East West rail, Bletchley to oxford line

[Edwin_m]

5 hours ago, VarsityJim said:

Ah, so that’s why taking a decision 60 odd years ago to ‘mothball’ the whole Bedford to Cambridge route would probably not have been such a good idea either! Three evils in play then, closure in the first place (which wasn’t part of Beeching’s report), mothballing, or do as has been done. Tricky without a crystal ball!

There's a political problem here.  Saying that we want to close this line but we'll keep it just in case it's needed in the future allows opponents to level a charge that the proposer doesn't really believe in what they are saying.  

 

4 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Many villages grew around their railways so, other than duplicate lines, they will not be in the wrong place.

Not much evidence of that happening between Bedford and Cambridge while the line was opening, although some has happened since closure, thereby blocking it.  And more to the point, it has been decided that current and future housing development, where the residents will benefit from rail connections, is not going to be along the former alignment.    

[corneliuslundie]

At one time, though I don't know if it is now that case, when a line closed in Ireland it was mothballed for some years in case it was needed again. I don't know if any were ever reopened though, since as stated above if it was not needed in say 1980 why would it be needed in 1992, unless there was a new town ore similar or major new heavy industry on the route.

Jonathan

[VarsityJim]

12 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

 

The rails may have been 'borrowed' in places but the key issue is that the line from Bicester to Bletchley was mothballed and never closed, so ownership of the trackbed / formation was maintained throughout.

And in doing so, all of the bridges were kept, many of which are being re-used, which must surely be a major factor over a new alignment. Of course the original Bedford - Cambridge alignment is no longer viable due to housing, industrial estates etc but many of the bridges are still there too, so mothballing this section as per Bicester - Bletchley may have been a better option? I note from another post the political issues surrounding the closure and mothballing, but surely the same arguments stand for the B - C route?

[The Stationmaster]

17 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Many villages grew around their railways so, other than duplicate lines, they will not be in the wrong place.

 

Rebuilding an abandoned railway does not require any route re-planning & consultation or purchasing of land & buildings on the route, so it is very much cheaper than creating a new route.

But you are creating a new one - even if it is on abandoned or even in situ trackbed.  Just look at the work which had to be done to restore the line to Okehampton to a suitable standard for regular passenger train.  And that was a railway which was in fact still being maintained (to the level they needed) by its then owners.  A pal of mine had carried out a survey of the track a year or two previously for the then owners and had advised them on the need to change some of their maintenance procedures but his photos showed that the route would in no way be suitable for regular passenger train running without major slip & drainage work and a large amount of track renewal.

 

All that might be saved is the cost of land purchase and maybe some major earthworks but that will be in part balanced by having to remove all the old track and quite possibly regrade some earthworks to modern standards plus in all likelihood have to rebuild bridges.  Stations - remnants of - you can forget/. It's considerably cheaper to totally demolish what was there and start anew including the foundations - as has been proved on more than one occasion.

 

Just because it's there doesn't mean there won't be consultation and adverse public reaction issues.  Look at all the noise abatement nonsense which has had to be provided between Oxford and Bicester/. And that even had the track in place which until not too long ago was still being used by timetabled freight trains.  Just wait until Tavistock gets off the ground - if it ever does - and wait for the potential hullabaloo and outcry about destroying bat habitat (even if there aren't any bats using it) or moans about road traffic to the station site in Tavistock.  Detail consultation., even over a former trackbed, won't be an easy task and most people living nearby probably caon't even remember it when it was a railway line and now use it to walk their dog or throw their garden rubbish onto.

[phil-b259]

20 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Many villages grew around their railways so, other than duplicate lines, they will not be in the wrong place.

 

Rebuilding an abandoned railway does not require any route re-planning & consultation or purchasing of land & buildings on the route, so it is very much cheaper than creating a new route.

it all hinges on what you mean by ‘abandoned’….

‘Abandoned’ as in the formation is still owned by Network Rail and is thus officially part of the UK railway network from a legal perspective (even if it lacks rails and has mature trees growing on it) is a very different situation from ‘Abandoned’ as in no longer in Network Rail ownership (thus not part of the national rail network) so requires the passing of a Transport and Works Act (or a dedicated Parliamentary bill as per HS2) to build your railway.

 

In the case of the latter simply having a strip of land which may have at one time hosted a railway line in the past makes zero difference - the process of putting the railway back in planning terms will be EXACTLY the same as it had never existed - plus that reinstated railway will be expected to comply with all current standards - e.g. no level crossings, etc

 

As such it could easily be the case that a new route by-passing villages will actually come out even cheaper than slavishly following what went before.

 

. 

Edited November 5, 2023 by phil-b259

[phil-b259]

6 hours ago, VarsityJim said:

And in doing so, all of the bridges were kept, many of which are being re-used, which must surely be a major factor over a new alignment. Of course the original Bedford - Cambridge alignment is no longer viable due to housing, industrial estates etc but many of the bridges are still there too, so mothballing this section as per Bicester - Bletchley may have been a better option? I note from another post the political issues surrounding the closure and mothballing, but surely the same arguments stand for the B - C route?

Whether or not mothballing would have been a good idea is irrelevant!

 

Various Governments from the 1950s up to the early 1990s made it crystal clear that upon closure the primary duties of the British Railways Board in the event of closure of a railway was to dispose of all assets / liabilities and recover as much money as possible as quickly as possible.

 

As has been noted elsewhere the only reason the Oxford - Bletchley section survived for as long as it did was MOD traffic to Bicester and the need for DMUs based at Aylesbury to head over to Bletchley on a regular basis for servicing and had the Chiltern line fleet been modernised a couple of years earlier than was the case (say 1987) the I’m pretty sure that the Claydon - Bletchley bit would have been formally closed and sold off just like every other railway BR closed in the preceding decades.

 

In the event it managed to hang on in there until 1991/1992 - by which time a combination of a more positive attitude to rail and the complexities surrounding rail privatisation meant nobody got round to actually formerly closing it and it ended up passing to Railtrack as part of th3 operational railway network - rather than being retained by the BR board as part of their ‘burdensome estate’ of ex railway infrastructure (which has now been taken on by National Highways**)

 

** Formerly known as Highways England and the body which looks after Englands motorways.

 

 

[1E BoY]

On 04/11/2023 at 15:24, The Stationmaster said:

And by the time it ceased to be used Oxford - Bletchley was in any case getting into a pretty poor state with no more maintenance than was absolutely essential (if that much)

I think this picture I took on the 19th October 2008 sums up the track between Bletchley and Oxford at that time. It was taken at the former Launton station site east of Bicester which was in use for rubbish trains to Calvert via Claydon Junction.

 

My late father was a Bletchley driver and they regularly took units between Bletchley TMD and Aylesbury station. These were maintained and serviced overnight and were moved to Bletchley in the evening and returned early morning via Bletchley flyover. He was well used to the switchback nature of the line where the line went from Down to Up and back again. This can be seen in the image below. It was definitely a slow speed line!

[1E BoY]

In case the above image is not clear enough, I have used the zoom facility to crop the above image to show the track changing from the Up to the Down formation. 

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Various Governments from the 1950s up to the early 1990s made it crystal clear that upon closure the primary duties of the British Railways Board in the event of closure of a railway was to dispose of all assets / liabilities and recover as much money as possible as quickly as possible.

On the Keeswick - Cockermouth Line, various bridges/structures were still owned by BRB (residuary) in the 2000s

[phil-b259]

6 hours ago, melmerby said:

On the Keeswick - Cockermouth Line, various bridges/structures were still owned by BRB (residuary) in the 2000s

Only because nobody would buy them at time of closure (either as scrap / rumble or a standing structure) which is rather different from a deliberate policy to keep them intact in case of future use.

 

Usual reasons for this inability to find a buyer could include them being in a difficult place to access or the value of the materials not being worth the demolition cost plus that fact if the structure remained in existence it would bring with it liabilities (e.g. if a disused tunnel collapsed and houses on top of tunnel subsided as a result then liability rests with the tunnel owner).

 

 

[KingEdwardII]

As well as Cambourne, the other settlement EWR needs to take into account is St Neots. The old alignment crossed the Great Northern line at Sandy, but these days, St Neots is 3 times the population of Sandy and growing fast. So all the plans call for a route near St Neots, although as far as I can see, none plan to go via the existing St Neots station. This routing also chimes with the Cambourne requirement, since this requires a more northerly route than the original.

 

Yours, Mike.

[Edwin_m]

Worth remembering that the former route from Bedford to Sandy was mostly on low-lying land close to major rivers, so not somewhere housing might be considered.  I don't know the reasons behind development further east taking place around Cambourne instead of along the former route.  

[jamie92208]

37 minutes ago, KingEdwardII said:

As well as Cambourne, the other settlement EWR needs to take into account is St Neots. The old alignment crossed the Great Northern line at Sandy, but these days, St Neots is 3 times the population of Sandy and growing fast. So all the plans call for a route near St Neots, although as far as I can see, none plan to go via the existing St Neots station. This routing also chimes with the Cambourne requirement, since this requires a more northerly route than the original.

 

Yours, Mike.

The article in Modern Railways covers this point.  Apparently Tempsford, as the crossing poi t with the ECML fits in with the local authorities planning aspirations. This makes more potentiafor for economic growth compared to St Neots.   It goes on to say that the current St Neots site would be difficult to redevelop. 

 

Jamie

[KingEdwardII]

2 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Apparently Tempsford, as the crossing poi t with the ECML fits in with the local authorities planning aspirations

Curious, since the current major developments around St Neots are quite near the existing station - Monksfield and Winteringham. Tempsford seems a long way from those.

 

Meanwhile, future planning for the Tempsford area seems up in the air, at least according to this article in a local paper:

https://www.biggleswadetoday.co.uk/news/politics/tempsford-could-be-surrounded-by-houses-as-plans-revealed-for-4000-homes-3752076

 

...and uncertainty concerning EWR is put forward as one of the reasons for reconsidering the plans for Tempsford! Bit of chicken-and-egg going on there, I think.

 

I suppose that if EWR can get an agreement that a new Tempsford station would also include Thameslink trains, then that might make some sense, although Tempsford is a bit of a drag from the main housing areas of St Neots.

 

Yours, Mike.

[Edwin_m]

10 minutes ago, KingEdwardII said:

Curious, since the current major developments around St Neots are quite near the existing station - Monksfield and Winteringham. Tempsford seems a long way from those.

 

Meanwhile, future planning for the Tempsford area seems up in the air, at least according to this article in a local paper:

https://www.biggleswadetoday.co.uk/news/politics/tempsford-could-be-surrounded-by-houses-as-plans-revealed-for-4000-homes-3752076

 

...and uncertainty concerning EWR is put forward as one of the reasons for reconsidering the plans for Tempsford! Bit of chicken-and-egg going on there, I think.

 

I suppose that if EWR can get an agreement that a new Tempsford station would also include Thameslink trains, then that might make some sense, although Tempsford is a bit of a drag from the main housing areas of St Neots.

 

Yours, Mike.

Those developments are probably one reason EWR isn't serving the existing St Neots station.  Another rail route there would need extensive demolition of residential areas.  Tempsford is early enough in the planning process that the rail alignment can be protected for future built, even if it isn't built straight away.  It certainly makes sense for it to be a stop on the ECML too, as this should open up a range of connections.  

[Arun Sharma]

It seems to me that EWR, as a line which essentially could link all the radial lines [passenger and freight] coming out [West to North-East] of London, should fundamentally be regarded by DofT in the same way as a railway version of the M25 albeit a few miles further out. For that reason alone, the climate vulnerable line between Didcot and Oxford might also be considered worthy of four-tracking?

[rodent279]

In any other country, yes, that's what would happen, it would be a fully electrified double track line, possibly 4 between Didcot & Oxford, maybe Reading-Basingstoke would be wired as well, and there would be proper links in to the ECML & GE lines.

 

But this is Britain in late 2023, so you can forget it.

Edited November 6, 2023 by rodent279

[VarsityJim]

9 hours ago, Edwin_m said:

Worth remembering that the former route from Bedford to Sandy was mostly on low-lying land close to major rivers, so not somewhere housing might be considered.  I don't know the reasons behind development further east taking place around Cambourne instead of along the former route.  

Lots of development along the former route, the telescope facility being a good example ☹️

[Ron Ron Ron]

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E-W Track laying on the approaches to the bridge over HS2 and the future HS2 infrastructure depot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The infrastructure depot will be built just beyond the bridge in the foreground.

The bridge carrying E-W Rail over HS2, can be seen in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[melmerby]

Seem to be getting on with it nicely

[jamie92208]

25 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

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E-W Track laying on the approaches to the bridge over HS2 and the future HS2 infrastructure depot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The infrastructure depot will be built just beyond the bridge in the foreground.

The bridge carrying E-W Rail over HS2, can be seen in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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You could say that that is the first tracklaying on HS2 as the yard is definitely part of the HS2 project.  Perhaps deliveries are going to start soon. 

 

Jamie

[Ray H]

Peak hour services (only) set to resume between Bletchley & Bedford on 20 November by all accounts with full service restored early in the new year. I wonder what their definition of early is?

 

Buses will continue during off-peak periods for the time being.

[melmerby]

12 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

You could say that that is the first tracklaying on HS2 as the yard is definitely part of the HS2 project.  Perhaps deliveries are going to start soon. 

 

Jamie

Yes, it's interesting that there is some actual track in depot area and not just the feeds from E-W rail

[Ron Ron Ron]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

Yes, it's interesting that there is some actual track in depot area and not just the feeds from E-W rail

 

All that track appears to be outside the depot area.

Reception sidings or whatever, on the NR side of the new complex.

 

The depot itself is yet to be built.

As well as being the main base for HS2 track infrastructure maintenance, This depot will be a construction hub for the installation of the HS2 track system.

Presumably why the E-W rail side of things is being installed, in readiness?

 

 

 

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[jamie92208]

4 hours ago, melmerby said:

Yes, it's interesting that there is some actual track in depot area and not just the feeds from E-W rail

With the Chiltern tunnels and the viaduct going well I suspect that tracklaying will commence within a year and there may well be material deliveries to the site, such as aggregatthen track base and rail. 

 

Jamie

Edited November 11, 2023 by jamie92208