Support our campaign for a reopened Guildford-Cranleigh-Horsham rail link - a study is needed!

 

BRTA Westbury Forum Saturday 9th May 2026 at The Railway Inn, Station Road, Westbury, BA13 4HW

BRTA Westbury Forum Saturday 9^th May 2026 at The Railway Inn, Station Road, Westbury, BA13 4HW T. 01373 228109 or Simon Barber (Convenor) 020 8940 4399 or 07522 374740.

All Welcome.

Pre-Agenda:

1.   Appointment of a chairperson for the meeting* (see notes)

2.   Appointment of someone to take notes/minutes and distribute after the meeting

3.    Apologies for absence

4.   Update on what Wiltshire Council is doing/issues and support: David Bullock CEng MICE, Interim Director Highways & Transport, (Head of Major Highway Projects)

5.   Local MP (?) opening words and photoshoots for newsletter.

1.   Agenda

2.   River Severn Estuary Rail Bridge – to inform more capacity for more by rail – passenger and freight. How do we take it forward/any volunteers?

3.   New Stations, West of England Main Line/elsewhere

4.   Reopening seaside branches to Bridport/West Bay, Seaton and Lyme Regis

5.   Radstock-Frome rescue trackbed, tracks and get support for reopening as a heavy rail addition to the local rail network.

6.   Go-op Rail Matters and progress updates?

7.   Bristol Templemeads to Weymouth direct line including consideration and offers to support Yeovil Curves and related benefits.

8.   New Stations South Wales Main Line

9.   Portishead reopening progress – BRTA wants more heavy rail reopenings. Malmsbury has been raised as per Cirencester.

10.             Gloucester-Ross-on-Wye-Hereford reopening – a study is agreed, but ideas of benefits and what to include in it?

11.             Any Other Business

12.             Date, time and place of next meeting Westbury and x wherever.

Notes:

1.   *From No 1 above – Simon does not chair meetings, he only convenes them for wider public benefit.

2.   Our forums are open to all and all are expected to engage, be positive, give support, join BRTA and be as constructive as possible.

3.   Realism is relative. If we cannot afford to reopen, can we afford not to? Practicalities like information of locations of blockages and the balance of whether you can realign, relocate and greater good to be given due research and consideration. BRTA needs more willing members to join and enable more of it.

4.   Membership and active willingness to assist with reliable volunteering is the best way to make progress for any hope. Seed sown falls of different soils, some are rocky, others fertile and we want to optimise the potential for re-railing where it can be done.

5.   Any problems, email ceo@brtarail.com and also to join our free email update loops.

6.   For more about BRTA and the sort of things we are interested in, please see: https://brtarail.com/our-campaigns/ and https://brtarailvolunteer.blogspot.com/

Bedford East-West Rail Consultation 14th April needs a vote on a choice of route please!

Which flows better through Bedford rail-wise? 

Bedford Midland will need more tracks for more trains regardless!

Our vision for Bedford and east-west railways!

Tempsford and what happens is a matter of will, way and values!

https://www.facebook.com/BRTARichardPill 

Consultation coming up, but it should include a choice of route east of Bedford in our view. It should include our suggested route via Willington and Government must insist that developments on Land West of Willington, provide a bridge over the old double track railway width corridor of former said rail link and ensure none of its plans scupper reasonable reopening. 

If it does not do this, then Northern Route or bus is locked-in. In any case interim, new trainshed nearer Midland Road will require land and a double track bay to 8-coach length will require land and relocations of existing properties. Sad, but just a reality of not going via St John's area. 

Please give us your support, peruse our Blogspot and join our free email loop for updates: ceo@brtarail.com Our route offers the following: 

1. Passenger trains from Oxford and Cambridge reversing into twin bays at Bedford Midland. 2. Freight leaving the twin-track approaches to link with current slow lines south of Ford End Road 3. A triangle at St John's would enable east-west freight by rail avoding going through Bedford Midland tracks, keeping more paths for other trains, with Northern Route, everything must go through Bedford Midland and that hits capacity and pathing potentially. 4. Will the Northern Route be fit for freight, electrification and how sound is the landscape North of Bedford, bearing in mind a gas field sits under Cleat Hill, which cost a life when a heat pump was sunk? 5. Our route is flat, not hilly, unlike Northern Route. 6. A comparative study should be done between our route's credentials and Northern Route. 7. Tempsford, south of Station Road or North, should put the rail infratructure first and an A&E Hospital for the new 40k housing development, which combined with merger and growth sprawl of Sandy, Biggleswade and Potton will be upwards 100, 000 population and current hospitals 10 miles in any direction are at capacity.... what planning or planet are we living on to think dumping mass development without these infrastructures is acceptable? 

Let's learn lessons from Wixams fiasco, which put cart (housing) before horse (infrastructure). 8. Our route envisages physical rail linkages with main north-south main line for Peterborough, Stevenage and East Bedfordshire to have direct access to/from #Bedford County Town and the Oxford corridor. 9. None of the current East-West Rail plans include an east-north link for rail, so all potential freight is reduced in scope, ditto footfall and spend. 10. Our route can realign existing developments and tackles Great Ouse and Ivell with A1, whereas Northern Route is uncertain, as to duck under A1 north of Black Cat Roundabout for example, you have to come up to cross the confluence of these two rivers and then diver down to go under the main north-soth railway in a few hundred meters... hardly a straight line! 

These things need more consideration and a consultation with a choice of two worked up rail routes answering these questions would enable the people to fionally have their choice, denied in the 2019 consulktation which ruled out our route based on flimsy Office for Road and Rail (ORR) ruling out new level crossings. That policy needs challengeing as it bumps up costs to duck-under or bridge-over and is a blanket policy of dog in a manger! Our country as never before needs to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and oil, more strategic rail links enable reductions in consumption as well as other environmental benefits like reduce urban congestion. As for re-routing the A1, the choice is clear, Blunham or RSPB Sandy! 

Which MP would are to suggest either if he wants votes over bumpers! Land is scarce, it is premium and needs carefulo stewardship. Sunderland Road, Sandy was built on Grade 1 soil! Hope this is food for thought, we can get it right if the people can have a choice put before them please. #Northampton-Bedford would come in from the north west and go through Bedford Midland and out to the east via St John's. If Land North of Lower Farm Road, #Bromham is developed, it scuppers Northampton's share of rail access to Bedford, Universal and Cambridge/East Anglia and vice versa. Please retain these routes and support  reopenings. It is an investment in ourselves 'think global, act local'!

Help save the corridors for a Rail-future in Bedford for 21st Century!

Update 02-04-2026:

It looks like land West of Willington 1000 houses not providing access for a rail link east of Bedford via St John's is going ahead and brings down the curtain on our east-west endeavour. This locks in Northern Rail Route or bust and Richard Fuller MP and Cllr and Elected Mayor Tom Wootton (Tory) seem against = no railway!

Next consultation on East-West Rail is apparently coming about: https://eastwestrail.co.uk/ keep an eye in the media/on-line.

BRTA of course is interested, but our hopes and aspirations are dashed after 40 years of commitment to Bedford and its well-being. Now development at Lower Farm Road Bromham wants to scupper access to the Midland Main Line from Northampton, which rail-wise disenfranchises a swathe of people and benefits. 

It is rare LibDems and Tories agree, but one is sold out to Northern Route not ours, the other 'unfettered' has not any good word for the Northern Route!

Meanwhile on Oxford-Milton Keynes, OBRAC formed 1986 was the umbrella group to bring others together, now we have this: https://www.railnews.co.uk/news/2026/03/30-new-action-group-calls-for.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

We wish them well, but they will find campaigning beyond mere moaning and the scheme is protracted by Government involvement... left hand not knowing what right hand is doing sort of thing?!

We will observe and take an interest, but our aspiration is being consigned to history and locks in a roads landscape which will only deliver more traffic exacerbating congestion gridlocked urban landscape. That is bad for everyone!

You can email your MP, but ours seems also against East-West Rail too? Which way is the wind blowing?

The project flounders for want of champions and at the 11th hour, unless the government puts impetus and resolves even basic things like trains running between Oxford and Milton Keynes; the chances of success are in the balance; in which case we will be much poorer for it.

A call to action: Land at Lower Farm Road, Bromham, a development wants to block the corridor access to the Midland Main Line for a new rail link with Northampton. This is crucial to save the land for the railway, as with Universal courting 8 million people per year, 26, 000 jobs; unless we improve the local rail networks and infrastructure, land will be guzzled for new roads and endless parking!

Likewise, old Bedford-Sandy trackbed under threat from 1000 houses and other associated developments West of Willington, east of Bedford. Our rail route is much more versatile than a mooted Northern Route and we need people to email Bedford Borough Council and tell them to put the protection of the rail corridor first!

However:

1. Our route 'east of Bedford, via St John's' should and needs championing - ask if unsure. I am here most days for limited time.

2. Northern Route is not guaranteed either, so if we lose our route, and Northern flounders, no rail via Bedford to Cambridge.

3. We need champions for our route - maybe a dedicated page on the website can help direct objections and support in equal measure?

4. The development will block our trackbed and realignment routing of Willington

5. 1000 houses at average of 2.5 cars per household is 2500 cars on the A603 per day, it is a busy single carriageway road with congestion now.

6. No proposal to dual or upgrade the road, all ends up at Sandy A1 Junction and Bedford urban cordons underscoring gridlocked congestion, especially Rope Walk and Longholme.

7. Flood plain, flooding likely, des-res, but at a collateral cost.

For these reasons, this development must be opposed.

We do need an east-west rail link and our route has been shown to be viable.

The objections to the development stand on their own merit and so our rail route needs champions and should be supported.

Please join BRTA and strengthen our numbers: https://brtarail.com/become-a-member/

Yours sincerely,

Richard Pill

BRTA EC Member.

Ps. BTW, for documents please see Simon Barber via simon4barber@gmail.com

93 dwellings land North of Lower Farm Road - The full reference number is 26/00249/MAO and the alternative reference is PP-14585723. The Case Officer is Rachel Duncan.

Land West of Willington - The full reference number is 25/01839/EIASCP (already decided in January), and an Environmental Impact Assessment is now required.

Email: to planning@bedford.gov.uk now, it is never too late! It is worth trying. Email/copy your local MP too. It is nationwide strategic rail infrastructure we want, otherwise it is congestion gridlock, land loss, emissions and rising costs, let alone health related issues from too much traffic!

https://brtarail.com/ewrail/

BRTA Oxford Forum: Saturday, 11 April at the Four Candles, 51-53 George Street, Oxford OX1 2BE

BRTA Oxford Forum: Saturday, 11 April  at the Four Candles, 51-53 George Street, Oxford OX1 2BE (Phone 01865-263110): https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pub-search/?location=The+Four+Candles&lat=&lng=

2pm lunch, 3-5pm business.

Agenda

1.               Appointment of a Chairperson

2.               Appointment of a minute taker and to distribute after the meeting

3.               Matters of interest:

a.               Oxford-Witney/Carterton – new build/case made/no money?

b.               Oxford-Stratford upon Avon via Long Marston

c.                Oxford-Bristol direct via Swindon

d.               Oxford-Milton Keynes via Bletchley

e.               The Aylesbury Curve, should be double tracked and have east and west facing junctions where possible.

f.                  Oxford-Cowley and extension to Thame and Princes Risborough (Wheatley deviation a challenge + M40/A40 and Thame).

g.                Didcot-Winchester new-build link for faster passenger and freight trains between Oxford and Southampton/Bournemouth.

h. Wantage Station?

All these are of interest. Any updates, progress reports, status and how could BRTA get behind them more and help support and usher them along?

4.                    Any Other Business

5.                    Date, time and place of next meeting.

Background: 

Dear All,

April is a busy month, but also one of dusting off the winter blues and putting a new spring in our step.

Please find attached forum agenda BRTA Oxford Forum: Saturday, 11 April  at the Four Candles, 51-53 George Street, Oxford OX1 2BE and feel free to attend if you wish, offer to help and make it a successful meeting. Simon Barber is convening it, but it and some other forums need more engagement, offers to chair and do minutes. We are only as good as a growing membership may inform.

Some seed sown falls on rocky ground, others find fertile soil and reap rewards. Thus while we continue to fire-fight in Bedford, Oxon has aspirations commensurate for a growing local rail network and will doubtless reap rewards if it succeeds. Please give your support.

Recent events should indicate, even though the media marginalise the question of "isn't it time our country reduced dependency on oil in all cases and scenarios?" and growing local rail links as part of a nationwide government supported programme of local rail reopenings, is just the ticket to help aid that as well as keeping our wheels turning!

Yours sincerely,

Richard Pill

BRTA CEO

https://brtarail.com/

Please support our Public Meeting on the reopening of the Dumfries-Stranraer rail link 'local links for local people'!

 Agenda for Public Meeting: 

BRTA Dumfries Public Meeting Saturday 25th April 2026 at the Dumfries Day Center, Cumberland St, Dumfries DG1 2JX, T. 01387 266 401, Scott Borthwick (chair-person) 07842 772 745 or Simon Barber (Convenor) 020 89 404 399 or 07522 374 740. 

All Welcome.

Agenda

1. Appointment of a chairperson for the meeting

2. Appointment of someone to take notes/minutes and distribute after the meeting

3. Apologies for absence

4. Presentation Scott Borthwick

5. Historical route video form Chris Rosindale

6. Speaker Laura Moodie (Scottish Green candidate southwest Scotland)

7. Dumfries to Stranraer

-    Kirkcudbright branch

-    New Galloway Branch

-    Whithorn Branch

-    Cairnryan Branch

 8. Dumfries and Galloway Circle line

9. Gretna Junction - The Borders/Langholm

10.    New stations

-    Beattock

-    Thornhill

-    Eastriggs

 11.    Any other Business

Oxbridge East-West Rail in Private Eye Magazine and BRTA Windows.

Oxbridge pals must stick together eh?! If only the Universities had been charged with delivery of a direct rail link!

BRTA has long added its voice to a new curve linking Aylesbury with

the emergent East-West Oxford-Milton Keynes rail link as that adds to

the project in direct access from East-west to Old Oak Common and all

in between. As ever, email your MP to give support to speedy delivery,

not High Speed per se. In an era of rail campaigns, would benefit n

BRTA needs voices and champions to reopen local rail links x whatever

the political context - we need all-weather-proofed projects.

East-West Rail shows you can be qualified, clever and articulate, but

delivery is what counts and the delivery vehicle model and demands for

endless studies needs revision. Public should be able to put proposals

forward, DfT should do studies and Business Cases to reasonable

thresholds and encouragement to lay people for hope to get a look in

should be laddered so everyone can get into the process and usher it

along. Interesting a push for new-build high speed to Scotland from

Leeds now, when we still await to see the completion of the Borders

Railway, which the English side is the weakest link, not Scottish

desire to forge good rail connectivity per se. Our Dumfries-Stranraer

rail link would benefit South West Scotland on and off the tracks and

also Northern England flows and trade too. Over the coming months I

will be issuing a BRTA top list of local reopenings we measure size,

human and financial resources can facilitate, but more must be matched

with membership growth, revenue generation and competent people. Token

facilitation is what our Forums hold out, it is for local people and

those with leadership skills to work with it and make more. In short

we need people to take batons and make a go of them to the touch-line.

When writing to your MP, ask them to raise a question, encourage

support amongst colleagues and encourage their political party to

adopt pro-affirma policies towards delivery - making it quicker,

easier and more people friendly at all levels.

Oxbridge Railway started with locals concerned about closure and

aspiring for something better. It was piecemeal and hotchpotched.

East-west Rail Consortium from circa 1995 did bring a professional and

better resourced profile to the effort, but from 1997-2010, over 13

years Labour failed to deliver Oxford-Milton Keynes/Bedford and this

is where it picks up from where we are at today! The whole route to

Cambridge should be being delivered now, instead at Bedford it is

bogged down by dissent, poor communication and how involved in

leadership, resources and direction the emergent Universal Theme Park

near Bedford is to its outcome is yet to be quantified. Mayor Tom

Wootton talked about York-the Oxbridge Rail Corridor direct, but

without physical links at Tempsford, won't happen unless they come

onto the Midland Main Line near Chesterfield? Likewise, making

electrification of the Midland Main Line (MML) a priority, lends to

multiple options too. West Northampton Council will,not it seems,

email a letter of support to update the positive studies for a

new-build Northampton-Bedford rail link, so England's Economic

Heartlands has no incentive to support such either and so it goes on.

One tries not to get discouraged, downhearted and cynical, but it

needs a better approach, like a nationwide plan which knows where it

is going? Meanwhile in Wales, a plan is launched with 5 new stations,

but yet to hear of reopening the West Wales Main Line

Carmarthen-Aberystwyth-Criccieth-Caernarfon-Bangor... we support

campaign groups for such, bringing regeneration as it would. As for

East Anglia, Hunstanton needs a rail link and Stansted a direct order

from Rachel Reeves MP to get on with it, re-railing to Braintree and

Colchester, as currently they have no interest, no incentive or

responsibility to impact of airport expansion, another cart before the

proverbial airport expansion go ahead (horse!).Government comes across

as a child demanding 10 bananas when one is needed for a packed lunch!

There is money about, but in the wrong hands, being wasted on roads

and polluting in the name of regeneration and jobs, when cleaner rail

solutions and connectivity cries out for a look-in. BRTA will seek to

work through these issues and hopes to see a plan of what our

Westminster Team will do to move it forward. Our newsletters go to

most MP's and assistants are asking to join our loop too.

Meanwhile some bigger organisations do a wonderful job in North Devon,

but swathes of the country are abandoned to the winds of developer

whim. In short, the windows of opportunity are on a limited time-line.

Secretary of State for Transport should make the prime directive of GB

Railways "declutter and cut emissions on motorways and trunk roads on

the back of rail expansion" and that with a date when all will be done

too! That is where 'Brain of Britain' could be useful!.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Pill

BRTA CEO

Ps. I am not available for zoom or studio interviews, but hope to be

back in the swing in the next 8 weeks all being well. Thank you.

Please feel free to include our news and comment where appropriate.

SIGNAL FAILURES - Corridor of uncertainty

The gap between Labour rhetoric and reality on jobs and housing is obvious in the "Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor", where passenger trains still haven't started using infrastructure that was completed in 2024.

In January 2025, Chancellor Rachel Reeve's package for going "further and faster to kickstart the economy" included funding the corridor's East West Rail (EWR) line, "with new services between Oxford and Milton Keynes this year". Two months later Rail Minister Lord Hendy said the line would be "up and running later this year".

Alas, it took the government until March to confirm that Chiltern Railways would run the trains; and when Chiltern managers belatedly inspected EWR's new Winslow station in Buckinghamshire, they found it wasn't fit for purpose. Cue yet more public cash to modernise a brand new station, where bare-minimum platforms will probably need lengthening given expected passenger growth in the 2030s.

Chiltern, which the government micromanages, insists on driver-only operation for EWR, triggering a predictable union tussle (RMT).

The government has already written off £2.6M - for 2024-25 alone - on leasing fees for the Oxford - Milton Keynes Central rolling stock (presumably the sub-lease for the WMR CAF Civity Class 196 2-car DMUs).

The new infrastructure's upkeep also costs money. With no EWR tickets being sold, the only offsetting revenue comes from occasional freight trains between the Midlands and Soyjampton or Cardiff (demonstrating EWR's potential as a thoroughfare between main lines).

For the Oxford - Milton Keynes Central service, taxpayers have spent more than £1.3bn on rebuilding 22 miles of disused railway with new platforms at Winslow and Bletchley (High Level). The government's EWR Company (EWR Co) - idiotically split off from Network Rail by Chris Grayling in 2017 - has had years to prepare stage two, upgrading the existing Bletchley-Bedford (Marston Vale) line, but reconstruction hasn't started. Stage three is more complicated ; a new Bedford - Cambridge route including a two-level station at the planned Tempsford new towns (for trains on EWR and the ECML/GN).

The £5bn-£6bn (2021 prices) estimated cost for the rest of EWR looks optimistic, after the troubles of stage one, but merging EWR Co into Network Rail is on the cards at last. GBR is due to subsume Network Rail and Chiltern next year. EWR's route ahead should be smoother when it's no longer detached from managers of the rest of the rail network.

Comments

Little or no mention of the Class 196 sub-lease (& return of these DMUs for Camp Hill reopening,WMR/Birmingham)

Little or no mention of Universal Theme Park at Kempston Hardwick and the need to rethink infrastructure/service pattern

Little or no mention of the proposal to close some of the local stations on the Marston Vale Line

Little or no mention of the Aylesbury Link being removed from EWR, despite the TWA powers for this and the understanding that after the HS2 infrastructure work between Calvert and Grendon Underwood, the former GCR would be reinstated from Claydon to Quainton Road

No mention of the problems at Bedford due to the opposition of the elected Mayor Tom Wootton & Bedford Borough Council. Need to rebuild both Bedford St. John's & Bedford Midland railway stations. Richard Fuller MP & Tom Wootton coalition at Bedford standing in the way of EWR.

New EWR build east of Bedford compared to the £104M per mile for the National Highways Black Cat/A1 - Caxton Gibbet dualling/realignment

Railways Bill still to progress through Parliament before it receives Royal Assent

Discontinuous electrification along EWR belatedly being proposed (presumably for new battery-electric trains)

DCO powers required for east of Bedford

Failure to use "permitted development rights" within the railway boundary in order that some required infrastructure work can progress quickly on operational parts of the route

No indication of when Oxford - Bedford train services could commence, in theory once Oxford - Milton Keynes Central services begin (subject to rolling stock availability). The Marston Vale line is already an operational railway, with passenger and freight services.

Route from Oxford - Bedford "gauge cleared" for freight, giving direct access to both the WCM & MML. Perhaps ironic that freight trains are operating now before Chiltern has managed to introduce the passenger service between Oxford & Milton Keynes Central! Also because the specification that EWR Co were originally working to was a passenger-only railway!

EWR epitomises the problems that were likely given the original privatisation. A vertically integrated railway is required - but will this be delivered under GBR?

See Private Eye Magazine 20th February 2026.