What is really happening with East West Rail (EWR) between Bedford and Cambridge

[WestCountry]

Something weird here... The cabbageway is the new A421 between M1 J13 and the Black Cat roundabout, of which the Bedford southern bypass is a part. It was all brand new construction and does not occupy any railway alignments.

Are you getting mixed up with the guided bus thing in Cambridge?

Yep, or at least misunderstanding what you were referring to by 'cabbageway' - which in my defence is a rather odd term to describe anything! :?

 

[L&Y Robert]

Yep, or at least misunderstanding what you were referring to by 'cabbageway' - which in my defence is a rather odd term to describe anything! :?

It was "Pigeon" started it, tail end of post 12.

 

[D365]

Isn't that what HS2 is? And we're at least 10 years and £50b away from that at the moment. And then there is phase 2 .......

Phase 2 is costed for within the £50bn...

 

[ac6000cw]

Personally I don't think the Bedford - Cambridge link will ever be built.

There just doesn't seem to be that much interest in it this part of the world - Cambridge has got more and more London orientated over the 35 years I've lived here, hence the 6 trains per hour off-peak to London (some 12 car), versus 1 tph on all the other routes.

There is far more support for rebuilding the A14 Cambridge-Huntingdon (very long overdue) and improving the Black Cat - Cambourne section of the A1-A428. I don't think anyone locally has ever talked to me about EWR, but the state of the A14 etc. comes up all the time....

Actually once the A428 is fully dualled, Cambridge North station open and EWR services are running Oxford-Bedford, why not build an interchange station where the A421 is close to the line south of Bedford and run a dedicated fast coach link between there and Cambridge North as a fully integrated railway service ?

I think that serious rebuilding/realignment of the Manchester-Leeds route is a far more important use of available railway investment funds than EWR - linking cities with millions of people rather than hundreds of thousands.

 

[jimm]

I think that serious rebuilding/realignment of the Manchester-Leeds route is a far more important use of available railway investment funds than EWR - linking cities with millions of people rather than hundreds of thousands.

Given that one defining characteristic of Milton Keynes ever since its development got under way is the lack of any half-decent transport links in any direction except towards London and up to the Midlands, either rail or road, I think we'll have to disagree on this. Links from Cambridge running west/south-west aren't much to write home about either and may partly explain its London-centricity.

Bedford-Cambridge reopening will take a lot longer to achieve than Oxford-MK-Bedford, for fairly obvious reasons, but the investment to reopen Oxford-Bletchley and make Bletchley-Bedford into something more than a backwater is long overdue and worth every penny.

 

[Andyjs247]

There are numerous examples where a new road or bypass follows an existing railway alignment. So the principle of following an existing transport corridor for new build where possible appears to be established. There has been little significant new build railway infrastructure in similar timescales although the most notable example, HS1, demonstrates this principle as it parallels the M2/M20 through Kent.

Given enough political will, I would suggest the logical route between Bedford and Cambridge (if significant new build railway infrastructure is required) would be broadly along the A421/A428 corridor. Connections to the ECML would be relatively easy at St Neots, then via Cambourne roughly following the A428 to the M11 south and via Trumpington to join the previous ex-Sandy alignment into Cambridge.

The biggest problem will still be getting through Bedford and out again towards the A421. There doesn't appear to be an easy solution here but it is perhaps less difficult to approach Bedford from the north and then using the ex Sandy route as far as the A421 before using new alignment to St Neots.

I'm not sure if you could serve Milton Keynes Central and approach Bedford from the north on the new alignment without a significant detour.

 

[sammorris]

Personally I don't think the Bedford - Cambridge link will ever be built. There just doesn't seem to be that much interest in it this part of the world - Cambridge has got more and more London orientated

I think it's a chicken and egg situation - the reason there's little interest in it is because people in this region have long been used to trains being for London and nothing else, and feel it's silly to expect to go to other places on a train. If the line were there, that might not be the case.

However, in at least the short term I share your feeling that it won't be built.

 

[richieb1971]

If the line were built it would open up possibilities beyond people in Cambridge.. a very short sighted opinion is to believe only people in Cambridge would benefit.

Half the freight in the country could use the central section freeing up valuable resources around London. and thats just FREIGHT.

What about getting to Stansted from Bedford? By road you have to travel dangerous B roads or take a 35 mile round route.. Ridiculous.

I could write a book about how benefit the central section is, so no matter who talks about it, its certainly a benefit to this country as a whole.

 

[sammorris]

I could write a book about how benefit the central section is, so no matter who talks about it, its certainly a benefit to this country as a whole.

...and I agree, I just don't believe the current government will be interested in it. The southern route would have the most appeal to ministers (it could be sold as a "high speed link" between two London airports) but unfortunately it just doesn't look practical to me.

 

[richieb1971]

The reason we know not much will be done about the central section is because the current work on western section is so slow.

It also involves getting Beds county council on board.

The problem with most people on here and in the country as a whole is that locals don't see the benefits for the nation, only themselves. Currently most freight trains from Felixstowe take a hell of a round trip to get on the WCML. Its almost as if Felixstowe was positioned in the most horrible place in the UK.

3 cheers for the UK.. hip hip.

 

[The Planner]

Half the freight in the country could use the central section freeing up valuable resources around London. and thats just FREIGHT.

Except that is what Felixstowe to Nuneaton is all about, which has very slowly started to get sorted.

 

[ac6000cw]

Except that is what Felixstowe to Nuneaton is all about, which has very slowly started to get sorted.

Exactly, and that route keeps the freight off the mainlines radiating from London until much further north than EWR could.

As far as I remember, EWR was originally conceived/supported by a consortium of local authorities, rather than as a 'national' scheme. Without the local support I doubt the eastern end is going anywhere fast (Cambridgeshire CC has never been very pro-rail, and it sounds like Bedfordshire CC is a bit lukewarm these days about EWR from the comments above).

I think the original routing idea of reinstating Bedford-Sandy, then down the ECML to the Hitchin-Cambridge line (via a north to east curve) was the most viable (as in most likely to actually get off the drawing board), but I suspect the added Thameslink traffic has scuppered that in capacity terms.

 

[richieb1971]

If you look in the other thread they want more depots in London at Sundon and Radlett.

I am all for the Ely/Peterborough/Nuneaton line to get overhauled the thing looks like it hasn't been upgraded since Queen Victoria ruled the nation.

We still need a EWR though. Simply put, rail is just not economical the way things stand.

 

[ac6000cw]

We still need a EWR though. Simply put, rail is just not economical the way things stand.

...and how does spending hundreds of millions on a new route improve the economics for short distance freight traffic, when you amortise the cost of building it over the number of freight trains using it in say a 50 year period ?

(Felixstowe to Radlett is less than 100 miles, and most of the London area is closer to Felixstowe so direct trucking is even more attractive).

Probably most of the rail freight traffic in the UK wouldn't be economically viable if it wasn't subsidised by the passenger business paying for most of the infrastructure it uses.

Radlett is attractive (from a property developer viewpoint) because it's very close to the M1, M25 and A1(M) - the possibility of a rail connection adds some 'green' credentials to the planning application, but it will be hard economics that determine what form of transport actually shifts the freight in and out of it day-to-day.

 

[richieb1971]

I didn't mean in the context of freight only.

If I want to go from Bedford to Stansted airport by rail I have to go either of these routes -

Bedford, Leicester, Peterborough, Stansted

Or Bedford, London, Stansted..

Even by road I have to get to Cambridge before I can divert south to Stansted. Or take B roads the entire journey.

The central section adds so much more options. Since your from Cambridge you have an advantage in this particular case.

Now, if you wanted to go to Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Banbury and your catching the train from Cambridge, you have to go through London. Which is ridiculous.

People like myself only want this new railway because it was taken away from us in 1967. I am pro-rail and I will always want a railway built for better connections. The railway we have is pretty good up north with connections in every direction, but down where i am all the lines go up and down and none go from East to West.. Causing a silly situation where rail almost never gets chosen over a bus.


edit - I would just like to add that the prices quoted on these railways show that nobody is in the real world. I don't know exact figures but it comes to something like £8.3m per mile of track. I don't know how much steel costs.. but I do know that machines available today can move a lot of dirt. Someone quote a ridiculous price before its built, then whilst its being built the price almost double and then when it finishes we pay them bonus's so they can charge 33% more than that on top. It wouldn't surprise if anything we do in this country is paid up to quadruple what the actual cost should have been.

 

[Pigeon]

Yep, or at least misunderstanding what you were referring to by 'cabbageway' - which in my defence is a rather odd term to describe anything! :?

Sorry - I always call dual carriageways dual cabbageways, even though I can't remember the joke to which it is the punchline any more

As far as I remember, EWR was originally conceived/supported by a consortium of local authorities, rather than as a 'national' scheme. Without the local support I doubt the eastern end is going anywhere fast (Cambridgeshire CC has never been very pro-rail, and it sounds like Bedfordshire CC is a bit lukewarm these days about EWR from the comments above).

As I remember it, when the scheme was first seriously proposed it was supported by everyone except Beds, who didn't care. I don't think it's a case of being anti-rail so much as just being utterly clueless.

I didn't mean in the context of freight only.

If I want to go from Bedford to Stansted airport by rail I have to go either of these routes -

Bedford, Leicester, Peterborough, Stansted

Or Bedford, London, Stansted..

Even by road I have to get to Cambridge before I can divert south to Stansted. Or take B roads the entire journey.

The central section adds so much more options. Since your from Cambridge you have an advantage in this particular case.

Now, if you wanted to go to Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Banbury and your catching the train from Cambridge, you have to go through London. Which is ridiculous.

People like myself only want this new railway because it was taken away from us in 1967. I am pro-rail and I will always want a railway built for better connections. The railway we have is pretty good up north with connections in every direction, but down where i am all the lines go up and down and none go from East to West.. Causing a silly situation where rail almost never gets chosen over a bus.

Agree completely, and it does baffle me that there seem to be quite a lot of people (in the general population) who only see the benefits in terms of end to end journeys on the link itself. Maybe it is because the state of the current network in being useless for journeys which are not to or from London has created a mode of thought where people automatically dismiss rail for such journeys even in the context of proposals which would make the network not useless for them.

One of the main reasons I have a car is because Bedford-Worcester by train is such a painful grind. Bedford-Oxford-Worcester using the EW link would have been much better.

I am also in favour of east-west links closer in to London, between the towns north of the M25 that are in a sense loosely associated with each other but only by road as the train journeys between them are into London and out again - this as a separate project, because trying to make one link serve both purposes will mean it is rubbish for at least one of them.

edit - I would just like to add that the prices quoted on these railways show that nobody is in the real world. I don't know exact figures but it comes to something like £8.3m per mile of track. I don't know how much steel costs.. but I do know that machines available today can move a lot of dirt. Someone quote a ridiculous price before its built, then whilst its being built the price almost double and then when it finishes we pay them bonus's so they can charge 33% more than that on top. It wouldn't surprise if anything we do in this country is paid up to quadruple what the actual cost should have been.

Things have been like that for hundreds of years. It's why so many of the early railways found themselves crippled from the word go. Rule of thumb for any large civil engineering project is to take the estimated cost, double it, and add a bit more for luck... only for some reason people don't seem to actually do this and instead take the estimated cost as gospel then get all horrified when it ends up costing way more than that.

These days there seems to be a "railway premium" as well. I remember proposals to extend a couple of platforms on the Cotswold line a few years after privatisation which got stuck in the mud because the cost of piling up dirt in a square heap beside the track was comparable with that of building quite a lot of houses, which is barmy.

 

[Ediswan]

Trying to shoe-horn E-W to run via Luton & Stevenage is madness, notwithstanding the fact the Luton-Stevenage link does not and has never existed.

Another factor against that idea I have not seen mentioned is the geography. The land between Luton and Stevenage is all hills. Very scenic, but not the easiest place to build railway.

 

[richieb1971]

The only way Eastwards from Bedford is from the branchline. If you go north of Bedford on the MML your in a world of inclines, ridges, roads and all sorts.

 

[A0wen]

What about getting to Stansted from Bedford? By road you have to travel dangerous B roads or take a 35 mile round route.. Ridiculous.

You need a new map - the most obvious road route for that is A603 to Sandy, A1 to Baldock, A507 to Buntingford and A10 / A120 to Stansted.

I agree the A507 is not the best road, but it's certainly not B road standard.

And I don't believe the traffic flows from Stansted to Bedford are that significant - particularly when you consider the ease of access to Luton, Gatwick and East Mids already exist by rail from Bedford. And Birmingham and Heathrow are both easily accessible by road.

 

[TheKnightWho]

You need a new map - the most obvious road route for that is A603 to Sandy, A1 to Baldock, A507 to Buntingford and A10 / A120 to Stansted.

I agree the A507 is not the best road, but it's certainly not B road standard.

And I don't believe the traffic flows from Stansted to Bedford are that significant - particularly when you consider the ease of access to Luton, Gatwick and East Mids already exist by rail from Bedford. And Birmingham and Heathrow are both easily accessible by road.

What you are forgetting is transfers from Heathrow to both Luton and Stansted, though, which are both made possible by EWR whilst avoiding London.

 

[ac6000cw]

What you are forgetting is transfers from Heathrow to both Luton and Stansted, though, which are both made possible by EWR whilst avoiding London.

So Heathrow to Stansted via Reading, Oxford, and Bedford is a sensible alternative to Crossrail+Stansted Express (just one change at Liverpool Street) ?

(or Heathrow to Luton via Crossrail+Thameslink with one change at Farringdon)

 

[TheKnightWho]

So Heathrow to Stansted via Reading, Oxford, and Bedford is a sensible alternative to Crossrail+Stansted Express (just one change at Liverpool Street) ?

(or Heathrow to Luton via Crossrail+Thameslink with one change at Farringdon)

Airport passengers especially don't like changes. You're also forgetting that EWR is considerably faster than rail through London.

 

[A0wen]

What you are forgetting is transfers from Heathrow to both Luton and Stansted, though, which are both made possible by EWR whilst avoiding London.

You're joking right?

So you'd send people out via Oxford, Bletchley and Bedford to transfer from Heathrow to Luton or Stansted?

That's insane.

The Piccadilly line takes you through to St P - with an easy interchange to Thameslink for Luton.

It's only one change on the tube to get to Liverpool St for Stansted.

There's no way Heathrow via EWR to Luton or Stansted is going to be quicker.

And currently National Express 707 is timed to do Heathrow - Luton in 75 mins.

Lastly, I'm not sure there are that many people who transfer from Heathrow to either Luton or Stansted - most transfers will be onto flights leaving Heathrow.

 

[ac6000cw]

This site is quoting 106 minutes Reading-Bedford, so add Heathrow-Reading and you are already over 2 hours just to get to Bedford from Heathrow...

Crossrail will probably take about 40-45 minutes Heathrow-Farringdon (for Thameslink)/Liverpool Street (and it will be 4 tph).

 

[LateThanNever]

You're joking right?

So you'd send people out via Oxford, Bletchley and Bedford to transfer from Heathrow to Luton or Stansted?

That's insane.

The Piccadilly line takes you through to St P - with an easy interchange to Thameslink for Luton.

It's only one change on the tube to get to Liverpool St for Stansted.

There's no way Heathrow via EWR to Luton or Stansted is going to be quicker.

And currently National Express 707 is timed to do Heathrow - Luton in 75 mins.

Lastly, I'm not sure there are that many people who transfer from Heathrow to either Luton or Stansted - most transfers will be onto flights leaving Heathrow.

Does that mean they never come back? Perhaps they are all emigrating

 

[muddythefish]

If the Country can afford to build a whole new cabbageway, why can't it afford to build a whole new railway? Never mind this route and that route and the round-the-houses route - just build a nice new railway, as if it were a nice new cabbageway, and then put rails on it. Same philosophy, different hardware. Voila! Problem solved.

Crux of the matter really.

New dual carriageways taking up vast tracts of land are easy to build yet a railway line is "difficult".

Perhaps it's difficult because the wonks at the DfT don't like railways and never have done.

 

[richieb1971]

Roads can go up steep inclines and down again, railways can't really do that.

When I go to Stansted I use my satnav and the route it takes me seems rather long winded. The reason I go there is to drop people off most of the time since there is - NO TRAINS for non drivers to take. Funnily the last time I went I typed "Stanstead" and it took me about 40 miles away. Luckily I saw my error and still go to the airport in time. Fancy a place being called "Stanstead" that is on the way to "Stansted".. Its only a poxy village in the middle of nowhere.

You can always argue that using a road is a better idea than using a train. I would just like a choice. I actually prefer letting someone else do the driving especially over long distances.

Again, I am finding people here are anti rail rather than pro rail. For the country that invented the rail we are increasingly getting left behind on just about every aspect of rail travel. Trains are slower than most countries, our gauges are smaller, we don't build much anymore and some of our most important towns and cities will never be linked by rail again.

way to go UK.

 

[Hadders]

When I go to Stansted I use my satnav and the route it takes me seems rather long winded. The reason I go there is to drop people off most of the time since there is - NO TRAINS for non drivers to take.

So the Stansted Express service and trains that run from Birmingham New Street to Stansted Airport don't exist?

What about the railway station that's underneath the airport terminal?

 

[HilversumNS]

So the Stansted Express service and trains that run from Birmingham New Street to Stansted Airport don't exist?

What about the railway station that's underneath the airport terminal?

The service from New Street to Stansted is terrible. It's mostly quicker to go via Euston and often cheaper, faster and more comfortable.

 

[richieb1971]

Most people who know that the station of their own town doesn't link directly to the place they want to go will be heavily put off using the train.

If I want to go to York from Bedford, I drive to St Neots and get the train from there. If I want to go anywhere on the west coast, I drive to MKC and get the train from there.

If the EWR existed, I would just get the train from Bedford for most of my journeys.

If your only in the belief that everyone is using your own skillset and mindset to decide decisions then you automatically think everyone IS JUST LIKE YOU!.


If the EWR existed. In the summer time you could catch the train to beach locations with trains going east and west. That is a market totally screwed up down south. You cannot go to any beach location without changing trains.

Some of you will only dump the car if teleportation existed.. and I understand that. What I don't understand is why you want crap on everyone elses parade because they want a railway.