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East West rail, Bletchley to oxford line


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I moved to Bicester 3 years ago. Don't suppose anyone had pictures of Hymeks (or 22's) on the line please? Particulary at Bicester London Road?

 

The diagram in 1970-72 was 8A86 06.50 Reading West Junction to Bicester No. 2 / SHUNT / 8A86 08.30 No 2 to London Road / SHUNT / 8A86 09.05 London Rd to Oxford South and after a run to Morris Cowley it came back to shunt at No 2 again 12.15-13.40 returning to Reading. It ran Monday to Friday.

 

What was Bicester No. 2? Was it a signal box?

I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of the Hymeks at Bicester. The best I can do is this picture of D7066 on the return working about to go up the branch to Morris Cowley.

post-4697-0-23501700-1426934657.jpg

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Lovely photo.  I think it was the Triang D7063* that attracted me to the brave new Corporate Image railways all those years ago (1968 maybe?).  They are such cute locomotives, a true 60s style icon in my book.  Reminiscent of a MkII Cortina somehow.  Fantastic.

 

 

EDIT - *  I believe I received the Hymek powered Freightliner train set for my third birthday.  Must be the reason my modelling interests have fixated on 1968 for so long.  I've just realised this.

 

Thanks for a great thread - it's fascinating reading and I've learned loads.  Only prior knowledge was passing under the flyover on a daily basis and once stopping to inspect the remains at Winslow when I was wending my way back from Aylesbury by a rather circuitous route.

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I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of the Hymeks at Bicester. The best I can do is this picture of D7066 on the return working about to go up the branch to Morris Cowley.

attachicon.gifD7066 Oxford June 69 Slide 680.jpg

And I have this shot of a Hymek north of Oxford that I noted was heading for Bicester

https://www.flickr.com/photos/52554553@N06/10421524094/in/set-72157636831654216

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  • 4 months later...

Another day off that coincided with nice weather so I took a ride along Cycle Route 51 towards Winslow to see how much progress had been made since the Great Vegetation Clearance session of four months ago (posting #122)

 

In a word - nothing!

 

post-730-0-14687000-1438351522_thumb.jpg

 

The view toward Bletchley from Salden Woods bridge.

 

 

 

post-730-0-94310500-1438351550_thumb.jpg

 

The view towards Bletchley from Swanbourne bridge.

 

At this rate it won't be too long before nature reclaims the trackbed again and they'll be back to square one.

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the bicester to bletchley upgrade is a separate project to the oxford link, its actually 2 separate projects

 

the next bit is the bicester to claydon part then the final bit being claydon to bletchley, dont know if they will be starting any work from the bletchley end at the same time and meet up in the middle somewhere, nice if they did as we could

 

there is quite a bit of work to be done at claydon the main work being a completely new embankment for the run round loop to be laid on

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Oxford to Bicester is basically Chiltern's scheme to run their trains into Oxford, though the Government also paid for some of the extra work to be done on this section that would be needed to run East West Rail trains to/from MK and Bedford, as this would be cheaper and less disruptive than leaving it until after Chiltern trains were running.  Very little has been done on the rest of East West Rail and I suspect it is caught up in Network Rail's general backlog of enhancement works (see also GWML, MML, etc etc). 

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Agree why is it taking so long to start the work on our link to Bletchley they could have started this section at the same time as the Oxford link  but that's to simple isn't it !

The Chiltern scheme was funded and developed before the go-ahead was given to East-West Rail, so it had a considerable headstart - the latter is still being developed, with the trackbed clearance to aid surveying I believe and consultations about crossing closures ongoing, and then there's the Transport and Works Order process to get through before construction work east of Bicester can get underway in earnest.

Edited by Christopher125
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Interesting Dave. Headline from my local paper:

 

"Hitchin vies with Sandy to win new East West rail link"

 

Are we seriously talking about a new line from Luton, rather than reinstating Bedford-Hitchin or Bedford-Sandy? My money is on the latter plus a new chord to the Hitchin flyover, which provision has been made for.

 

Ed

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The notes about Hymeks reminded me that in the sixties the newspaper train from London to Aylesbury newspaper train was often hauled by a Hymek  I think it carried on to Oxford and back to Paddington.We did not have long to get the papers off and when it rained it was horrible.​

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Interesting Dave. Headline from my local paper:

 

"Hitchin vies with Sandy to win new East West rail link"

 

Are we seriously talking about a new line from Luton, rather than reinstating Bedford-Hitchin or Bedford-Sandy? My money is on the latter plus a new chord to the Hitchin flyover, which provision has been made for.

 

Ed

Yes, if you look at a map the shortest route is on the alignment through Bedford (which still exists) then bridge the Bedford bypass (road over) skirting by Willington (as it did) with a slight deviation around Blunham, cross the A1 (again road over) and you are in open country North of Sandy, with plenty of room for a flyover the ECML to the up and a chord from the down.

 

At Hitchin there is no reason why a cambridge bound service could not use the up platform and then reverse and utilise the old down Cambridge line, for West bound services it could utilise the flyover to access the down platform (I'm sure it's bi-directional) and again reverse to head North.

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Are we seriously talking about a new line from Luton, rather than reinstating Bedford-Hitchin or Bedford-Sandy?

 

Sort of.

 

You have to remember that the business case for reinstatement is not focused on Oxford - Cambridge as the numbers wishing to do that are far too small to justify the cost. The business case is rather focused on east west connectivity - and as such it naturally focuses on where there are already big flows of people travelling by road. Talk of going via Luton has come about because of its airport, sited to the east of the town which is a significant traffic draw. Routing a new east west connection this way would improve connectivity to the airport as well as hopefully attract some people who use the A505 to drive between Luton and Stevenage.

 

Also please remember that as with the 'Borders Railway' simply slapping down some new rails is a big no-no. If you examine pictures of the new railway you will see that not only have all level crossing been eliminated, but to meet modern standards with regards embankment and cutting slopes there has been an awful lot of gibbon baskets installed, backfilled with rock so as to make the slopes more stable and less likely to slip.

 

Consequently it follows that while the Bedford - Sandy route is the shortest, it may not be as cheep as some people think and it is conceivable that a new build on the Luton - Stevenage axis has potential. Whether that potential can be turned into a sufficiently robust business proposal remains to be seen.

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While a route close to Sandy may be the shortest distance between Bedford and Cambridge, a route that goes close Hitchin and links to the Hitchin-Cambridge line would require a much shorter length of new or reinstated infrastructure. 

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Consequently it follows that while the Bedford - Sandy route is the shortest, it may not be as cheep as some people think and it is conceivable that a new build on the Luton - Stevenage axis has potential. Whether that potential can be turned into a sufficiently robust business proposal remains to be seen.

 

 

While a route close to Sandy may be the shortest distance between Bedford and Cambridge, a route that goes close Hitchin and links to the Hitchin-Cambridge line would require a much shorter length of new or reinstated infrastructure. 

The issue for a proposal between the MML somewhere near Luton and the ECML near Hitchin/Stevenage is avoiding the density of population/Housing and the topography of the land.

A route further to the North is not quite so hampered. 

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The issue for a proposal between the MML somewhere near Luton and the ECML near Hitchin/Stevenage is avoiding the density of population/Housing and the topography of the land.

A route further to the North is not quite so hampered. 

 

Indeed - but in a world dominated by getting the best BCRs and maximising private sector (i.e. developer involvement) in all public sector projects you can see why some have been looking at a connection further south. I do suspect though that ultimately the deepest recession in living memory has probably reduced the initial appetite for radical options and think that eventually the Bedford - Sandy option will be the option chosen, if the political will is there to actually do anything.

Edited by phil-b259
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Have they said how they might get the line from Sandy to Cambridge?  While I'd dearly love to see it following the original alignment, I fear it's been far too much  built over and ploughed back into the landscape for that to happen......

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Indeed - but in a world dominated by getting the best BCRs and maximising private sector (i.e. developer involvement) in all public sector projects you can see why some have been looking at a connection further south. I do suspect though that ultimately the deepest recession in living memory has probably reduced the initial appetite for radical options and think that eventually the Bedford - Sandy option will be the option chosen, if the political will is there to actually do anything.

There's a two page spread about this in the latest Rail.  Apparently 7 options were whittled down to 3 and one of the 3 was the Luton Hitchin option that included 8km of tunnel.  This then ruled itself out on cost grounds and they are now down to 2 option, one of which is going via Hitchin from Sandy with a reversal using the old ground level route to get north to Cambridge from the up line and going via the flyover to get to the down line.  I read the article last night so now can't remember what the other option was.

 

Jamie

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All this dithering about the route from Bedford to Cambridge is very depressing. How many consultations and feasibility studies do we have to pay for? It's 30 miles, and pretty well flat as a pancake. Just draw a straight line on the map and build it! We are always being told that capacity is the big issue on the network now, so why are they even considering routes that put extra trains on sections of the MML and/or ECML?

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All this dithering about the route from Bedford to Cambridge is very depressing. How many consultations and feasibility studies do we have to pay for? It's 30 miles, and pretty well flat as a pancake. Just draw a straight line on the map and build it! We are always being told that capacity is the big issue on the network now, so why are they even considering routes that put extra trains on sections of the MML and/or ECML?

 

You'll be amazed at the all the processes that these projects have to go through, since I started in design, my eyes have been opened as to how much effort goes into designing a scheme. Plus its not just whats possible and whats not, there's hundreds of things that have to be considered (far too many to mention on here), and it takes many months to fully explore the options (simply because of all the stuff that has to be done!).

 

It may seem like dithering, but don't assume that no news means that nothing is happening, I can assure you that stuff is being done (not that I'm personally involved in the project).

 

Simon

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