Will East West rail provide any benefit to Wales.

djox · 2 Jun 2025

Following UK government disclosure that East West Rail project has been declared an English/Welsh project.

'HS2 all over again': Oxford - Cambridge rail project classed as 'England and Wales'

Emily Price A multi-billion pound rail project between Oxford and Cambridge will be classed as an England and Wales scheme, the UK Government has confirmed. This means that despite East West Rail being entirely in England, Wales will not receive Barnett consequentials from the project. The...

nation.cymru

HS2 all over again’: Oxford – Cambridge rail project classed as ‘England and Wales’

A multi-billion pound rail project between Oxford and Cambridge will be classed as an England and Wales scheme, the UK Government has confirmed.
This means that despite East West Rail being entirely in England, Wales will not receive Barnett consequentials from the project.

'HS2 all over again': Oxford - Cambridge rail project classed as 'England and Wales'

Emily Price A multi-billion pound rail project between Oxford and Cambridge will be classed as an England and Wales scheme, the UK Government has confirmed. This means that despite East West Rail being entirely in England, Wales will not receive Barnett consequentials from the project. The...

nation.cymru

This means Wales won't get £360 million in consequential funding to spend on transport projects in Wales according to LibDems but Scotland and Northern Ireland will.

What benefits do we think East West Rail can offer to Wales?

RailUK Forums

D365 · 2 Jun 2025

Has there been any serious proposal for a ’secondary’ route between Derby/Nottingham and Cardiff via Bedford?

Bletchleyite · 2 Jun 2025

djox said:
Following UK government disclosure that East West Rail project has been declared an English/Welsh project.

'HS2 all over again': Oxford - Cambridge rail project classed as 'England and Wales'

Emily Price A multi-billion pound rail project between Oxford and Cambridge will be classed as an England and Wales scheme, the UK Government has confirmed. This means that despite East West Rail being entirely in England, Wales will not receive Barnett consequentials from the project. The...

nation.cymru

This means Wales won't get £360 million in consequential funding to spend on transport projects in Wales according to LibDems but Scotland and Northern Ireland will.

What benefits do we think East West Rail can offer to Wales?

Oxford-Bletchley probably none. Bletchley-Cambridge possibly some if wanting to go to Cambridge. But that does require an MKC-Cambridge service to avoid excessive changes, and that isn't planned...

Class15 · 2 Jun 2025

HS2 was bad enough but this is even worse, a cross-country line between Oxford and Cambridge being ‘England and Wales’?!

SynthD · 2 Jun 2025

At a (desperate) stretch, by reducing the demand for Birmingham to Oxford or Oxford to London, there could be more room for Paddington to Cardiff, or the Wales to Birmingham routes.

ExRes · 2 Jun 2025

djox said:
Following UK government disclosure that East West Rail project has been declared an English/Welsh project.

'HS2 all over again': Oxford - Cambridge rail project classed as 'England and Wales'

Emily Price A multi-billion pound rail project between Oxford and Cambridge will be classed as an England and Wales scheme, the UK Government has confirmed. This means that despite East West Rail being entirely in England, Wales will not receive Barnett consequentials from the project. The...

nation.cymru

This means Wales won't get £360 million in consequential funding to spend on transport projects in Wales according to LibDems but Scotland and Northern Ireland will.

What benefits do we think East West Rail can offer to Wales?

And people claim the Tories were an incompetent government

zwk500 · 2 Jun 2025

Class15 said:
HS2 was bad enough but this is even worse, a cross-country line between Oxford and Cambridge being ‘England and Wales’?!

EWR (and HS2) are within England, which is within England and Wales. That's how the formula works for rail. There's a wider problem here with uneven devolution and the different layers of responsibility.

Devil's advocate counterpoint - why should Scotland get more than a quarter of a billion quid just because a scheme in the South East can actually wash it's face in a business case?

The Scottish (and Welsh, and NI for that matter) transport projects should be funded according to the needs of their people, not for sibling-rivalry politics. And that does include different appraisal criteria for Scotland and Wales (and, tbh, the North of England) to recognise the different socio-economic conditions that mean the same appraisal as London isn't necessarily suitable.

Regarding the OP's question, there will be absolutely minimal direct benefits (a few journeys from South Wales to the East of England), very small indirect benefit locally but a small indirect benefit from the country's economy as a whole growing.

swt_passenger · 2 Jun 2025

D365 said:
Has there been any serious proposal for a ’secondary’ route between Derby/Nottingham and Cardiff via Bedford?

No, that’s never come up. As has been covered numerous times in the main thread, DfT de-scoped the EWR project to remove the idea of any through running ‘cross country’ style routes, before the TWA process started.

Bletchleyite · 2 Jun 2025

SynthD said:
At a (desperate) stretch, by reducing the demand for Birmingham to Oxford or Oxford to London, there could be more room for Paddington to Cardiff, or the Wales to Birmingham routes.

It won't significantly do either of these. Most of what Oxford-MKC will do at least is enable journeys to switch from road (bus and car) to rail and probably create some new ones (e.g. I think there will be a fair bit of Bletchley-Oxford commuting as Bicester is now getting expensive).

duffield · 2 Jun 2025

Reading the linked article puts a somewhat different light on it, in particular this:

(Further quote from article linked above)

In a written response to Chadwick, the UK Government said: “East West Rail is set to cover the route from Oxford to Cambridge and is therefore part of the Rail network enhancements pipeline (RNEP) portfolio which covers funding for projects in England and Wales.

“The RNEP portfolio can be distributed to any scheme across England and Wales.”

The implication is that this pot of money is also available to Wales only schemes, in which case it's perfectly reasonable for it to be used for England only schemes as well. The question is then whether this pot is being roughly equitably divided overall (about which I have no idea) rather than whether by some stretch EWR specifically can be seen to benefit Wales (it really doesn't).

Dr Hoo · 2 Jun 2025

djox said:
What benefits do we think East West Rail can offer to Wales?

People in Winslow finding it easier to travel to/from Wales once it has a station.

NIT100 · 2 Jun 2025

djox said:
Following UK government disclosure that East West Rail project has been declared an English/Welsh project.

'HS2 all over again': Oxford - Cambridge rail project classed as 'England and Wales'

Emily Price A multi-billion pound rail project between Oxford and Cambridge will be classed as an England and Wales scheme, the UK Government has confirmed. This means that despite East West Rail being entirely in England, Wales will not receive Barnett consequentials from the project. The...

nation.cymru

This means Wales won't get £360 million in consequential funding to spend on transport projects in Wales according to LibDems but Scotland and Northern Ireland will.

What benefits do we think East West Rail can offer to Wales?

As I understand it, current Treasury position is something like 37% of Transport spending for Wales is devolved, compared to 92% for Scotland and 95% for Northern Ireland. So if it was classed as an England Only project Wales would only get something like £145 million (unless more transport policy is devolved). Wales is not treated the same as other nations currently regarding Barnett formula and transport spending.

duffield said:
The implication is that this pot of money is also available to Wales only schemes, in which case it's perfectly reasonable for it to be used for England only schemes as well. The question is then whether this pot is being roughly equitably divided overall (about which I have no idea) rather than whether by some stretch EWR specifically can be seen to benefit Wales (it really doesn't).

Big claim to say it is RNEP since that was last published in 2019 and was supposed to be published annually, therefore it is difficult to see if the spending has been split equitably between England and Wales.

Treasury also do not have to follow Barnett, in 2017 when Tories gave NI £1 billion to secure DUP support, this was excluded from Barnett, and there is no way for devolved administrations to challenge this.

Dr Day · 2 Jun 2025

Large swathes of England (eg the South West) also only get a negligible benefit from this scheme.

quantinghome · 2 Jun 2025

IF GWR had regular Wales services stopping at Didcot AND EWR services from Oxford to MK were integrated with the Fast GWR Oxford terminators then you would get a significantly improved rail journey from South Wales to MK. However, as neither of those things are planned there won't be much if any benefit by the time you've changed at Reading and Oxford. Which is a real pity as it would be a proper step change in journey time (Cardiff - MK is currently around 3 hours).

VItraveller · 2 Jun 2025

not unless they start a service from Swansea or Cardiff to Oxford or Milton Keynes which is very unlikely.

quantinghome · 2 Jun 2025

VItraveller said:
not unless they start a service from Swansea or Cardiff to Oxford or Milton Keynes which is very unlikely.

Hence the suggestion of a single change at Didcot which wouldn't require any additional services to be run, but an additional stop and combining the new EWR service with the GWR service through Didcot which terminates at Oxford. Admittedly this is also unlikely, but less so than a new service.

EUC · 2 Jun 2025

I can't really see EWR as directly of benefit to Wales, any more than the rump HS2 project. Unless, of course, freight gets better rail connectivity between South Wales and Felixstowe/Harwich?

ChiefPlanner · 2 Jun 2025

A very good friend , and a highly competent time served manager , on WCML South who used to dream of an overnight sleeper from Cambridge to Cardiff (say two cars and a couple of open standards , maybe some parcels vans) , routed this way.

Course , only a fantasy :rolleyes:

, but maybe his idea could bear fruit.

This is a joke of course !!!!

officewalla · 2 Jun 2025

zwk500 said:
EWR (and HS2) are within England, which is within England and Wales. That's how the formula works for rail. There's a wider problem here with uneven devolution and the different layers of responsibility.

Devil's advocate counterpoint - why should Scotland get more than a quarter of a billion quid just because a scheme in the South East can actually wash it's face in a business case?

The Scottish (and Welsh, and NI for that matter) transport projects should be funded according to the needs of their people, not for sibling-rivalry politics. And that does include different appraisal criteria for Scotland and Wales (and, tbh, the North of England) to recognise the different socio-economic conditions that mean the same appraisal as London isn't necessarily suitable.

Regarding the OP's question, there will be absolutely minimal direct benefits (a few journeys from South Wales to the East of England), very small indirect benefit locally but a small indirect benefit from the country's economy as a whole growing.

The Barnett formula is barking mad and is the reason Scotland especially has higher per capita spending and can give away things such as free tuition for Scots in Scotland and free prescriptions. With devolved tax raising powers, the formula needs to be looked at and reset if stories such as this one are to be avoided in the future.

ChiefPlanner · 2 Jun 2025

EUC said:
I can't really see EWR as directly of benefit to Wales, any more than the rump HS2 project. Unless, of course, freight gets better rail connectivity between South Wales and Felixstowe/Harwich?

From my experience with Freightliner a very long time ago , there was very little container traffic from South Wales to Felixstowe / Harwich - bar lumps of imported Canadian nickel pellets to the Inco Plant at Clydach (Swansea area) , which went via Stratford Flt. The odd load for Europe via Harwich / Ipswich now and then. .........

EUC · 2 Jun 2025

There has to be some sort of formula for working out how UK Government spending decisions which benefit England (or England plus one or more of the other nations in this Realm) can be apportioned to the bits which don't get the cash directly. Since 1978 that formula has been the universally decried Barnett Formula. (Even the late Joel Barnett himself saw it as an imperfect short term solution.)

No administration since the Callaghan Government has dared to touch it, but occasionally anomalies like the funding for HS2 and EWR are thrown up.

The question, @officewalla is what we could use as a replacement?

Per capita won't work, since the spending needs in the Celtic nations are higher than they are in England. The nonsense here is that Scotland and the Six Counties will get EWR Barnett consequentials, but Wales won't. This strikes me as profoundly unjust.

LNW-GW Joint · 2 Jun 2025

The WG likes to bang the Barnett formula drum whenever they can, to demonstrate how Wales is "cheated" by Westminster.
Who do they think pays for the repeated rebuilds of the Conwy Valley line after floods, or funds ETCS on the Cambrian, or resignalling of the South and North Wales main lines, or the Barmouth Bridge rebuild?
GWR electrification, although truncated at Cardiff from the original plan to reach Swansea, was funded by Westminster.
Network Rail (and therefore GBR when it comes) is not devolved to Wales, unlike Scottish NR.

zwk500 · 2 Jun 2025

EUC said:
There has to be some sort of formula for working out how UK Government spending decisions which benefit England (or England plus one or more of the other nations in this Realm) can be apportioned to the bits which don't get the cash directly.

Continuing the counterpoint, why does spending have to be tit-for-tat? Why not allow each area to set appropriate appraisal criteria and let each project be assessed on its own (local) merits?

6Gman · 2 Jun 2025

Dr Hoo said:
People in Winslow finding it easier to travel to/from Wales once it has a station.

There are few enough from Wilmslow never mind Winslow!

(Though the last time I used Wilmslow there were quite of Welsh people on the platform. Because their train had been turned short.)

Magdalia · 2 Jun 2025

officewalla said:
The Barnett formula is barking mad

This discussion says a lot about the merits of the Barnett formula. It is almost 50 years old now, having been devised to settle a cabinet dispute in advance of the 1979 devolution referenda. It is only a convention, there is no legislation that requires it to be used.

The Barnett Formula was only intended to solve a short term problem, in this respect it is quite similar to council tax, which was also never intended to be permanent.

EUC said:
I can't really see EWR as directly of benefit to Wales, any more than the rump HS2 project. Unless, of course, freight gets better rail connectivity between South Wales and Felixstowe/Harwich?

There is an existing Felixstowe-Wentloog freightliner, currently going via the North London Line. It is probably the existing freight flow most suitable for diversion onto East West Rail.

zwk500 · 2 Jun 2025

Magdalia said:
There is an existing Felixstowe-Wentloog freightliner, currently going via the North London Line. It is probably the existing freight flow most suitable for diversion onto East West Rail.

Ironically, that's one of the few services that could also make use of Acton Bank wiring.

Class15 · 2 Jun 2025

zwk500 said:
Ironically, that's one of the few services that could also make use of Acton Bank wiring.

Not if Wentloog FLT isn’t wired. Because it’s a Freightliner, rather than GBRf (who have 99s coming), it would have to use a class 90 or 66.

zwk500 · 2 Jun 2025

Class15 said:
Not if Wentloog FLT isn’t wired. Because it’s a Freightliner, rather than GBRf (who have 99s coming), it would have to use a class 90 or 66.

Fair point, I thought there was a shunter at Wentloog but a quick look at Google Maps suggests it's all done by the train loco. Wiring the reception road wouldn't be impossibly hard though, if awkward (FLIM acquiring/hiring a Battery Loco is probably more cost-effective for them)/

ChiefPlanner · 2 Jun 2025

zwk500 said:
Fair point, I thought there was a shunter at Wentloog but a quick look at Google Maps suggests it's all done by the train loco. Wiring the reception road wouldn't be impossibly hard though, if awkward (FLIM acquiring/hiring a Battery Loco is probably more cost-effective for them)/

Since Freightliner have served Cardiff - Pengam in the old days - shunting has always been done by train engines. Often done though with incursions on the lines toward Cardiff Tidal - so terminal to reception in the days of Pengam Flt used to so so , to avoid the main lines..........(done it often enough in my younger days !)

Magdalia · Tuesday at 12:00

This story has now made it onto the BBC News website see here:

England and Wales classification for Oxford-Cambridge rail line

One MP says it means Wales is "being denied hundreds of millions in funding".

www.bbc.co.uk

There is anger that a multi-billion pound project to build a railway line between Oxford and Cambridge has been classed as an England and Wales project.

The £6.6bn line will see no tracks laid in Wales, but because of the way it has been classified, it means the country will not benefit from any extra cash.

Will East West rail provide any benefit to Wales.

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