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East-West Rail in Westminster

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MK Tom

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I don't understand why people see HS2 and EWR as being two options where you must choose one or the other... They're not in competition. The two schemes compliment each other but have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. They're not even in the same control period so aren't even competing for funding.

cle makes a good point about EWR's usefulness for freight - my strong support for it is mainly about passenger services and improving South Midlands connections and getting east-west traffic out of London, but its usefulness as a freight route is also considerable, especially if the proposed inland container port at Ridgmont goes ahead.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
The East West Rail Consortium has published a Prospectus for the western section of the proposed railway

It can be downloaded here

The link won't work for me :(
 
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cle

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Why should people in Britain's second city lose so many journey opportunities?

Ignoring the outdated second-city thing:

Who said they should? Services would ideally be additional rather than diversions.

And this is being proposed for CP5 and so completely separate to HS2. Why compare them? They would complement each other not compete - as they cross one another, there could be a big interchange station.

Passengers from Reading, Oxford, west of there, and Chiltern stations could access HS2. Might placate some of the opposition too.
 

jha4ceb

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You can sign up for a free account which entitles you to read a limited amount of articles per month.
 

yorksrob

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Lets hope the East - West link is one of these priority infrastructure projects that have just been announced by the Chancellor.
 

PhilipW

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Now let's see :

- It's about to be 25KV electrified at Oxford
- It's 25KV electrified at Bletchley
- It's 25KV electrified at Bedford

So should we join the dots
 

dggar

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I googled "Varsity Line"
The fourth entry "NEWS FOR VARSITY LINE"
opened up the FT article without the requirement to register.
 

cle

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Problem is that the trains which use the ends are all diesel. The main one to-be, is Chiltern to Oxford - unlikely to be wired anytime soon. Also Aylesbury/Parkway also diesel. Marston Vale diesel.

So I would imagine it is wired, but the London-HW-Oxford stays diesel. Other services could go electric though.
 

route:oxford

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Now let's see :

- It's about to be 25KV electrified at Oxford
- It's 25KV electrified at Bletchley
- It's 25KV electrified at Bedford

So should we join the dots

Definitely.

Which bit of the line has been built upon between Bedford & Cambridge?

Reopening between Bedford & Sandy would offer a piece of the "arc" between Oxford and the ECML.
 
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Just picking up on some of the "which TOC would run it?" questions earlier in the thread.

Clearly the extensions of the Marylebone - Aylesbury services to Milton Keynes are likely to remain with the Chiltern franchise, especially given the requirements for tripcocks on London Underground tracks south of Amersham.

Following on from a meeting that I attended last year with an EW Rail stakeholder, I seem to remember a proposal to use cascaded Class 165/166 turbos to run Oxford - Bedford and Oxford - MK services. If that's still the current thinking, then I think the decision as to the TOC probably rests with whichever depot is assigned to look after them.

Post GWML electrification, Reading depot will presumably be required to look after a reasonably small pool of turbos to work the Thames Valley branches and North Downs Line. Would it make sense for Reading to keep hold of the extra turbos to work Varsity Line services? (Presumably there are Economies of Scale savings to be made of keeping a larger fleet based in one place, than in splitting them into two smaller pools.) You'd then end up with a service like the North Downs Line (NDL) - essentially well outside of GW territory, but still run by the TOC with responsibility for maintaining the units. A couple of units could be stabled overnight at Bletchley with a small pool of GW guards - just like at Redhill. LM could supply drivers to work a small number of morning/evening diagrams from the Bletchley end, just like Southern do on the NDL.

The other obvious choice is clearly Chiltern, as identified by others in this thread. Is there any spare capacity available at Aylesbury for additional 165/166 units? How difficult/costly would it be to extend the depot? (especially given that Reading Depot is being moved and rebuilt from scratch over the next few years). My impression was that the light maintenance facility at Neasden was designed in part to relieve the pressure on Aylesbury, suggesting that there's not much scope to expand things cheaply at Aylesbury. (Even if Chiltern are chosen as the operators of a Varsity Line service, I still imagine that LM drivers will be contacted to work some turns over the line.)
 

route:oxford

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The other obvious choice is clearly Chiltern, as identified by others in this thread. Is there any spare capacity available at Aylesbury for additional 165/166 units? How difficult/costly would it be to extend the depot? (especially given that Reading Depot is being moved and rebuilt from scratch over the next few years). My impression was that the light maintenance facility at Neasden was designed in part to relieve the pressure on Aylesbury, suggesting that there's not much scope to expand things cheaply at Aylesbury. (Even if Chiltern are chosen as the operators of a Varsity Line service, I still imagine that LM drivers will be contacted to work some turns over the line.)

Don't forget the HS2 Depot that is due to be built somewhere between Calvert & Bletchley.

(If you check the HS2 Maps for Calvert, there is a spur shown following the Varsity line marked "To Depot" - so chances are the plan is for electrifcation anyway)
 
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Don't forget the HS2 Depot that is due to be built somewhere between Calvert & Bletchley.

(If you check the HS2 Maps for Calvert, there is a spur shown following the Varsity line marked "To Depot" - so chances are the plan is for electrifcation anyway)

I think the Calvert depot was just an infrastructure depot - ie no passenger rolling stock - presumably primarily/exclusively hosting diesel traction. I think the main rolling stock depot for HS2 is going to be in the Wembley/Willesden area?

Pretty sure EWR won't be electrified from the start.
 
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LE Greys

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Quite a few goods options as well, especially if it's built to W10 so that hi-cube containers coming in from Felixstowe can use it. That would remove a lot of the current NLL traffic, added to that already diverted through Peterborough. It would also absorb goods coming up from Southampton to access the Midland. Ideally, the Stansted-Braintree link would be included as well, although that might be more useful for Thames Gateway than Felixstowe.
 

MK Tom

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There's also the possibility of reopening Bletchley as a Chiltern depot to operate EWR and act as overspill for Aylesbury (which is only getting more overused with Chiltern's current expansion).
 

stut

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Definitely.

Which bit of the line has been built upon between Bedford & Cambridge?

Reopening between Bedford & Sandy would offer a piece of the "arc" between Oxford and the ECML.

Between Bedford and Sandy, the route has been built on at Willington (right by the river, so no easy by-pass) and Blunham (an estate around the old station). There's a proposal for an olympic rowing lake in the country park just east of the A428, too, which would be right across the old tracks.

Between Sandy and Cambridge, it's been built on in loads of places. Potton and Gamlingay are almost completely filled in, and there's a couple of miles taken up by the MRAO observatory near Barton.

I think it could still be possible to go Bedford to the ECML - it's not exactly the hilliest part of the country - but I think from there to Cambridge would have to be via a chord north of Hitchin.

Have to say though, the idea of a direct train from Biggleswade to Bedford, MK and Cambridge seems too good to be true!
 

MidnightFlyer

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I will add my voice to this and say I fully hope this goes ahead!

Definitely.

Which bit of the line has been built upon between Bedford & Cambridge?

Reopening between Bedford & Sandy would offer a piece of the "arc" between Oxford and the ECML.

http://www.railforums.co.uk/showthread.php?t=47861

They've built a rowing lake on it <(

Of all of the land in Bedfordshire (despite it being the smallest Shire county!) they decide to build it on the only bit of land that is ever likely to be needed for anything in the future! :roll:
 

LE Greys

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Between Bedford and Sandy, the route has been built on at Willington (right by the river, so no easy by-pass) and Blunham (an estate around the old station). There's a proposal for an olympic rowing lake in the country park just east of the A428, too, which would be right across the old tracks.

Between Sandy and Cambridge, it's been built on in loads of places. Potton and Gamlingay are almost completely filled in, and there's a couple of miles taken up by the MRAO observatory near Barton.

I think it could still be possible to go Bedford to the ECML - it's not exactly the hilliest part of the country - but I think from there to Cambridge would have to be via a chord north of Hitchin.

Have to say though, the idea of a direct train from Biggleswade to Bedford, MK and Cambridge seems too good to be true!

Better to reverse at Hitchin and use the new flyover for westbound trains. Not sure if there's room for a bay on the down side without extending over the bridge, but there's certainly room on the up side, perhaps even a through platform. A north chord would be useful for goods, though.
 

cle

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Wasn't there a route via Luton Airport Parkway at one point?

I think that it won't go east, unless it's via Manton (new curve) and Peterborough.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
double posting - found this brochure/prospectus from the E/W pressure group which was submitted to government and might give a hint of purpose:

http://eastwestrail.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/EWR-prospectus-web-2.pdf

Doesn't mention linespeed.

Interestingly, the project includes a passing loop in between Princes Risborough and Aylesbury, and the route map indicates that trains north of Aylesbury would run via High Wycombe. However, it then says the Aylesbury-MK service would be an extension of the Aylesbury Vale Parkway service, so that's a little confused.

Service pattern:
Reading - MK 1tph semi-fast
Reading - Bedford 1tph semi-fast
London/Aylesbury - MK

And the ex-Reading/Oxford trains all stop at Water Eaton, Bicester, Winslow and Bletchley. So nothing is really very fast as envisaged. I guess other options like XC would emerge if greenlit. Marston Vale trains are untouched.

All trains stop at Winslow interestingly, with no other new stations on that stretch.
 

deltic

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Text for article is as follows

Ministers are expected to give the go-ahead to re-open part of the Oxford to Cambridge railway line, closed in the wake of the Beeching cuts in the 1960s, as part of a key infrastructure announcement.

Under the £250m scheme, passenger services between Oxford and Bedford – withdrawn by British Rail in 1967 – will resume by 2017. The main part of the project involves re-laying and upgrading mothballed track between Bicester and Bletchley that was last used for freight services in the mid-1990s.
The scheme is expected to be one of the surprises among 40 key infrastructure projects the government is due to announce on Tuesday, which will include schemes already under way or well advanced in the planning process.
Supporters of the project, which include the local county and borough councils, have campaigned since the mid-1990s to get the route re-opened, arguing that it will bring considerable economic benefits by linking the fast-growing city of Milton Keynes to academic and research centres in Oxford.
Under their calculations, the route will generate more than £6 in economic benefit for every £1 invested, a key government measure of the value of big infrastructure projects. The benefit figure would rise to £11 if the scheme were 15 per cent funded by the private sector, they argue.

The government is expected to instruct Network Rail, the owner of the UK rail network, to include the scheme in the list of projects it has put forward for the next funding period between 2014 and 2019.
The re-opened line would allow passengers to bypass London by linking the west of England with the Midlands and the north. It would connect with Great Western services at Didcot and Reading and with West Coast services at Milton Keynes and Midland mainline services at Bedford.
The full scheme, known as East West Rail, ultimately envisages fully re-opening the old route between Oxford and Cambridge, dubbed the Varsity or Brain Line, which closed in the aftermath of the restructuring of Britain’s railways by Dr Richard Beeching in the 1960s.
But since part of the old route between Bedford and Cambridge has been built on, ministers have baulked at the idea of trying to build a new line.
Re-opening the stretch between Oxford and Bedford also offers a political dividend for the Tories, as it runs through the constituencies of a number of Conservative MPs.
Separately, George Osborne is set to announce a cap on regulated rail fares in his autumn statement on Tuesday.
Season tickets and peak travel fares were due to rise by 8.2 per cent on average after the coalition government earlier this year increased the formula to 3 per cent above the retail price index rate of inflation.
The chancellor is now expected to announce the average fare will rise by 6.2 per cent, and that the cap will also apply to Tube and bus fares in London.
Public transport lobby groups had warned of a backlash from commuters in the south-east – where the constituencies of the four transport ministers are located – if the government left rail fare rises unchanged while appeasing the motoring lobby by acting on fuel duty.
The government is expected either to freeze or to delay the imminent full 3p increase in fuel duty.
 

MK Tom

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Yeah saying extension of current AVP services was a slight mixup I think seeing as all other mentions they've ever made say that Marylebone-MKC services run via High Wycombe (in order to connect MK with High Wycombe and improve Aylesbury-HW connections). Winslow gets a station and a decent service because it's pretty close to Buckingham which is a growing town and is fairly big to not have a station. There's nowhere else that really justifies a stop and adding more would compromise longer distance journey times. However I'd be interested to know if there's a plan to stop services at Quainton on BRC open days.
 

pemma

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A new rail link between Oxford, Bedford and Milton Keynes will create 12,000 jobs, Mr Osborne adds - one of a long list of projects he outlines.
 

Nym

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Nice, projects 'r' us from this fund, lets hope HS2 gets confirmed soon too, aswell as it's extentions to Leeds and the ECML and Manchester and the WCML (Warrington)
 
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