This is why nothing ever gets built these days. 100 years ago they would just do it. I don't see why it can't be done especially with some of that HS2 money
100 years ago a visitor attraction in the middle of nowhere wouldn't have thrived without public transit connections of some sort.
Now they can and do, because of the car.
The steps needed to build a railway that would be in any way useful to Alton Towers aren't small, easy things to do.
- Build a new platform at SOT
- Un-mothball a line that has been closed for 40 years, bringing it up to modern spec
- rebuild multiple stations
- buy out a successful heritage railway
- bring their line up to modern spec
- build a brand new modern spec railway between the end of their current line and the final destination, in tough terrain, and with a new alignment due to new buildings
- electrify the whole thing
- procure rolling stock, with enough capacity to take thousands of people one way within a 1-2 hour window, and back again 8 hours later, with barely any traffic for the rest of the day, and next to zero passengers for 4-5 months of the year.
- Recruit and train enough drivers to drive the maximum number of trains you'll ever want to run, plus cover for leave and sickness. Bear in mind they'd need to be employed year round, for around net £80k a year, and they take up to 2 years to train.
- Oh, build up a train operating company, from scratch.
- Maintain everything to modern standards, year round
So we're talking, easily, hundreds and hundreds and HUNDREDS of millions of pounds. For what benefit? You'd be
incredibly lucky to achieve a 20% modal split with this concept in this environment, that's 400,000 visitors using the train. Charge them £20 return and you'd bring in £8m a year - it wouldn't scratch the surface of the costs of the project, staffing, traction leasing and maintenance.
And after all that, it would still, due to its route,
be slower than a shuttle bus.