25 January 2016
West Midlands
Consultation
Department for
Transport
4/15 Great Minster
House
33 Horseferry Road
London
SW1P 4DR
To Whom It May
Concern,
I write on behalf of
our association regarding the West Midlands Consultation. Whilst other
colleagues have done direct responses this response focus’ on more strategic
and operational aspects.
1. Bedford-Bletchley Rail Link alias Marston
Vale Railway: This should be made a Micro-Franchise and a round-table of
stakeholders established with some public consultation and input, not meeting
of professionals only behind closed doors. It should include operators at both
ends of the line and Open Access Operators invited to join them with East-West
Rail as an umbrella project and stakeholder. It is felt that being a long way
from Birmingham, London Midland is too big and unwieldy and tends to lose sight
and hands-on touch with day to day operations, the promotion and enhancement of
the railway, which is the best foot for retention of the services the line
provides, not status quo operation without reference to practicalities. One
example is the marketing of the railway as a ‘leisure line’ but law and rolling
stock restricts to a maximum of 2 bikes per train and this on a rail link
between two cycle networks of Milton Keynes Red-ways and Bedford’s own cycle
network and Sustrans Route 51 to Sandy where it links elsewhere. Moreover
stations are a long way from the line in examples like Millbrook and so using a
cycle to the train makes a lot of good, healthy sense. So bikes are important
and yet this is not reflected in the rolling stock, accommodation and
management of bikes as a staple usership market niche which needs optimising
beit work, leisure or just getting from a to b and further afield.
2. The London Midland Franchise is unwieldy
and should be broken between a Southern Franchise (Northampton-Euston) and a
West Midlands focus of Franchise and radial commuter centric routes
(Northampton-Birmingham and out to Liverpool et al the other side). This could
incorporate more competition and varied types of services akin to the East
Coast Main Line, whereby Open Access Operators could target and serve stations
with a package of marketing to boost usage and attract more customers. For
example, Northampton to plethora of destinations, Northampton-London* and
places like Tring with it’s extra slow loop and the on-coming East-West Rail
project which needs to be speeded up by a sharing of practicalities of
infrastructure, services and growth between infrastructure providers, operators
and Open Access.
3. Open Access should be looked at to exploit
the end to end commute of the Bedford-Bletchley line on top of the basic
all stopper train service. For example a Watford-Corby semi fast niche service
am, midday, pm peak and maybe a later evening run to give more radial suburban
inter-connective links.
4. Other improvements to Marston Vale local
services needed are:
a. Lengthening of
halts where required, for standard 3-4 coach electric traction operation
preparation.
b. A new station and
over-bridge to serve the Kempston Retail Park and Kempston Town itself
(population 18, 000 +). It would open the Retail Park up to a wider audience,
give a modal choice of access, cut congestion and queues of traffic along
Ampthill Road and give easy access by a linked cycle-train network to Elstow
(Bunyan Trail), Wixams (new town), Kempston Town (leisure) and Woburn Road
Industrial Estate (employment). A feasibility study should be done inclusive of
market potential. Steer Davis Gleave circa 2000 did suggest such a halt could
raise 100 extra train journeys on the Marston Vale Railway, most would be
filling lighter used off peak services. The 3 minute delay in stopping, could
be mitigated by increased receipts and prestige of relevance of the railway to
the major local centre.
c. Sunday and Bank
Holiday services. The signalling is automated now and costs overhead-wise
reduced accordingly. That saving should be commuted to half hourly frequencies
Monday-Saturday and hourly on Sunday and Bank Holiday services. The line is
marketed as a ‘leisure line’ but it is also a key local commute for blue collar
workers and capturing a slice of the end to end Bedford-Milton Keynes commute,
requires adequate rolling stock, adequate frequency and end to end seamless
journeying. A point being is that X5 coaches deliver to the shopping centre and
Central Milton Keynes Station but the large swathe of the business section of
the Central area lies between the shopping centre and the Central Rail Station,
so rail could offer a genuine modal choice and relief to congestion on the
A509/M1 Junction which tends to congest and hold up Coachway operations in and
out during peak times for example.
d. Extension of local
shuttle services to Milton Keynes Central. This would best be done if the line
is electrified and 4 coach standard 321 or 319 sort of stock is utilised.
5. Reopening a rebuild of the
Northampton-Olney-Bedford Rail Link.
This short 21.5 mile
link could offer multiple operational and practical benefits to the Franchise
and so should be supported:
a. Birmingham,
Coventry, Luton and Gatwick Airports via one train, seamless journey.
b.
Bletchley-Bedford-Northampton/Rugby capacity loop for extra services to North
of Milton Keynes Central, more capacity for freight (avoiding conflict) and
local Bedford-Bletchley services being extended to Northampton which could mean
additional end to end and stopping services utilising same stock, ideally 319
or Desiro stock + any Open Access e.g. West Coast-Luton Airport without
recourse to London and/or Heathrow via Dudding Hill Lines reopening to
passenger access, again creating capacity of ‘not via central London’.
c. Northampton is a
growing town equivalent to Croydon yet is poorly served by rail links and
cross-country services. The A428/A509 corridors are growth corridors and
without the railway and a parkway station at Olney (A509) which would serve a 5
mile catchment of some 33, 000 people, which otherwise have to drive up to 12
miles each way to Milton Keynes or Bedford which adds to queues, congestion and
parking demand which cannot be catered for. Far better to address the growth
nearer to where people live as Olney Parkway would. The new university campus
at Northampton borders the trackbed of the old line and could be a prospect for
a South Northampton cum Brackmills access station. The line needs protecting
and again a study should be commissioned to ensure we don’t allow by default,
the loss of a key asset in the modern context.
