East West Rail - a once in life time opportunity for the Oxford Cambridge Arc
On 14 November East West Rail will launch their consultation on their proposals for the planned line between Bedford and Cambridge and improvements to the line between Bletchley and Bedford.
On the evening of the first day, we made some initial comments:
So, East West Rail’s consultation started today (see https://eastwestrail.co.uk/consultation2024). What do we think so far? Neil Middleton Railfuture Vice Chair commented:
“The ‘big thing’ that needs to come out of this consultation is that this isn’t about a railway between Oxford and Cambridge. It’s about how a pair of rail tracks can transform transport for both the communities it will serve directly and also much of the UK.
“We worry about the danger that we’ll all only reap part of the benefits because of metaphorical stop blocks at the south end of Oxford station and the north end of Cambridge central station.”
"As I commented yesterday, approaches like discontinuous electrification make sense if you think about rolling stock shuttling between those two metaphorical stop blocks. Start thinking “I want to be able to run freight from Felixstowe to Birmingham via Bedford and continuous electrification starts to make sense."
Railfuture will be reading the consultation materials quickly and in detail and [this page] will soon start to have much more content as we digest the consultation documents and questions and prepare our own submission. In the meantime, you can sign up for updates [below].
The evening before Railfuture posted on social media:
East West Rail’s next consultation starts tomorrow (see https://eastwestrail.co.uk/consultation2024). Railfuture has been campaigning for a rail link between Oxford and Cambridge since the mid-1990s.
Neil Middleton Railfuture Vice Chair commented:
“We are keen that East West Rail is a high performing railway, both operationally and in the services that can run on it once it is fully in use. We think the northern route from Bedford is the right choice – it will be able to serve all the housing planned near the route and to miss them out would just be wrong.
“We’ve thought long and hard about services on the Marston Vale line and find ourselves in the unusual position of supporting station closures – we’ve concluded that more frequent services from fewer stations is the better option – of course, that needs to be combined with the facilities and services to get to and from those new stations.
“We’re hoping to see consultation on links that allow EWR to be the most useful possible railway. That includes a connection from east to north at Bletchley and taking a proper look at Cambridge. We don’t think the central station is the right destination – EWR services should become cross-Cambridge services, terminating at Waterbeach and a new station at Cambridge East on the line to Newmarket.”
“On achieving a green railway, the suggestion is discontinuous electrification. Whilst that could easily be the right choice for a dedicated fleet of rolling stock shuttling between Oxford and Cambridge four times per hour, the Railfuture view is that East West Rail must not become an island – there are a lot of perfectly good electric trains around and with full electrification services like Cambridge Northampton become much more feasible. Full electrification is also a freight service enabler – we can understand that those near the line don’t want diesel freight locos with their higher noise and fumes; an electric freight train is a much better neighbour.
Railfuture will be reading the consultation materials quickly and in detail and [this page] will soon start to have much more content as we digest the consultation documents and questions and prepare our own submission. In the meantime, you can sign up for updates [below].
EastWestRail #EWR
If you would like to receive news as we analyse and digest the consultaiton documents, please sign up below.