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East West rail, Bletchley to oxford line


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On 13/02/2020 at 14:55, Nearholmer said:

There are several ‘build another MK’ ideas being floated, including the one mentioned and a scheme that effectively fills all the land between The actual MK and Northampton, a great deal of which is what might be termed ‘MK Rural’ already, being part of the unitary authority area.

 

Aside from not being too happy to see endless concreting-over, when what the country is supposed to be doing is revitalising the North, I “don’t get” any of these schemes, because the ‘secret’ of MK was the Development Commission. 
 

The DC was hugely controversial, but it worked, by ensuring that infrastructure provision and services were created in advance of need (only now are they hitting capacity) using huge wedges of public money, and it created and applied a holistic vision, which again has worked surprisingly well in the long term.

 

I hear no talk of a DC for any of these other schemes, and without a body with those sweeping (actually un-democratic in many ways) powers, all that will arise is an endless sea of mid-range housing, under-provided with infrastructure and services.

 

If you think MK is dystopia (it actually isn’t, it’s just very different from most other places), a version of it without a ‘guiding mind’ would be true misery.

Actually, there has been recent consultation on Development Corporations as a model of delivery for the scale of need in UK plc.

 

Housing Infrastructure Fund money also provides opportunities for forward finding infrastructure.  In addition to s106 about which there is so much comment - some well informed, others far less so.

 

The failure of South Oxfordshire to produce a realistic Local Plan (alongside a squadron of other Local Plans  which aren't dealing with the issues they need to and failing at Examination in Public) sees the possibility of the County Council taking over preparation of the Plan.  

 

There is a need for housing - but that must be as part of balanced land use planning.

 

It is lamentable in the 21st century that people are living in the sort of office to resi conversions in  Harlow which bypass formal planning control.  Those who say new housing is not required don't have to live in some of those squalid conditions.

 

By rediscovering New Towns and satellite settlements we're going back to the Abercrombie Plan - or something like it.  Strategic planning in this country took a massive hit,  but it's coming back into fashion since seeing the bigger picture is pretty fundamental.

 

We used to do New Towns surprisingly well, in terms of what people were leaving behind. Don't forget the Garden Cities, admired across the world- but WGC is sadly denuded of its westward and eastward branch line links - and East West transport in Herts is a live issue.

 

Totally agree housing (and employment use) should be matched by infrastructure and places for people to recreate.

 

Milton Keynes is successful- but based on the dream of the car  and private car ownership. Proper alternatives need to be provided as we move forwards to provide choice.

 

Proper, quick, well connected public transport is a massive part of that. East West Rail will be a very big deal.

 

Best regards

 

Matt W 

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Agree with all of that, and it’s interesting to hear that DCs might make a come-back.

 

You are spot-on regarding transport within MK ....... best hope in practice is personal EVs and shared-taxi-minibuses, and possibly hire-by-the-hour EVs, because the highly dispersed layout simply couldn’t viably be served by conventional bus routes or by light rail in a meaningful way. More/better bus would help (kinda like it was c1982), but not  solve the conundrum entirely.

 

This is something any new new city would need to do differently, possibly by building clusters of higher density along a LR route ...... like a string of beads.

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On 13/02/2020 at 13:57, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Calvert as a new town location only makes sense with:

1) East-West rail corridor (Oxford - Bletchley - Cambridge)

2) New east- west trunk road (linking M40 to M1).

3) a station on HS2.

10 yes definitely.

2) Yes probably

3) Definitely not because then HS2 would cease to be a HS route, its to take the long distance trains away from the WCML, ECML and to a lesser extent the MML, HS2 needs to be have its first station at Birmingham to make the best advantage of its HS moniker.

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5 hours ago, D826 said:

Don't forget the Garden Cities, admired across the world- but WGC is sadly denuded of its westward and eastward branch line links - and East West transport in Herts is a live issue.

 

 

Welwyn GC to St Alban's is another example of a railway solum that is largely intact but in use for bikes/walkers. It should be possible to provide a light rail solution.

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2 hours ago, royaloak said:

10 yes definitely.

2) Yes probably

3) Definitely not because then HS2 would cease to be a HS route, its to take the long distance trains away from the WCML, ECML and to a lesser extent the MML, HS2 needs to be have its first station at Birmingham to make the best advantage of its HS moniker.

Agree. The line towards Quainton Road and Aylesbury is part of the EWR project, and a station allowing trains to head to London along that route would provide the necessary connectivity in that direction (if it's too slow via Aylesbury then the money would be better spent on rebuilding the Ashendon - Grendon Underwood line rather than a HS2 station).

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31 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Ashendon - Grendon Underwood line

 

I've travelled on that route Bletchley - Claydon LNE Jcn  - Ashenden - Grenden Underwood - Marylebone hauled by an EE Type 4 (Class 40) on a diverted Heysham Harbour to London Euston Train during the Euston rebuild in the early 60s; Happy days.

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Ashenden junction.  What a place, you could have seen Kings, Castles, Halls A3s, V2s, B1s and later Black 5s, and knackered Patriots and Brittanias at the end...

 

Got a superb book called 'Watching the trains at Brill' with speeds in the 90s recorded thundering down from Haddenham and Princes Risborough.

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3 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Welwyn GC to St Alban's is another example of a railway solum that is largely intact but in use for bikes/walkers. It should be possible to provide a light rail solution.

Apart from your geography being a bit wayward far more people use the former railway routes now than ever did when it was a railway. The Cole Green section to Hertford is also well used.

The bus service from Hatfield to Hertford was reduced a few years ago due to there being little demand. 

Some of us have fought hard to get these routes opened to public access. As much as I support railways I do want to keep these routes open as sustainable transport alternatives for short distance commuters or leisure use.. There are several places where reinstatement would be problematical due to obstruction and the removal of bridges. It took a long while to get the local authority to rebuild one bridge and a lot of local people will not be best please with any idea to take away what many, me included, regard as an important community asset.

Bernard

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Not just locals - they form parts of some key long-distance traffic-free cycle-routes too, and are surprisingly well used as such from march to October.

 

Herts council is not generally very good at cycle routes, neglecting to a borderline dangerous degree* key parts of some it does have, so more power to those who lobby for cycling in the county.

 

*long, boring list of neglect available upon request.

 

 

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14 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Apart from your geography being a bit wayward far more people use the former railway routes now than ever did when it was a railway. The Cole Green section to Hertford is also well used.

The bus service from Hatfield to Hertford was reduced a few years ago due to there being little demand. 

Some of us have fought hard to get these routes opened to public access. As much as I support railways I do want to keep these routes open as sustainable transport alternatives for short distance commuters or leisure use.. There are several places where reinstatement would be problematical due to obstruction and the removal of bridges. It took a long while to get the local authority to rebuild one bridge and a lot of local people will not be best please with any idea to take away what many, me included, regard as an important community asset.

Bernard

I used to use Alban Way every day to cycle from St Alban's to Hatfield, as part of my commute from Bedford. You could say I travelled on the railway the whole way, apart from the short stretch between STA and the path.

It's 15 years since I did it, but I'd agree that far more people use it as part of their daily commute than ever did while it was served by steel wheel on steel rail.

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Going back to Milton Keynes for a moment I guess the most immediate solution would be for hi capacity artic electric  trolleybuses as can be seen in many European cities. A visit to Salzburg in Austria is stunning. 

 

The problem in the UK is that we think we know better, and leave it to the likes of Stagecoach, Arriva and First to develop what they want to. Back in 2014 Arriva created a new Diamond bus route from Cannock to Walsall, the West Midlands boundary being just north of Bloxwich. New 64 plate Streetlite single deckers were branded for the route 1 and 2, but that was all swept away last year when the route was de Diamondised, Streetlites sent to Derby and old 06 plate "bangers" replaced.  Admittedly NXWM came along n competition and have taken most of the custom with new Enviro "Platinum"s.

 

And that would be the problem.  The UK believes in free unfettered bus operation and they won't be wiling to invest in trolley infrastructure, without being forced to.  

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Agree about trolleybuses  you do not need continuous wires only a charging point at intervals on the route, this works well and It could happen in the UK. The reason it wont happen  is inertia in the minds of planners and bus companies  if the voters were made aware of this mode of transport they would demand it put in place.The new service to MK will be an extension of existing services and wasting money on replacing track to the Bicester line is not required plus if passengers on the High Wycombe line wish to go to MK they will take a train to Bicester Town and then go north .Aylesbury to MK will be a well used service with passengers from before the town taking advantage as well.Also connections to whats left of north bound services on the wcml  and the mml so its a win win for everyone.

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Lyon used to have a mixture of diesel, electro-diesel and straight electric vehicles, all built at the nearby Berliet factory, and seemingly identical to less-observant. I was on an electric one once where the driver thought he was on a diesel, and tried overtaking a line of stationary buses... I walked the rest of the way to Perrache.

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Covkid,

 

MK have been using fuel-cell buses for some years, and I think some battery vehicles, and are in a head-to-head with a couple of other places to secure funding for extensive battery operation. 

 

The 'big issue' for MK though is that conventional bus-route (or tram route) design doesn't work, because of the dispersed, "centreless", nature of the city. It leads to either very twisty bus routes that most people ignore because they take far too long, or fast, direct buses on main roads that everyone ignores because the stops are a major hike from final origins and destinations, and it often involves changing buses, which is the death knell to popularity. Both options have been tried, and neither has really worked. Bus user-ship is pretty low.

 

Which is why I suggest things other than conventional high-capacity, fixed-route buses (or trams). The ultimate will be driver-less electric taxis, and the technology that will eventually get there is on trial (we can already get our groceries delivered by robot mini-vehicle  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-46045365 ), but until then ViaVan is probably the best system for a place laid-out as MK is https://support.viavan.com/hc/en-us/categories/360001093252-Milton-Keynes .

 

Kevin

 

 

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4 hours ago, lmsforever said:

 new service to MK will be an extension of existing services and wasting money on replacing track to the Bicester line is not required plus if passengers on the High Wycombe line wish to go to MK they will take a train to Bicester Town and then go north.

Oxford to MK is presently served by the pretty well used (when I've caught it) X5 bus, and the onward connections from Oxford ought to be attractive to people from MK. Not to mention the potential for getting freight off the bottom of the WCML whilst also avoiding the overcrowded Coventry to Birmingham line.

 

If anything in the scope could be described as "wasting money" it's probably the Aylesbury branch rather than the main line to Oxford, but I think the whole thing will prove to be useful and popular.

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1 hour ago, Zomboid said:

Oxford to MK is presently served by the pretty well used (when I've caught it) X5 bus, and the onward connections from Oxford ought to be attractive to people from MK. Not to mention the potential for getting freight off the bottom of the WCML whilst also avoiding the overcrowded Coventry to Birmingham line.

 

If anything in the scope could be described as "wasting money" it's probably the Aylesbury branch rather than the main line to Oxford, but I think the whole thing will prove to be useful and popular.

'Aylesbury Branch' - hang on a mo -  that's part of the former Great Central main line (and Met to Quainton Rd and Verney Junction). The Master Cutler and South Yorkshireman used to pound through there so less of the 'branch' !  

 

Plus it'll enable people to get out of Aylesbury north and points west and east by means other than the car. Given the size it will be - that's a good thing.  Barely recognise the expanded market town it was when I grew up there.  A traffic engineers erotic dream of signallised junctions that can't cope with the levels of traffic.

 

In a further twist of serendipity, most of Brackley viaduct ended up providing hard core for Milton Keynes.  Look at pictures of it and weep. (Brackley viaduct - not MK you understand) !

 

If the route of the GCR hadn't been squandered in 66, then the HS2 thread about additional capacity on the WCML and ECML probably wouldn't be an issue.

 

Put the cost of HS2 in the evaluation of the poor old GCR and I bet the sums would look mighty different.  Sir Edward Watkins vision will 'sort' of be realised 130 years late.

 

In the spirit of the motto of the GCR - Forwards.

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Its connecting 2 large settlements in Bucks, Aylesbury has onward connection to London.  Its performing a fundamental role as a sustainable transport link.  At the population Aylesbury will have, and MK has it's hardly a branch, and connecting to London at its south end  it ain't a branch in my book.

 

Matt W

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I think we're going down a rabbit hole here... EWR is ultimately about connecting Oxford, MK, Bedford and Cambridge. The railway which already exists from Calvert to Aylesbury enables another market to be served, but if it weren't already there I'm not sure that rebuilding it would be part of the project. That said, it should be a popular service when it starts.

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7 hours ago, rodent279 said:

 

It's 15 years since I did it, but I'd agree that far more people use it as part of their daily commute than ever did while it was served by steel wheel on steel rail.

 

You are comparing apples with oranges.

 

Not that I wish to decry the success of this or any other cycleway, but a good light rail service would transport even more people. Look at Wimbledon-Croydon now by comparison with the old days of BR.

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And, an LR, or guided busway, and a good cycleway, can happily co-exist.

 

The former LNER Luton-Dunstable Branch is now a guided busway, paralleled by an exceedingly good cycleway (it took a lot of work by local lobbyists to get the cycle path up to scratch, though. What was initially provided was as rough as the proverbial, a sort of urban mountain-biking course).

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5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The 'big issue' for MK though is that conventional bus-route (or tram route) design doesn't work, because of the dispersed, "centreless", nature of the city. It leads to either very twisty bus routes that most people ignore because they take far too long, or fast, direct buses on main roads that everyone ignores because the stops are a major hike from final origins and destinations, and it often involves changing buses, which is the death knell to popularity. Both options have been tried, and neither has really worked. Bus user-ship is pretty low.

 

It isn't centreless, the main office employment zone and shopping/leisure zone is CMK. But having worked in Lelystad, Netherlands, I think alot could be done to improve the current layout. Lelystad, and other towns too, have an integrated public transport system, centred around the rail connection. All bus routes are basically figures of eight around the station, and all buses connect in 10 -15 minute windows at the station, so if you do need to change bus, it is a doddle. All other bus stops also have a large display telling you how many minutes until the bus arrives, so if it shows 01 when you turn the corner, you might want to get a move on.

 

The one thing that MK needs to do is ban the cars from the station forecourt area, as currently it is a place to be avoided a certain times, and all they do is get in the way of the buses. One thing that is slowly happening though is the proliferation of the 40 limit. Since the demise of MKDC, the road infrastucture has not kept up, and originally envisaged dual carriageway roads have failed to materialise. If the grid was blanket restricted to 40/50 for two-way/dual roads, then bus usage might increase, and with the increased service level EWR will offer able to get a lot of people to four stations in the area, the bus service needs to notch-up a fair bit.

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