Information Sheet Princes Risborough – Aylesbury May 2016 .
Introduction
East West Rail (EWR) aims to establish a strategic railway connecting East Anglia with Central, Southern and Western England. The proposed East West Rail route can be broken down into three sections: Western, Central and Eastern.
East West Rail Western Section
The work has been broken down into two separate phases.
Phase 1
Work between the new Oxford Parkway station and Bicester Village has been completed and services began operating on 26th October 2015. Work between Oxford and Oxford Parkway is due for completion by December 2016 with services commencing shortly afterwards.
Phase 2
The East West Rail Western Section Phase 2 (EWR2) project involves the upgrade and reconstruction of existing and mothballed sections of line linking Bedford-Bicester and Milton Keynes-Princes Risborough.
This will allow passenger and freight services to run between Bedford and Bicester and between Milton Keynes and London via Aylesbury.
Consultation
Consultation on EWR2 was carried out in September/October 2015 and our original plans involved substantial work to allow an increased line speed of 80mph along the Princes Risborough – Aylesbury line. However, further development of timetable modelling has concluded that the line speed improvements are not now required to achieve the planned service pattern of one hourly passenger train (in each direction) and capacitiy for freight trains. As a result of this it is no longer proposed to increase the line speed along the route and therefore the associated construction work is no longer required. EWR2’s likely scope of work involves extending the platforms at Little Kimble, Monks Risborough and Princes Risborough to allow longer four car trains to operate and the EWR2 project will continue to develop options for the closure of Marsh Lane level crossing. We are also working closely with HS2 to,as best practicable, integrate the projects where they overlap.
Longer Term Plan
Network Rail’s Long Term Planning would be to deliver further capacity improvements along the line, which could require full double tracking. The line could also be a candidate for electrification. These plans will be included in Network Rail’s Route Study document to be published May 2016 and will be subject to government and industry consultation. Planning for this would not be envisaged before the mid 2020’s.