RE Honeybourne-Stratford. Where do I start, given the number of posts suggesting limited understanding of the overall situation, issues locally such as the roads in Stratford upon Avon, and work done previously on the proposal - or airily dismissing it out of hand? I especially loved the one questioning Arup's engineering expertise. Maybe have a look at their website to see what they do for a living...
So let's start with the government process and the suggestions that the CLPG chairman doesn't know what he is talking about when it comes to applying to the DfT. The Honeybourne-Stratford application (for funding for further development work on the economic benefits) was lodged in response to the initial call for projects, which gave next to no time to get something in. It did not make it into the first list, but has appeared on the most recent list issued by the DfT without any further submission being made.
It is primarily a project about improving connectivity between Oxfordshire, the North Cotswolds, Worcestershire, Warwickshire and the West Midlands - and addressing the transport needs of the large new settlement set to appear at Long Marston airfield over the next decade or so - on top of the houses already built on part of the old Royal Engineers depot site at Meon Vale, just south of the old Long Marston station. And it would require further redoubling on the Cotswold Line - but that issue is being addressed by a separate project to improve that route anyway.
See
https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...ments-debated-in-the-house-of-commons.199093/
The London-Stratford traffic would be a nice add-on and reflects where a lot of tourists visiting England go - London, Oxford and Stratford. The former NSE/Thames/FGW Paddington-Oxford-Stratford service was switched to Chiltern, cutting out Oxford, because DfT wanted a neat franchise map and didn't like the FGW area sticking out into Warwickshire, not because of what made marketing sense when it came to tourism. And the way Chiltern has treated Stratford ever since the switch was made - including dropping most of the through trains and then trying to make out it was doing the town a favour when it brought some of them back - has won it no friends at all locally.
The issues over the Long Marston station area are well known and easily dealt with by realigning the track to run one side or the other.
In Stratford there is no question whatever of closing the A4390 between Seven Meadows and Evesham Road. It has a key role as a relief road of sorts keeping traffic from the south and south west out of the town centre, even if it is less than ideal, but then that just about sums up the entire road network in Stratford, so closing bits of it are simply not an option.
The solution here is straightforward, which is the use of a single track in a trench alongside the road, to help with noise reduction, and a tunnel under the Evesham Road roundabout* with the line then rising to the station. The road was built with wide verges, so there is space to work with.
*There used to be a level crossing at this location, not a bridge as suggested somewhere above, which was pretty notorious for causing queues of traffic when trains were passing, so a tunnel is the only option here - bridges, embankments or anything like that are simply a non-starter amid all the houses, which is why the trench/tunnel idea was proposed in the first place.
There are some photos of the old level crossing, including the large signal box built by the Western Region in 1960, on this page. The website also has descriptions and old pictures of the line towards Honeyboune (see the section about the North Warwickshire Line) as far west as Pebworth, the last halt before Honeybourne.
And there is lots of background reading about the reopening proposals here
http://www.shakespeareline.com/stratford-to-honeybourne.html
and here
http://suawoox.com
www.railbusinessdaily.com
corshamrailwaystation.org
