East West Rail Consortium established 1995, idea itself around pretty much since it closed in the first place.
Yes, the gap between 1995 and "a few years ago" is part of what I'm complaining about.
I think part of the difficulty in understanding what you are on about is that there are actually several different issues you are raising: the lack of appetite for developing the rail network in toe 70s and 80s; the fact that EWR wasn't prioritised after 1995, and the time lag between when it was (2011) and projected opening (2019). They are all quite distinct and complex issues.
Should EWR in 1995 have been prioritised above (inter alia) Thameslink, Crossrail, Chiltern Evergreen (remember that 20 years ago the Chiltern Mainline was still single track from Princes Risborough to Aynho), WCRM? It's actually done quite well in that it was generally seen as a long way down the list, and potentially decades away, until the 2011 announcement moved it up the queue.
It is difficult to respect posts which consist entirely of a string of marketing buzzwords.
Apologies, I was unaware that 'electrified' and 'faster' (i.e. higher linespeeds) were marketing buzzwords. The reference to the 21st century was meant to point out that the railway will be built to modern standards and requirements, not historic ones - as an example by closing or replacing the many level crossings. There are about 75 such crossings, all of which require a replacement to be designed and appropriate consultation held.
Just to illustrate the change, the Bicester-Oxford line was largely 30mph single track until the recent works, and the Oxfordshire Way footpath actually
followed the line for a short distance. This is the sort of thing that needs to be dealt with, otherwise we just end up reinstating a museum piece.
...This is not difficult.
You are right, putting the track down probably won't be too difficult. But that's only a tiny percentage of the work needed for the whole project.
Of course, the real root of the problem is 1960s planning failure: Milton Keynes was built five miles too far to the north in the first place...
So they should have relocated the entire development to make it more convenient for interchange on a line that was about to be closed?
The reason the consensus on this forum is the way it is is because an apparent majority of the posters think that the way things happen to be done at present is an immutable constant established by divine writ, and react to any suggestion of doing things differently in the same way as a religious fundamentalist reacts to a heretic. The "disgrace" is that it takes 20 years of waffle to answer what boils down to a simple question of "do we or do we not reinstate usable track on this piece of formation which we already own", and that people do not merely fail to question a system which spends 20 years wasting time and money but actually defend it.
Well, to challenge the consensus you really need to come up with a viable alternative. So far, all I've heard is that this scheme should have been started 20 years ago, electrification should be abandoned and an east to north link added at Bletchley, and we could just get on with it using 10,000 volunteers and a track laying machine. No idea why Network Rail haven't given you a call already :roll:
As a potentially huge beneficiary of this line, nobody wants it to happen more than I do, but arguing for action now and complaining about 'how long it takes' is the sort of thing that gets politicians meddling in projects and increases the chances of delay (or outright failure).
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