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eastwestrail

East West Rail - a once in life time opportunity for the Oxford Cambridge Arc

EWR Web Page Graphic


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 24 January we submitted our final response which can read found here: Read in browser | Download

Here is an extract of key paragraphs:

Above all, the aims of the project must in our view align with the wider goals of the British rail network as a whole. The concept of a new main line linking East Anglia, central England and regions further west has existed since the 1990s, and Network Rail’s East West Main Line Strategic Statement published in 2022 reflects this ambition. EWR must therefore not be treated as simply an individual commuter line between Oxford and Cambridge, but as a new link in the wider network, connecting the towns and cities along the route not only to each other but to places further afield. This must be taken into consideration during the design and delivery of EWR to ensure that future development of the route for passenger and freight services is possible.

We stress that EWR must be *continuously* electrified along its entire length, between Oxford and Cambridge East; discontinuous electrification would result in the use of diesel locomotives for freight operations, significantly reducing the benefits of EWR for freight and the environmental credibility of the project. Full continuous electrification would allow electrically-hauled freight trains and through-running of existing electric stock across the full extent of the line.

As previously stated, the scope of East West Rail should not be limited to Oxford-Cambridge, with the long term goal to extend services to Norwich and Ipswich in the east and to Didcot and along the Great Western Main Line towards Swindon, Bath and Bristol in the west. To this end, we would like to see the proposed double-tracking east of Cambridge extended to Chippenham Junction to meet the Mid-Anglia Line. This would allow immediate extension of passenger services towards Ipswich, as well as increasing frequency on the Mid-Anglia line as there is latent unmet demand along the Cambridge-Newmarket-Bury corridor. This double-tracking should also include provision for the Snailwell curve to be reinstated, to provide a Cambridge-Newmarket-Soham-Ely service in future.


On 14 January we wrote to members with our draft response:

In December I emailed you about the non-statutory public consultation for the proposed East West Rail mainline railway in Britain. Railfuture considers this vital new link to be of national importance because of the opportunities for passengers and freight that it opens up.
Thank you to our members and supporters who contacted me, whether it was to ask questions or confirm that you had submitted (or were going to submit) a response. I urge everyone who has not yet responded to the consultation to support the proposals to do so. Time is short: it ends on 24 January 2025.

The proposals / technical documents are at: https://eastwestrail.co.uk/consultation2024.

You can respond to the consultation in four ways (you can be as detailed as you wish, but please don't mention Railfuture as it is your personal response):
•    Completing the consultation feedback form online
•    Emailing a copy of the feedback form to consultation@eastwestrail.co.uk
•    Posting a copy of the feedback form to: Freepost EAST WEST RAIL
•    Handing in a copy of the feedback form at a consultation event

Using the feedback form is best. However, if this is too time-consuming for you, then please send a simple email saying something like "I support East West Rail. Please get on and build it" to consultation@eastwestrail.co.uk including your name and address and briefly why the scheme is important to you.

Railfuture will be submitting a national response. We have produced a draft, which is availble here: Read online | Download.

Whilst we will not be making major changes to our response, if you have other positive ideas, spot something important that is missing in the draft, or perhaps where our text could be expanded or clarified, then please do let me know, but as soon as possible.

Thank you.
Best wishes,
Ian Couzens
Chair, Railfuture East Anglia — lead branch for East West Rail


During December we wrote to members and supporters who have an interest in East West Rail:

A new mainline for Britain: East West Rail

Although the restoration of the railway between Oxford and Cambridge may seem relevant to just a region, it is actually a national scheme that has that potential to change how the rail network in Britain operates. This is because it links up so many places, not just from Bristol and Cardiff in the west to Norwich and Ipswich in the east — meaning that travellers can avoid going through London — but also because its route connects with the Great Western Mainline, West Coast Mainline, Midland Mainline, East Coast Mainline, West Anglia Mainline and Great Eastern Mainline.

As well as those who have previously registered their support for the scheme on our website, Railfuture is sending this email to every member in Britain because of the scheme's significance. We're doing so now, because the government's East West Railway Company is currently conducting a non-statutory consultation on its proposals, which ends in January.

Railfuture supports the proposals put forward in the Consultation.

We hope that you can write in and support the proposals too, please, by January 24th 2025. This is very important as every message of support helps the Company to propose a railway that will us all far into the future and overcome those who are objecting to every aspect of the new railway.

Read on for the detail here: In your browser | Download

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

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