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East West rail, Bletchley to oxford line


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As soon as I read.

 

An insider who has worked at East West Rail claims the Department for transport are set to axe the Aylesbury to Milton Keynes route of the rail link.

 

I note the words 'Has' .....which means he's not there anymore,  and 'claims'  which says he doesn't actually have any concrete evidence.  Just typical local rag fodder to wind up the residents.

 

A few years ago I attended a local council meeting over a contentious local issue, the local press attended and the report of the meeting bore no relation to what actually happened, I know the Clerk followed it up with a press release of corrections and they didn't get printed,. When the reporter attended another meeting she was asked about the article and her reply was "Good news doesn't sell papers"  She was asked to leave and told "No news will sell less" :D

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Does raise interesting questions, though, in that Aylesbury<>MK almost certainly doesn’t have anything like the latent demand of Oxford<>MK.

 

But, I do read it as an attempt to galvanise support for that route at a time when ‘everything is on the table’, rather than a real insider view of likely outcome.

 

 

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Always possible.

 

From a development/prosperity point of view, I would have thought that Aylesbury as a town (does it have a district council distinct from Aylesbury Vale?) would be really pushing to remain part of this, because it would help get the town a northward link, especially into WCML, that it has lacked since the GCR route was closed.

 

Aylesbury is actually a bit of a cul-de-sac communications-wise, because it is slightly too far from both the M1 and M40, and from either Chiltern or WCML for rail to Brum, and its rail link to London is pretty pedestrian, all of which must mean that it looses out on employment opportunities to MK, and even Bicester, which is better connected. Added to which, apart from the grammar school, courts, and Stoke Mandeville Hospital, it has relatively few things to attract people into the town ...... people don't generally plan a day out to Aylesbury (it has got one outstanding pub, and a good museum, but they probably aren't enough), which keeps it off most people's mental maps.

 

If I were Aylesbury, I would worry about becoming a latter-day Buckingham; a county town left behind by the travel-modes of the day.

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One (the one?) good reason for going there https://kingsheadaylesbury.co.uk/   It is very good. The Roald Dahl galleries at the museum are good for a wet afternoon in half-term if you have kids, and the old crown court has an interesting interior.

 

On the scope of that section, presumably there would be a fair bit to do on signalling on what is now a freight-only section, and it might need a re-configuration of the station, possibly involving creating a passing-loop at Aylesbury Vale, to avoid conflict between the Marylebone terminators and an MK service.

 

 

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That article would seem to show that East-West route is, as so often in the past, being built down to a price. There should surely be enough capacity for more than one train an hour on the Aylesbury to MK route. Given the ambitions for housing development in the area, the new rail facilities need to be designed and built with adequate capacity from the start. Doing it as a retrofit will be far more expensive and inconvenient.

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15 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

One (the one?) good reason for going there https://kingsheadaylesbury.co.uk/   It is very good. The Roald Dahl galleries at the museum are good for a wet afternoon in half-term if you have kids, and the old crown court has an interesting interior.

 

On the scope of that section, presumably there would be a fair bit to do on signalling on what is now a freight-only section, and it might need a re-configuration of the station, possibly involving creating a passing-loop at Aylesbury Vale, to avoid conflict between the Marylebone terminators and an MK service.

 

 

HS2 is re-aligning much of the line between Aylesbury and Claydon so I assume the track and signaling will be upgraded to modern standards.  There may be some extra cost specifically for restoring the passenger service, such as the loop you mention, but it's going to be small compared to the total amount being spent on the line in the next few years.  

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3 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

There should surely be enough capacity for more than one train an hour on the Aylesbury to MK route

 

I think the assertion within the article about pathing is not the section from Claydon to Bletchley,  but from Bletchley to MK on the WCML.

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1 minute ago, Edwin_m said:

and signaling will be upgraded to modern standards

 

But, I think "modern standards" for a freight-only section might (a) be much the same as "historic standards" and (b) short of what is needed for passenger operation. The Claydon Junction end would almost certainly need to be different, for instance.

 

 

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Aylesbury does have its problems in the town centre the shops are shall we say a bit lack lustre and quite a few have closed down.But there are bright points a new development by the cinema has added what people want and a new three story restaurant devlopment has now given the town a destination for entertainment .Travel wise we can access Chiltern to Brum in about ten mins at Haddenham  with good access by bus which goes onto Oxford. Journeys to MK are mainly for the shopping centre some work there but the buses are not that busy ,the new train service could tempt people out of thier cars but overall I dont think it will be an instant success.Most people leave the town towards London by car and train and that will not change .Houses are being built at an alarming rate and the newcomers dont seem to want to integrate with others in the town causing problems all round.We have a town council who are very good and try hard to promote and provide services and events for the inhabitants.The othe concil is Bucks CC not very good buts thats all we have now.

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I meant to add ,the comments about the press certainly ring bells our local paper is worse than useless they barely provide a decent service to readers all you read it for are the hatched and dispatched columns the rest is crap.Even our local radio station which has been vibrant and very local in its coverage is changing ,its been bought out by a national and is being changed to only playing the new owners programes no local news to speak of .

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1 hour ago, lmsforever said:

Agree a two car unit would probably suffice for a start up service but at the moment trains are extremely quiet lets hope the government encourage people to use them again.

It's probably a legitimate question to ask if an hourly 2 car train is a good use of the WCML slow lines (which won't be drowning in excess capacity for that kind of thing, even after HS2 frees a load up). If that's the likely train service then it might be more sensible for it to go to Bedford, but then that loses the link to MK, and all the benefits that that would bring.

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1 hour ago, lmsforever said:

I meant to add ,the comments about the press certainly ring bells our local paper is worse than useless they barely provide a decent service to readers all you read it for are the hatched and dispatched columns the rest is crap.Even our local radio station which has been vibrant and very local in its coverage is changing ,its been bought out by a national and is being changed to only playing the new owners programes no local news to speak of .

 

Barely any content to read in any local newspaper these days. They are just there as advertising space.

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2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

But, I think "modern standards" for a freight-only section might (a) be much the same as "historic standards" and (b) short of what is needed for passenger operation. The Claydon Junction end would almost certainly need to be different, for instance.

It's normal to upgrade goods lines to passenger standards on re-signaling etc, unless there's a good reason not to.  For example the survivors of the extensive Goods lines on the Midland Main Line are all now passenger-rated, with the exception of ones on the west side just north of Leicester.  Those in the Erewash Valley, for example, rarely carry passenger trains but were upgraded anyway.  With low traffic densities between Aylesbury Vale and Calvert there's no real saving from omitting signaling overlaps etc, and if the track is being relayed anyway by HS2 then if specified suitable for freight at a reasonable speed it would probably also be suitable for multiple units.  HS2 may even be "contracted" to provide a railway to passenger standards, in which case it would probably cost more to change the contract than any money saved!  

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6 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

 

I think the assertion within the article about pathing is not the section from Claydon to Bletchley,  but from Bletchley to MK on the WCML.

 

Would be a big waste of a WCML path to just use it between Denbigh Hall South and Milton Keynes.

 

Long term it might save money to free the path for longer distance use by putting in a fifth track from Denbigh Hall south to Milton Keynes. But you would need a lot of Aylesbury - Milton Keynes traffic to make it worth doing, as opposed to making the service change at Bletchley.

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