East-West Rail (EWR): Consultation updates [not speculation]

[Jorge Da Silva]

This was MarkyT's suggestion.
http://www.townend.me/files/EWR-bedford.pdf
We've all had this conversation before apparently!
IIRC, no one wrote it was infeasible, other than they rejected the southern route now favoured by EWR.

Would it not just be easier to use the existing line to Bedford for oxford-bedford services and extend the line to a rebuilt Bedford St Johns and onto Cambridge via Sandy.

 

[HowardGWR]

Would it not just be easier to use the existing line to Bedford for oxford-bedford services and extend the line to a rebuilt Bedford St Johns and onto Cambridge via Sandy.

Well it might be easier, but I have assumed that convenient connections between e/w and n/s were desired. I suppose if a PPM could shuttle back and forth to St Johns that might do it (or a little bus as at Yeovil).

 

[DarloRich]

I think some posters need to have a calm rest in a darkened room! Some of the ideas about Bedford would be unaffordable even on fantasy island!

It seems most cost effective to run into a slightly remodeled Bedford station and reverse rather than miss out a key connection point and build a new station few will use!

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Surely MKC not being on the through route is something that improved connectivity should address?

And how about improving connectivity to the massive new town they are planning to build south of Bedford (without ruining existing connectivity of 1tph stopper along the Marston Vale into Bedford Town) with an interchange station?

You have a very narrow definition of 'improved connectivity' as being more services specifically from one station (that current discussion is about how it isn't that easy to get to and isn't really in the right place) and ignore new places served or new links (other than Bedford-Cambridge North) because they aren't connected by the existing network.
These guys do (at least by your definitions wrt Bedford), and you were all for their proposals until you read that the improved connectivity they were going for didn't mean serving the existing Bedford station directly on the E-W through route - with no complaints with what they were doing exactly the same thing at Cambridge, albeit with through E-W trains serving North station, rather than a South station like they would at Bedford.

You are calling yourself 'no sensible person'. I'm not sure that's right.

You asked why some people were concerned to keep Bedford Station as part of the main East/West Rail scheme. I answered you. Clearly, you didn't like my answer, but that's in the nature of a forum: you come across ideas and opinions with which you disagree.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

It seems most cost effective to run into a slightly remodeled Bedford station and reverse rather than miss out a key connection point and build a new station few will use!

Yes. Cross Country trains reverse at Reading and no great harm is done so why is it worth spending large additional sums to avoid the same arrangement at Bedford?

 

[si404]

You asked why some people were concerned to keep Bedford Station as part of the main East/West Rail scheme.

No - I asked why we have people really concerned with having Bedford station on the main through route of E-W Rail, but then not batting an eyelid as to MK (and Cambridge) being put on a branch off it.

I can see why people are concerned about Bedford station being served - I agree it should be. What I'm interested in is why the people who are concerned about Bedford don't have any concern about similar situations elsewhere on E-W Rail. It might not have been clear. Hopefully I'm clear enough now.

Clearly, you didn't like my answer, but that's in the nature of a forum: you come across ideas and opinions with which you disagree.

Given it is clear from this latest post that you answered a different question to the one I thought I had asked, no wonder I didn't like it! And I didn't even particularly disagree, as much as get confused by it (perhaps because you were answering a different question), especially as to what you meant by "improved connectivity", and thus sought clarification. Clarification which you have refused to give "I answered your question", as seemingly you don't even want to come across your very own ideas and opinions, let alone ones with which you disagree!

I think that, if the main E-W rail route going through Bletchley and a branch/change to N-S trains to serve the town centre is good enough for Milton Keynes, then the main route going through Bedford South and a branch/change to get to Bedford station is good enough for Bedford - it's the same thing. Disagree? Feel free, but I'd love to know why you think that.

 

[mr_jrt]

There difference between the WCML and the MML is that Bletchley is a large established station with a fairly frequent service to MKC. There is no such station on the MML providing a service between the Marston Vale line and Bedford...because the line eventually ends up there.

 

[richieb1971]

The yellow line in the top pic isn't doable in markyt pics.

Bedford bus station is a horrible walk from BDM. Sure it's five minutes but it's a part of town that's a bit scary at night.

A new BDM north of Bedford is the best answer so far. A new station, loads of car parking and connectivity. It would mean any bridge work is not for nothing at BDM and you would not have bridges on each end of station. Bromham road bridge will serve 4 tracks only at best. Something like Stafford station or reading would be really nice.

Line speeds would be heavily affected going through st John's so to get those line speeds up you would need markyt plan of sorts or join mml at elstow.

 

[Tobbes]

Line speeds would be heavily affected going through st John's so to get those line speeds up you would need markyt plan of sorts or join mml at elstow.

The alternative is to have a major interchange where the MML crosses the Marston Vale line, of course. And then run EWR in a tunnel in a straight line to the other side of Bedford.

 

[Pigeon]

I think that, if the main E-W rail route going through Bletchley and a branch/change to N-S trains to serve the town centre is good enough for Milton Keynes

Well, I think that that isn't good enough. It sucks as things are as a way of getting from the Marston Vale line to MKC, and it's not going to suck any less when Bletchley is the interchange for more than just Marston Vale; rather, it's going to suck more.

The root of the problem of course is that Milton Keynes was planned in times when it was fashionable to disparage railways, so it was built five miles too far north and didn't even have a station at all to begin with. So now we have a standard British bodge situation where the original planning cockup infects everything that comes later with its suckiness, any non-sucky possibility being automatically rejected for being "too expensive" (nonsense) or "too difficult" (also nonsense, but closer to the truth, which is "they can't be arsed").

In this case a non-sucky solution would be something like reinstating Bedford-Northampton (which should be done anyway) and adding a connecting link from Wolverton to Olney or thereabouts. This will no doubt make the usual suspects scream their usual invalid excuses for not doing it, so I shall ignore them. The real difficulty, as with the whole E-W idea, is the lack of the will to do it. Not lack of money, or lack of suitable routes, but straightforward lack of ordinary gumption - both to carry out the project itself, and to kick out the predilection for sitting around for decades producing endless "reports" and "studies" full of made-up numbers until they've wasted ten times as much money doing this useless rubbish as they would have needed to carry out the whole project if they'd only got on and done it in the first place. The situation surrounding the E-W project emphasises the lack of gumption particularly starkly, since while the railway side have been procrastinating and sitting around yapping and achieving essentially sod all, the road side have actually built a whole new dual carriageway from J13 to Black Cat and had it up and running several years ago.

 

[aylesbury]

On tonights BBC News Oxford they went to Bicester and showed the old track being pulled up also Mr Grayling was there to talk up the start next year. Also they said some people locally questioned the need for the link but what will they say when the new road is pushed through? In reply to the post by Pigeon, for twentye five years local councils and other people lobbied successive governments for action aided by BR but they were brushed aside by the DFT who could not care a less about people in the sticks .Bedford Northampton should not reopen as they are well served by buses and the road is not to bad .The problem will come when the last section to Cambridge is planned due to the old alignment having been built over and people will not be happy to see the line arrive.What is wrong is no electrification this should be a standard on all lines doubtless the non wiring from Didcot to Oxford has contributed to this.Please remember the people who started the idea for EWR they are the ones who did not give up but persevered.

 

[richieb1971]

The alternative is to have a major interchange where the MML crosses the Marston Vale line, of course. And then run EWR in a tunnel in a straight line to the other side of Bedford.

Running the line under the MML and hitting the up slow in reverse would be adequate enough. A tunnel seems to be your solution to most problems

 

[coppercapped]

On tonights BBC News Oxford they went to Bicester and showed the old track being pulled up also Mr Grayling was there to talk up the start next year. Also they said some people locally questioned the need for the link but what will they say when the new road is pushed through? In reply to the post by Pigeon, for twentye five years local councils and other people lobbied successive governments for action aided by BR but they were brushed aside by the DFT who could not care a less about people in the sticks .Bedford Northampton should not reopen as they are well served by buses and the road is not to bad .The problem will come when the last section to Cambridge is planned due to the old alignment having been built over and people will not be happy to see the line arrive.What is wrong is no electrification this should be a standard on all lines doubtless the non wiring from Didcot to Oxford has contributed to this.Please remember the people who started the idea for EWR they are the ones who did not give up but persevered.

The point about the Northampton - Bedford section is not the local traffic but that it could form part of a radial route serving Birmingham. At the moment the railway essentially parallels the M1 corridor from London out to Luton but does not then offer a sensible service to Coventry, the NEC and Birmingham all of which are easily reached by car.
A service from Birmingham to Northampton and then through to St. Pancras stopping only at the major stations would fill quite a gap in the inter-urban cross-country links. In addition by making good connections at Bedford - or even by using through trains - journeys between the Birmingham conurbation and parts of East Anglia via Cambridge would be quicker and more convenient then the current huge detour to the north made by the services running via Melton Mowbray.

 

[richieb1971]

I am pro opening Northampton to Bedford. It does create a loop but its very challenging trying to get these stations to link in nicely. MKC sits right in the middle as well.

 

[muddythefish]

I am pro opening Northampton to Bedford. It does create a loop but its very challenging trying to get these stations to link in nicely. MKC sits right in the middle as well.

Careful ! A flat-earther living in Earls Barton will be on your case soon.

 

[Andyjs247]

I am pro opening Northampton to Bedford. It does create a loop but its very challenging trying to get these stations to link in nicely. MKC sits right in the middle as well.

Surely Northampton will benefit from EWR2 via Bletchley. No need to reopen the line to Bedford if you want to link Northampton - MK - Aylesbury - Wycombe - OOC (for Heathrow and Crossrail) as has been suggested.

And Cambridge - Bletchley - Birmingham will be quicker than via Stamford and Melton Mowbray.

 

[richieb1971]

As someone who lives in Bedford and commutes to Northampton I can tell you first hand the roads between the 2 towns is hardly adequate. For a start there are up to about 10 little villages that serve 1000's of cars a day and homes are being built on the route daily. Lavendon is currently one such place. Olney which is on the route is also being built up and Bromham near Bedford is being built up. Teresa May is saying another 25k homes are being built in the UK and no doubt some will be built in this area as well. All it takes is a tractor doing 25mph or a slow bus and I cannot overtake for miles and the route is riddled with average speed cameras (Albeit I think they are disabled). I cannot take the train or bus though, since I work shifts and I start so early I doubt a train would get started before my dayshift starts.

I would like to see an EWR service that loops round to Northampton but miss the main station and head towards Brackmills with a smaller sub station and then towards Bedford. It means some trains can come from the north of Bedford, head down the branch and then if the Cambridge section is built spurring off at Kempston Hardwick et al, it can head east wards on route C of the EWR proposal. A super fast version would hit the branch at Bletchley and hit route C at the same spot missing Bedford Midland but serving the Parkway station. That would be my ultimate EWR set up if money was no object.

 

[The Planner]

Blame Northampton/Northamptonshire council then, they asked us close the line to Brackmills and sell it to them so they could build a road across it. No coming back from that.

 

[eastdyke]

And Cambridge - Bletchley - Birmingham will be quicker than via Stamford and Melton Mowbray.

That leads in to a quite important point. Via Bletchley is around 25 miles shorter than via Stamford. Journey times between Cambridge and Birmingham are slow at around 2hrs40mins on the XC, 2hrs 50mins via London.
I guess that most people needing to do the journey regularly will drive.

Bletchley-Birmingham is 1hr10mins with a change to a fast at Milton Keynes.
But the real savings are for jouneys to the nort-west.
eg. Cambridge - Liverpool is around 4 hrs via London, 5hrs via Leeds.
Bletchley-Liverpool is a mere 2hrs20mins with 2 changes.

There is much scope for using the simple connectivity that EWR will provide.

As to the routes locally, Cambridge-Bedford really does need to be informed by where all the new houses will actually get built.
And returning to my rant on another thread, 106metre platforms are quite simply pants!

 

[InTheEastMids]

That leads in to a quite important point. Via Bletchley is around 25 miles shorter than via Stamford. Journey times between Cambridge and Birmingham are slow at around 2hrs40mins on the XC, 2hrs 50mins via London.

Off-topic: It's also a fairly withering criticism of XC - it needs to be an inter city service, rather than a pretty pedestrian inter-regional one. Redundant 22X are the obvious choice to improve capacity and speed, and NR should be ensuring the infrastructure will be able support that.

On topic: Open question is whether EWR is primarily a long-distance inter-regional route or actually a commuter route, and there's a turning point in infrastructure planning because there's recognition that not all commuting in the South-East is into central London. Or - to put it another way - let's be really clear about what EWR is and isn't for.

 

[eastdyke]

Off-topic: It's also a fairly withering criticism of XC - it needs to be an inter city service, rather than a pretty pedestrian inter-regional one. Redundant 22X are the obvious choice to improve capacity and speed, and NR should be ensuring the infrastructure will be able support that.

On topic: Open question is whether EWR is primarily a long-distance inter-regional route or actually a commuter route, and there's a turning point in infrastructure planning because there's recognition that not all commuting in the South-East is into central London. Or - to put it another way - let's be really clear about what EWR is and isn't for.

Off topic: The XC can never be a true inter city service by the very nature of the sub optimal route. It serves too many purposes and interacts with too many other routes along the way, much like the Norwich-Liverpool.

On topic: Yes! But it needs to be constructed to do what it does do well. For either/both it needs to be high speed and high capacity. And as I mentioned before the route simply cannot have a station for every 5,000 houses when 'they' are 'planning' for a million by 2050 (and asking for future proofing beyond that). But it does need to take account of where they will be bulit.
I hope that someone will ask some straightforward questions of the Inspector at the (presumably) upcoming TWAO Public Inquiry.

And when somebody asks where those houses are going, bear in mind that it needs land equivalent to between a third and a half of the area of Bedfordshire.

 

[alexx]

On tonights BBC News Oxford they went to Bicester and showed the old track being pulled up also Mr Grayling was there to talk up the start next year. Also they said some people locally questioned the need for the link but what will they say when the new road is pushed through?

If you're quick, the evening programme is on iPlayer until 7pm tonight: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0blph91/south-today-oxford-evening-news-04102018

And Oxford Mail story here: https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/1...avel-says-transport-secretary-chris-grayling/

 

[Brissle Girl]

So the much fanfared start of work involves ripping up the existing line (which hasn't been idle for 50 years as stated in the report, as freight traffic has been using it until quite recently), yet the statutory processes haven't yet been completed to approve construction of the new line. And we all know Grayling's form in respect of the Manchester Piccadilly/Oxford Rd fiasco, where the proposal has been sitting on his desk for a couple of years and is likely to end up filed in WPB. Call me a cynic, but...

 

[jfowkes]

Blame Northampton/Northamptonshire council then, they asked us close the line to Brackmills and sell it to them so they could build a road across it. No coming back from that.

<rant>
It's a great shame that it's very easy to build a road over a "redundant" trackbed, but we haven't yet got to the stage where we can put sleepers and rails on "redundant" tarmac.
</rant>

 

[atraindriver]

<deleted>

 

[richieb1971]

I abide by them. But sometimes your forced well below the speed limits. It's a rural community road that is taking far too many cars. M1 is a secondary option adding 13 miles and road construction lol.

 

[70014IronDuke]

The yellow line in the top pic isn't doable in markyt pics.

Bedford bus station is a horrible walk from BDM. Sure it's five minutes but it's a part of town that's a bit scary at night.

A new BDM north of Bedford is the best answer so far. A new station, loads of car parking and connectivity. It would mean any bridge work is not for nothing at BDM and you would not have bridges on each end of station. Bromham road bridge will serve 4 tracks only at best. Something like Stafford station or reading would be really nice. ...

But how far north? Just north of Bromham Rd bridge might work, but do you have space there? If you take it further north, it is simply too far from Bedford centre. It's far enough as it is. And surely the walk to the bus station is more like 10-12 minutes?

 

[Dr Hoo]

<rant>
It's a great shame that it's very easy to build a road over a "redundant" trackbed, but we haven't yet got to the stage where we can put sleepers and rails on "redundant" tarmac.
</rant>

With apologies for going off-thread but doesn’t a tramway do that? Quite a bit of road space has been re-purposed in Manchester, Sheffield, Croydon, Nottingham, Edinburgh, etc.

 

[richieb1971]

But how far north? Just north of Bromham Rd bridge might work, but do you have space there? If you take it further north, it is simply too far from Bedford centre. It's far enough as it is. And surely the walk to the bus station is more like 10-12 minutes?

Right just so I'm clear on why BDM is currently not in a great position going forward.

Car park is already at full capacity daily. If more trains are serving Bedford where are the people going to park? I am currently house hunting in the area of Bedford and all the new estates i've looked at are strategically building homes that are in the "London commuter belt" pricing range. People who work in Bedford don't make salaries that give them the ability to afford 450k/500k/650k homes, and half of each estate is made up of such homes. If you consider the platform for 1A will be extended through the ticket office, that will inevitably eat away at more parking spaces. So on this note, car parking is a massive consideration considering BDM is placed where it is, there is just no room to expand without making sacrifices elsewhere. Please also note that BDM is situated between 2 bridges. One is Ford end road which has just been remodeled for the OHLE and the other is Bromham road which to my understanding will never support more the 4 current tracks going underneath it even after the new bridge is erected in 2019.

Traffic/Roads in the area of BDM - Its not great. The A428 is overly congested and the roads are old nearby the station. Its a cramped road network with little to no provision to making it better. So access in the peak is terrible as the town of Bedford creaks under the pressure of ridiculous traffic.

Thameslink terminators - I'm not the biggest fan of using through tracks for terminating trains. BDM has historically always done this, but now its getting to the point where through trains are slotting between 2 terminators. The last 2 times i've seen Flying Scotsman visit Bedford it slotted through on p2 between 2 Thameslink terminators. This often happens with freight as well. Ideally a remodeled BDM would need platforms for terminating trains leaving the through platforms free. That just isn't going to happen at the current site where the station is today.


Where would I put a new station? - Somewhere where the A6 runs closely parallel. Whilst this is quite a way north from the town centre there is room for everything noted above. Parking/terminating platforms and access would be much better. It would be with the car user in mind though, so provisions for buses would be needed for shuttle runs to the bus station. Moving the station outside the town would alleviate some traffic issues in Bedford.

I'm only stating this is my preference if EWR goes through BDM for the long term. If not, the Wixams/Parkway at Elstow option would be my favoured option.

I keep bringing up Bedford because little fore thought is going into Bedford with EWR and the capacity issues already experienced at BDM. If people can't see that BDM is awfully situated for any expansion work then I am a loss for words.

A third an final option could be to put a station near the A6 like I stated before, but keep it small, sweet and simple for THL terminating trains and have East Midlands trains stop at the new station rather than the current station. THL would still stop at the current BDM. This would keep the commuter populace happy since they would drive to the station anyway.

 

[edwin_m]

On no better basis than looking at aerial photos, a good place for a "Bedford North Parkway" might be between Oakley Road and Highfield Road? There is already an intersection on the A6 and some housing within walking distance so it wouldn't be purely for the drive-in catchment. However I can't see EWR looping off east anywhere north of Bedford, as it makes the route much longer and puts it into a more hilly area, so this would be purely for Thameslink and possibly East Midlands services.