Where was I saying they must meet this future need now (well, on opening)?
I'm saying that this future need shouldn't be discarded as something that will never exist.
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East-West Rail (EWR): Consultation updates [not speculation]
- Thread starter aylesbury2
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I'm saying that this future need shouldn't be discarded as something that will never exist.
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I have some questions please....
1. Do they expect much interchange at Bedford? Presumably a Wixams South Bedford station wouldn’t get EMT stops?
2. How would a Bedford Midland Route get there? On the slow lines or bulldoze a fifth and sixth line through?
3. How would a Bedford Midland Route loop round the north? Looks very lumpy to me.
4. Is the old route through the south of Bedford totally unworkable? I am thinking cheaper to build a through station on that South of St Johns, and put in some kind of people mover between there and Bedford Midland.
1. Do they expect much interchange at Bedford? Presumably a Wixams South Bedford station wouldn’t get EMT stops?
2. How would a Bedford Midland Route get there? On the slow lines or bulldoze a fifth and sixth line through?
3. How would a Bedford Midland Route loop round the north? Looks very lumpy to me.
4. Is the old route through the south of Bedford totally unworkable? I am thinking cheaper to build a through station on that South of St Johns, and put in some kind of people mover between there and Bedford Midland.
What extent? Maybe, just maybe, the EWR people have measured that 'extent' and decided is isn't half as extensive as one or two of you keep asserting - and certainly not enough to justify costs of trains running up and down all day linking High Wycombe and Milton Keynes.
You can change it to whatever you like - but as 67018 points out, there is a known public transport flow along the Oxford-Cambridge corridor - and it's fairly obvious far more people will want to travel between Oxford and MK (or Cambridge when that becomes possible) than will ever want to go from Oxford to Bedford.
Really? What evidence do you have for this? I wasn't aware that the economic and cultural pull of London was going to be waning any time soon and Buckinghamshire Country Council (which runs all the key council services except planning and bin collections already, irrespective of whatever happens with the unitary council plan for Bucks) has been based in Aylesbury since 1889, so not much change there.
BucksBones
Member
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- 18 Jul 2017
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- 336
Nope, you’ve got me there. Pulled northwards? How? Why? According to whom?
Except that the X5 is largely local-ish services joined end-on - there's little Cambridge-Oxford traffic because of the 4h journey including 10-15 minutes sat at Bedford bus station where driver changes happen. It's made worse by excruciating congestion at the Cambridge end, and probably in Oxford too. I commute it daily, and the big flows I see are Bedford-St Neots and St Neots-Cambridge, not through journeys.
As an extreme case, I typically get the 0652 from Eaton Socon, and typically we reach Parkside around 0845. For my office next to Cambridge North it's quicker to do train St Neots - Stevenage - Cambridge (just five times the cost, natch)
You do realise that most of South Bucks is in the 'Wycombe and Aylesbury Travel to Work Area' - ie that London is pretty much irrelevant for employment, but Aylesbury is... (The rest - mostly Slough suburbs - is in the Slough and Heathrow TTWA - again, not London).
But, ten years previously (2001 census data), Wycombe (and the rest of South Bucks) was in a TTWA with Slough - this pull of focus northwards is already happening.
Its grabbing planning and bins - the decision has been made. And obviously planning is hugely relevant here!
Yes, they finally moved the county town south to nearer where the non-farming stuff was happening. It only took hundreds of years and still, after 120 years, the council continues to think itself as running a rural county with a couple of large towns, rather than one that has 'London fringe' suburbia.
And the unitary decision has taken away a clear South Bucks voice, pushing the area's view that it is a south-and-east facing part of the London/Thames Valley commuter belt and given control to a county council that sees itself as being part of the South Midlands. Council chair Martin Tett - whose day jobs are lobbying for the Varsity Arc (somehow the councillor for Little Chalfont and Amersham Common ended up in charge of two or three lobbying groups that are mostly about how MK is the centre of everything, with Bedford, Oxford, Aylesbury and Cambridge in supporting roles) - has increased his sway over planning in the Chilterns. If Wycombe wants money for transport upgrades, its planning authority and the regional lobbying groups that might have money (Bucks CC certainly won't) are led by someone obsessed with the cheese part of the county's economic potential - so any transport improvements will have to face north, or maybe west, or won't happen...
'England's Economic Heartland' - Tett's new local-government backed lobbying group for the region (Oxon, Bucks, Beds, Northants, Cambs, Herts and Berks) - is seeking to be a Midlands Connect/TfN style transport authority. And it is all about the Varsity Arc, especially Milton Keynes.
RAC gives for Bristol to Norwich 4 hrs 10 mins by car, depending on which route is followed (across country or via London M25). See link:
https://www.rac.co.uk/route-planner/
They don't say anything about rest pauses though.
I would not like to do that journey by road under any circumstances. I would forbid an employee to do it.
richieb1971
Established Member
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- 28 Jan 2013
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- 2,020
1) EMT might rework their thinking after EWR goes in, nothing noted as yet though.
2) Platform 1A is proposed to be made full length through the ticket office, pushing the station building further towards the main road
3) Goes round Oakley and turns right. Its hilly and would require cuttings and bridges to be sure.
4) Without a tunnel its not doable to put the old route back in. Even at Bedford Marina I can't see 100mph trains rushing through there. You have to remember that the old route was for old trains, when rules and regulations were far more relaxed. Trains were noisy and loud, now they are fast and quiet. Using Bedfords old routes does not sit well with the mandate which is to get trains from Oxford to Cambridge in about an hour. If the trains go through Bedford on any existing route it will slow down the journey considerably compared to a new straighter route that brushes the outskirts of Bedford.
hooverboy
On Moderation
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nobody said parlying these stations, but just needs a good look at what times/ days these stops with few passengers are used. I would wager it is mostly monday-friday for business/school travel.
in which case it is quite frankly pointless stopping at them in other cases, so just time the stops to coincide with when the station will be mostly used.
ie 7-9am/ 12-2pm/ 4-7pm
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Or maybe we should try to grow their use? The best way to do that would unquestionably be a direct service to Milton Keynes Central.
(Kempston Hardwick probably excepted - though I saw a passenger alight there yesterday - that's two in two months!
)
eastdyke
Established Member
Really? The latest consultation (for Central section) has that time at around 80 minutes. For a whole host of reasons my money is still on 100
Andyjs247
Member
I don’t see why it would take 100 minutes - unless you plan on stopping at all the shacks on the Marston Vale. Cambridge to Bedford is roughly 30 miles but as new build it would be engineered for 100mph. 80 minutes for maybe 80 miles end to end is doable. The slow bit is the Vale where improvements have been descoped, but could be added later if needed and funded.Really? The latest consultation (for Central section) has that time at around 80 minutes. For a whole host of reasons my money is still on 100
All very fascinating I'm sure, but why when I use Chiltern are there always crowds of people boarding southbound trains out of High Wycombe, whatever the time of day, and nothing like as many going the other way, whether that's to Aylesbury, Oxford, or anywhere else?
I must have missed the A4010 being turned into a dual carriageway to cope with the torrent of people travelling into Aylesbury every day from Wycombe. And even if some people are heading that way, that still doesn't mean lots of them are just desperate to carry on all the way to Milton Keynes, does it?
Mr Tett is probably quite right about MK's key future role in the arc - it seem a reasonable view given its location and that it is already far bigger than any of the other big towns/cities along the route and is still growing.
But High Wycombe is not on that arc and the people living there are unlikely ever to feel themselves to be so - because of all those hills in between them and the Aylesbury Vale/MK/etc
When I last took a peek the Vale looked like a nice straight alignment, bar a couple of kinks that shouldn't be too hard to fix. The level crossings were marginally more of an issue, but again, nothing insurmountable in most cases. Could be nice and fast.
If you're going to shaft the existing local stations though, do we have to look at putting in loops somewhere so they can retain some semblance of a decent service?
If you're going to shaft the existing local stations though, do we have to look at putting in loops somewhere so they can retain some semblance of a decent service?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Really? The latest consultation (for Central section) has that time at around 80 minutes. For a whole host of reasons my money is still on 100
Who cares? There is next to no demand for through journeys from Oxford to Cambridge, and that is not the point of it - it's intermediate journeys. Look at the usage of the X5 coach service - almost all journeys are one of the following:-
- Bicester to/from Oxford
- Oxford to/from Bedford or MK
- MK to/from Bedford (NOTE: EWR completely ignores this massive flow, most of which is presently by car - which I believe to be ridiculous in the extreme)
- MK or Bedford to/from Cambridge
- St Neots to/from Cambridge
Occasionally someone does the full route, but it normally looks like an occasional student visiting his mates, who is going to be price sensitive but not time sensitive. That doesn't fund a railway.
People seem to have the impression that there is significant academic/business travel between the two, and there simply isn't. It's a regional express promoting intermediate connectivity, not a fast InterCity route.
Sorry, but that is simply not true.
There is considerable collaboration on all kinds of scientific, technological, medical, etc, projects between people in the Cambridge and Oxford areas. It's not just the at the universities either. There are facilities at the Culham and Harwell Science Centres near Didcot that do not exist anywhere else in the UK, so people are travelling from Cambridge to use them on a regular basis.
But as things stand, travelling between the two areas makes for a very long day - East West Rail will allow them to spend rather more time doing their work when they get there, rather than trying to get between places.
Not many bother with the X5 - no wonder. They use trains and cross London by Tube or try to dodge the periods of congestion on the motorways. Or stay overnight.
Yes, the A421 upgrade is a mixed blessing in that sense. Still, that's the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway for you. Welcome to the future :/
Having fast services from MK heading both east and west along EWR would be excellent, certainly. If those were just the through longer-distance services, then it would add maybe 15-20 minutes to through journey times to get up to MK Central, but with careful planning and platforming at Bletchley through passengers could jump off, walk across the platform, and get on the “previous” through service, or something along those lines. Could work well. Alternatively, just build some more terminating platforms at MK and have most (all?) services terminating there from both east and west. With a cross-platform interchange and good timetabling for “through” passengers at Bletchley, this really could work very well indeed.
eastdyke
Established Member
Sure, but if you ran a service that simply connected just the 2 places you would carry mostly fresh air.
The meat of the usage will be people travelling far more locally to access work, services, education and leisure. That demand is created not from existing flows but by all the people living in those, as yet unbuilt, 1 million homes.
Looking forward to 2050 it is a commuter railway that is also very welcome for the end to end connectivity.
Yes but it is the headline number, soundbite if you like, so beloved of our Polticians for their media coverage. Nothing to do with the majority of future journeys along the route.
Edited only to correct a spelling.
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Absolutely, but the direction of travel is towards Wycombe being an increasing part of that arc and being less part of the Thames Valley/London commuter belt*.
In 2001, 75% of workers living in Amersham, Wycombe, Slough, etc worked in that area - which had probably been the case for centuries. By 2011, Slough and suburbs ceased being part of that area, but the Aylesbury area had joined. Southern Bucks (save near Slough) is being less linked to the areas to the south, and more linked to areas to the north, and that is statistical fact.
It has naff all to do with the hills being between them - after all, there are hills in between Wycombe and Oxford (worse hills, in fact, given the lack of a handy gap southwest of Risborough), between Wycombe and most of Berkshire, and between Wycombe and London - it's surrounded by hills as it's in the middle of them! And don't forget that there's big hills between all the Chiltern valleys, but that hasn't stopped close ties between places in different valleys (eg Great Missenden and Wycombe, or Marlow and Wycombe) - and didn't in centuries gone by either. It has everything to do with the area's history (which is linked with being in the hills, but those hills have always been as permeable as the chalk they are made of!).
The historic barrier is fading away - do they even make chairs in Wycombe any more? Of the four B's Chesham was famous for making, baptists are the only ones still 'made' there - they don't make boots, beer or brushes there anymore, and haven't for some time. The light industry of the 'chalk' part of Bucks has given way to a knowledge-based economy - at home in London, the Thames Valley or the Varsity Arc. And in 'cheese' parts of Bucks, farming is much less important, with it too changing to a knowledge-based economy. The differences between the two halves of the county - formerly a metaphor for stark difference have lessened, and will only get less as time goes on. The county is homogenising, like the rest of the South East.
*Which, obviously given the definitions of TTWAs, is a misnomer as fewer than a quarter of workers living in Wycombe, Amersham, etc actually commute to the London TTWA.
Where have I or anyone else ever said the Oxford-Cambridge flow would be the majority of the journeys made using the route? Who ever said there would be trains just connecting the two places?
I would expect, for example, far more people to travel Oxford/Bicester to MK and vice versa than will ever want go all the way to Cambridge, but to make a bald statements, as Bletchleyite did, that there is no demand for travel between Oxford and Cambridge is just plain wrong.
A popular myth, that has featured in this thread on occasion, is that prior to the 1960s closure there were just a couple of trains each way each day covering the full route between Oxford and Cambridge, whereas there were usually four through trains each way, two of which each way ran all or most of the distance limited-stop.
All very fascinating, though I'm afraid I will take it with a big pinch of salt, as I have worked in Oxfordshire and Reading for the best part of 20 years and know full well that the parts of Oxfordshire south of the Chiltern ridge, such as Henley and Sonning Common, have far more in common with the parts of Berkshire across the Thames than they ever have, or will have, in common with the rest of Oxfordshire.
And you still haven't produced anything by way of evidence to justify the provision of lots of through trains from High Wycombe all the way to Milton Keynes. So 'fewer than a quarter of workers' living in Wycombe and Amersham commute to London. How many go to Milton Keynes?
People in Wycombe can already get a train to Aylesbury if they want to. The current roughly hourly Chiltern service, whether direct or via a change at Princes Risborough, doesn't exactly suggest there is a vast flow of local traffic, whatever the limitations on what can run imposed by the single track past Princes Risborough.
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eastdyke
Established Member
Nowhere and nobody. But you were in my view over-egging the importance of the end to end journey. I was addressing that.
And no MK back in the day, no Calvert, no South of Bedford, no 'bigger' Sandy, no Cambourne/Bassingbourn, no Cambridge South ......... Different world!
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
4 is more than 2 but is still a very sparse service.
adrock1976
Established Member
A very quick thought regarding the noise about High Wycombe - Milton Keynes direct trains:
Would it be possible to have a Milton Keynes - Aylesbury - Princes Risborough - High Wycombe - Bourne End - Maidenhead service when demand builds for MK - beyond Aylesbury journeys?
Obviously, the missing track needs to be reinstated between Bourne End and High Wycombe for that to happen.
Would it be possible to have a Milton Keynes - Aylesbury - Princes Risborough - High Wycombe - Bourne End - Maidenhead service when demand builds for MK - beyond Aylesbury journeys?
Obviously, the missing track needs to be reinstated between Bourne End and High Wycombe for that to happen.
The limitations surely means that it's not easy to increase supply, and keeping the train service an unattractive hourly service that might not even be direct is hardly going to attract people onto it. If the train service wasn't terrible (say 2tph guaranteed direct) it would see use as twice as many people (2011 census data) commute between Wycombe district and Aylesbury Vale district than between Wycombe district and Central London (the only significant commuter flow from Wycombe that peak 7tph Marylebone service serves, unless they are just going a couple of stops to South Bucks).
Demand is suppressed by poor links - just as it is in S Oxfordshire towards Oxford vs towards Reading. Keeping links between Wycombe and MK terrible because they have always been is a nonsense reason. It's like saying that because Oxford-Cambridge never managed to justify more than a handful of direct trains, there's little reason why there needs to be direct trains between the two university cities rather than Oxford-Bedford and MK-Cambridge services that overlap...
The complaint that you are over egging the Oxford - Cambridge demand and ignoring local links seems to be the problem here. You think that to justify not changing, there must be loads of people going end to end. Nonsense - just like with Oxford-Cambridge trains, it's overlapping journeys made through for the convenience of a small percentage because terminating trains end-on is stupid.
Plus the only way those PR-Aylesbury upgrades will occur is with MK trains getting Bucks CC, etc on board with it.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Just like the Marston Vale, then. It's never going to be 12-car full and standing, but demand would increase appreciably if it ran to and from Milton Keynes Central, as was the plan for a while but never happened.
I'm over-egging Oxford-Cambridge demand?
By simply stating that there actually is some? As opposed to saying there is none at all, as Bletchleyite did.
The only over-egging here is on your parts - over-egging what I said, for some reason or other that escapes me.
I never said there would be no demand for High Wycombe to Milton Keynes either - but it is pretty clear that the East West studies have shown it is simply not at the level to justify a through service at the initial stage.
As for the idea that four through trains a day between Oxford and Cambridge back in the 1960s represented some minimal service level, I suggest you go and look at some other timetables from that time - there weren't hourly or 30-minute interval inter-regional services all over the place. Far from it.
Cardiff-Portsmouth in 1965 was three trains a day each way, with a fourth train starting at Bristol - and three trains from Portsmouth to Cardiff. With a few connections available at Salisbury (like at Bletchley on the Oxford-Cambridge axis).
So why was the idea that there might be demand in the future such a problem that you had to tell me that I was wrong?
Except you're completely overlooking the fact that neither station at either end is useful for the main centres of employment.
MK's employment areas are scattered throughout the area, yet MKC station just about serves Central MK - completely useless if your office is in Kingston, Blakelands or Newport Pagnell. Bedford is similarly sited, if you're in Goldington, Cardington, or Kempston it's pretty pointless travelling into Bedford station to get to MK - there's no time saving to be had compared to using the A421 or A422.
Unlikely - dumping people out at Maidenhead won't serve any useful purpose. And parts of the trackbed from Wycombe - Bourne End has been built over.
The only journey it would improve would be Aylesbury or Wycombe to Reading - and I can't believe there is anything like the demand to justify that.
Also, we have to remember that we aren't looking at current demand but that over the next few decades.
There is a huge amount of potential future demand between Oxford and Cambridge once a connection of an hour-ish is available. Currently a lot of meetings and events between Oxford and Cambridge colleges, businesses and institutions happen in London as it is easier for everyone to get to. One of the reasons the Crick Institute was built next to St Pancras is that in terms of travel time it is the mid-point between the two cities. Currently I go out of my way to avoid meetings in Oxford as the journey is so painful.