an active member of an NH Stakeholder Advisory Forum that also includes heritage and active travel bodies. The Forum's purpose is to help ensure that future scheme planning is delivered with benefit of community feedback and embraces opportunities to repurpose and reuse structures, reflecting concerns of safety and value for money while recognising that often structures are well-loved assets that as well as possessing potential for active travel may provide habitat for bats, lizards, newts, even rare snails as well as functioning as wildlife corridors but sometimes accommodating invasive species.

Engagement is by local consultation with parish and community councils, local groups, neighbours, highway and planning authorities. The major works programme displayed on HRE's website, and other information to be found there includes case-studies, photography and videos, an account of HRE's history and past and future achievements and a full list of assets. The website is a good example of where HRE is able to draw on the expertise of the wider National Highways organisation. You Tube videos are a valuable way of communicating achievements which will be important in the run-up to Rail 200 in 2025 since HRE assets date back to the dawn of railways.

The supply chain is split into minor and major works, with £250k marking the divide. Structures are assessed every year, and the assessments are then reviewed by an engineer to see if works are required. Framework contractors include principal consultant Jacobs ; for major works Balfour Beatty, AMCO-Giffen, Beaver Bridges ; for minor works Hammond, Bethell, AMCO-Giffen, Dyer & Butler, Balfour Beatty; and examiners NPX and Balfour Beatty. An example of finished work to one of HRE's 77 listed structures is Pensford Viaduct on the old North Somerset Railway, a much-loved landscape feature with no access on top but footpaths beneath, whose 16 arches of differing widths and heights have been repointed using traditional lime-based mortar with a scaffolding rig moved on tracks along the 300-metre structure. Another is Wheatley Viaduct on the old Halifax High Level Railway which has no foreseeable use but could endanger a nearby road and properties, so HRE carried out over £1M worth of renovations with roped-access bat exclusion work, devegetation, brickwork and masonry repairs, remortaring and waterproofing. Castlefield Viaduct in central Manchester has involved working with the National Trust to create a skyline garden. Westfield Viaduct in West Lothian won a National Railway Heritage Award, while at Teviot Viaduct the low-level footbridge has been restored to carry the Borders Abbey Way. At the Boleside footbridge over the onetime Selkirk line near Galashiels, an orphan structure was taken onto the HRE estate, to the delight of local residents when a total renovation took place with safe removal of the old lead paint.

Responding to questions, Hélène said that an example of climate change impacting on a disused structure is North Water Bridge Viaduct in the ownership of Railway Paths Limited near Montrose where scour caused by Storm Babbitt led to HRE providing support with technical expertise. The half-demolished Wyke Viaduct in West Yorkshire is an example of the legacy from past decisions by previous bodies. Having gone through the whole decision-making process, a structure may occasionally still arrive at the conclusion that expenditure may not be justified, and HRE are promoting the removal of abutments on the old Dalry-Kilmarnock line for which no future use can be foreseen. There is no finite list of possibilities, but where promoters come forward with ideas they can be granted a permissive licence to use HRe structures, for example currently for the Centurion Way, a cycle route in the South Downs National Park between Chichester and Midhurst. Another licence is permitting access beneath a bridge in Shepton Mallet on the former Strawberry Line (Yatton-Wells) trackbed so as to provide a circular route for cyclists. Railway reopenings restoring disused structures have happened in the past, e.g. at Larkhall, and Network Rail have just bought at auction the old Wortley Curve from Railway Paths Limited for a possible Bradford-Wakefield route bypassing Leeds. Some HS2 works have had an impact on HRE assets. Even the longest tunnel may be repurposed if the money can be found: Catesby on the old Great Central main line is now a vehicle test-track, and promoters point to the potential of the Rhondda Mountain Tunnel which it would be wonderful to see reused for active travel if a practical scheme can be devised. While every effort is made to transfer assets to other organisations with a viable use for them, it is hard to see the Historical Railways Estate dwindling to nothing in our lifetimes, and the only possible change might be to see it passed to another organisation perhaps as part of a railway restructuring.

Report by John Yellowlees.