Great Central Main Line Recovery Map of Intent 28-04-2018

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Chief Officer and Coordinator responsible for (Finance, Delegated Meetings, Recruitment and Administration): Mr Simon Barber, 20 Fitzherbert House, Kingsmead, Richmond, Surrey, TW10 6HT T. 0208 940 4399, E. simon4barber@gmail.com

Press Release 28-04-2018

ERTA Calls for Route Protection for Great Central Creation Corridor to Re-Rail!

ERTA seeks backers and policy protection support at Local Government levels for a possible phased incrementation approach to a new rail link utilising parts of the former Great Central Main Line corridor from Calvert (North Bucks) to Brackley to Rugby LNW main current railway station and a further phased incrementation to join the Leicester-Nuneaton line for Southeastern-East Midlands corridor and capacity creation and welcome your kind interest and support please.

ERTA is willing to meet with any congenial parties who may be interested or supportive and willing to seek backers for the project and help be instrumental in advocating it. The benefits are numerous, re-railing communities brings inward investment, footfall and spend but also new commuting, employment and betterment opportunities which being cut off except for a 10 mile plus drive, prohibits and stifles.

The current arteries road and rail beit  M1/M40 and West Coast Main Line need relief and extra capacity options for getting more passenger and freight off trunk and motoroways and onto rails. HS2 will not cater for more freight by rail, at best it creates more seats at cost on end to end services, but does not reflect a transfer of trains to alternative routes or new compatible trains to multiple applications. In short HS2 is no panacea for growth and sustainable development, whereas this corridor re-railed could be.

ERTA is willing to send a delegated team to meet with any group or individuals supportive to this project being given support and for Local Councils to adopt supportive policies which does mean tailoring development to ensure a recoverable railway route and realignments/deviations and new build can be done to correct the fragmented mistakes of the past, the over-zeallous closure plans of the 1960's and the deficit void which exists requiring rectification.

East-West Rail: This is no distraction, rather the latter informs a platform and mutual feed between the two allowing broader usage of exact same tracks by passenger and freight, leading to the question who needs a Super Highway anyway when all east-west traffic growth and problems has been bourne to deficit of a lack of any comprehensive east-west railway for 100 miles north of London anyway? Restore the full railway and the rest falls into some kind of objective balance/equilibriaum surely? So we expect and encourage the two projects to collaborate and cross-reference and for planners to ensure access to other rails at Calvert and Rugby ensure a joined up railway system which can absorbe sustainable development, preserve the countryside and land use balances on the whole. Without the rails, we are in a crisis as all development, even in the wake of a brown field creation default of HS2 without a station in 100 miles between Old Oak Common and the West Midlands means all new development is flung to existing roads and rails which are saturated. This is the worse possible outcome and we must gather the resolve to both challenge and stem it by ensuring these local, community, conventional rail links are planned and pipelined for timely delivery. Thank you.

Calvert-Rugby-Leicester Phased Incremental Approach to Rail Linkages Boost

Great Central Link to give new opportunities and create more relief routes south of Rugby to London and beyond/orbital.

Phase 1: Could an operator be it Chiltern, East West Rail Company or an-other/third party open to the proposition of rebuilding a new line from the Calvert area (links to) along former GC trackbed corridor to a Park and Ride (P&R) Station at Brackley which would act as a rail interchange head off the A43 corridor (Northampton-Bicester/M40/Oxford)? It would require lowering at gradient to the floor of the A43 which runs in a valley but at sufficient height (embankment) to bridge the A43 at the eastern side portal to re-join old GC alignment for Phase 2 to Rugby. Phase 1 would enable:

1.      Brackley to be rail served. Expanding town and industrial estate/logistics area and A43 strategic corridor and Silverstone circuit satellite area.

2.      Commute to and from London.

3.      Could also integrate with East-West Rail for passenger services to Milton Keynes, Bedford and Oxford

4.      Offer freight by rail to London or Oxford-Reading-Guildford-Cranleigh-Horsham-Gatwick-(new curve) onto the Tonbridge -Ashford-Channel Tunnel line direct/London orbital options and also from Oxford to Southampton and South West and vice versa audiences including footfall and spend boosts to numerous local economies.

Phase 2. Rebuilding from Brackley to Rugby West Coast Station would require realignment at Woodford Halse and from south of Willoughby to Barby (new station maybe shared with Barby and Kilsby and likewise further south Willoughby and Braunston). The new line would leave old GCML south of Willoughby and cross over the WCML fast lines to either run down at gradient to twin tracks alongside WCML and link into the Rugby WCML Station for integration (passenger and freight access) or link onto or alongside the Northampton Loop lines and have a direct link to the DIRFT complex.

The benefits would be:

1.      Second London Rugby route and West Coast Main Line and M1/M40 relief, capacity creation.

2.      New commuter flows a new Park and Ride Station on the intersection of the A425 roughly half way between Southam and Daventry both of which are growing towns but have no direct rail access.

3.      Rugby-Oxford, Aylesbury, Marylebone, Old Oak Common and integration for East-West Rail feed and London orbital freight between Midlands and Channel Tunnel and all in between.

Phase 3 to join the Leicester-Nuneaton lines requires new construction with a new curve from the old Midland Line to the GC alongside M1 new build/rebuild and gradient slope to join the Leicester-Nuneaton lines. Freight can get to Derby and vice versa via Knighton Junction, Burton and passenger services to Leicester and Nottingham and Derby via Leicester. Benefits:

1.      Chiltern/South Midlands to East Midlands Airport and vice versa direct by rail to a plethora of connectives and outlets.

2.      Relief to motorways and trunk roads and urban commuting congestion, cleaner air and better balances.

3.      Saving countryside, ensuring massive logistics warehouses can be located rail connected more and thus giving more impetus for more freight by rail including possible new flows/market share.

4.      4. Expanding populations means we need to restore/new build some conventional lines. HS lines don’t cater for large swathes of the heart of England and don’t cater for more freight by rail as existing lines will want more passenger operations – freight gets squeezed out/is assumed to go by roads – observe M1/M6 and A14 for example.

Conclusion:

1.      Do we support a phased approach or an ‘full on’ all-in approach or a mixture for ERTA?

2.      Whatever you may wish for has to be balanced with what can give/take and the lie of the land on the ground with creeping development, weak planning and lack lustre local government will to put strategic rail corridors first in tailoring development and protection terms, yes, they and we are under pressure – time, resource, competition and so forth.

3.      Whatever we decide, without major player backers we will not get very far, so that must be a delegated meeting focus and endeavour. Organisations must take on, join, donate or offer to resource/do/support or else it may not happen.

4.      What else?

R.B. Pill 23-04-2018

richard.erta@gmail.com

Application 17/03232/OUT AT Land at Corner of Lavendon Road And Warrington Road Olney, ERTA has grave concerns for implications.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

ERTA has made sterling efforts to rally objections amidst tireless waves of re-submission albeit reconfigured planning applications for piecemeal and parochial considerations which cross and conflict with the railway which whilst having local credentials and benefits, is also a strategic consideration. If these application at Northampton and Olney go ahead, there are wider strategic ramifications scuppering the railway as we go forward into an uncertain future. If unsure please ask. But the numerous letters to local papers about NIMBYISM should show that development without infrastructure is unsustainable and driving into urban areas requires endless lands for parking allocation which is an unviable demand to service and fixing costs to manage demand is unfair but a necessary evil? 

You can support ERTA by joining, offering time and talent and/or donating to our cause via PayPal on our website: https://ertarail.com/donate/

We are having meetings with influential people but they take time. If these applications are thrown out it gives us a stay of execution, if they are approved, it is a major set back to the railway aspiration and whilst we never say never, none-the-less will deny local communities a possible lifeline which otherwise they may have benefited from.

Thank you for your support and indulgence, even as we seek to serve the public interest.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Pill

ERTA Media Spokesperson.

To what extent might a decision to put a road on a trackbed, thus blocking a railway corridor be an example of Parochialism trumping Localism in the St James’ Road Link Example?

                                                                                                                                                  11 April 2018

Press Release

To what extent might a decision to put a road on a trackbed, thus blocking a railway corridor be an example of Parochialism trumping Localism in the St James’ Road Link Example?

ERTA is gravely concerned whether the Northampton Borough Council decides a parochial consideration for the St James’- London Road link trumps wider considerations. The road ERTA believes will link 2 congestion hot spots, introduce 24x7 traffic, pollution and congestion to a mainly residential area and block the railway formation for a Northampton-Bedford rail link, a strategic consideration.

ERTA has made tireless efforts to raise objections to the road link which has a short-term appeal as a gimmick for traffic reduction but does nothing about growth and once full what other options urban Northampton has?

ERTA Media Spokesperson said “It is well established that a new modern Thameslink style railway to Bedford would enable numerous rail travel opportunities including quick access to Bedford, Luton, Luton Airport, Thameslink and the East-West Rail to Cambridge and those audiences to Northampton town centre, minus the traffic and parking competition. It offers strategic gain and regenerative benefits and with the new University Waterside Campus and Delapre Abbey means a new Station to serve the Northampton South area could be highly beneficial. If we implement this road, we deny Northampton these options and that is detrimental.”

End Press Release

Further comment: Mr Richard Pill, ERTA Media Spokesperson 01234 330090/richard.erta@gmail.com

East-West Rail via a new Milton Keynes-Olney-Bedford link, still leaves out Northampton?

The bid or aspiration of the Head of East West Rail to build a new rail link to Bedford from Milton Keynes via Olney is fanciful inasmuch as whilst converting the level crossings to bridges or underpasses on the Bedford-Bletchley railway may be more costly (stating beyond to bring home the short sightedness of the actual level crossings policy?) http://orr.gov.uk/rail/health-and-safety/infrastructure-safety/level-crossings/level-crossings-policy means that legitimate rail reopenings are being held back on cost-resource allocation grounds.

What any new rail link between MK and Bedford means is that you have to bridge the Great Ouse Valley somewhere and Olney is surrounded on 2 sides by the River Great Ouse with perennial flooding. Yes the A509 is a busy road which a rail link could capture and yes, coming into Bedford Midland from the north has some benefits but which way will you go out to Bedford-Cambridge? If you go across the top, you avoid Bedford, if you go via Wixams you go down to come back up. If you go via old St John's and Cardington Road Bedford you hit a level crossing dilemma. Moreover the disjointed way this initiative is being sprung on us whilst we face 2 planning applications which would scupper our goal of Bedford-Olney-Northampton by putting a development over the Handley route and a road over the trackbed literally assuming the corridor with no wriggle room at Northampton means that the opportunity for strategic considerations has been lost and so Northampton could be jepardised and getting around Olney on an east-west axis likewise. Afterthoughts are fine, but may not be unpick-able. It is a pickle! We welcome all rail development per se, but as with pastry on a pie, has to be trimmed to fit the lie of the land and avoid blight of communities.

Have we got the balances right? As for Level Crossings, most accidents come from abuse by road users anyway as per hitting bridges with high sided vehicles beit lorries or buses. Poor maitenance is a organisational/budgetery deficit which should be prosecuted, but to ban all Level Crossings prohibiting reopenings of these strategic rail links seems draconian and knee-jerk over-kill. Some have mooted preservation but again needs a backer and at £1 million per mile, some people we do not command at present. Getting Bicester-Bletchley reopened and fully functional in a timely manner is vital first step and unless and until that is ticked off as done and all singing and dancing, I suggest there's a danger of over-reach. Does East-West Rail Consortium have ability to take profits after all costs to cascade to new projects? That's the sort of innovation we need. Oxford-Bicester is open and fuctional, is it deriving a profit? Part must be cascaded to reopening these rail links. Tolling A421/A422 and the proposed Super Highway for the railway and condiments would again be some justice to the equation. Otherwise we're dependent on others money and they instead will want their cut and stake-holdership in the ownership and direction of projects. Likewise strapped for cash local government could also want money generated for their budgets. Proper Taxation is where Government could step in but there are votes at stake in it.

Thus tolling the roads seems logical to inform a rail deficit rectification budget and on the back a freight modal shift plan for actually getting long hauls by rail and local distribution by smaller lorries with less wear and tear. This needs some overall coordination and as yet, we're yet to see any emergent persons or powers which are taking responsbility for this. The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) did a report and suggested bypassing Bedford for East-West Rail which would be a cruel irony to put it mildly and a devastating blow to regenerate Bedford Town Centre and inform a market share. So we're inputting to these agendas and welcome people to join our free email loop: richard.erta@gmail.com to compare notes and join ERTA and get involved.

Train crosses London Road Bicester 2018. These Level Crossings are perfectly safe as long as road users don't cheat or abuse them and should be rolled out saving cost and enabling pinch-point reopenings and enabling rail reopenings to serve urban town centres where space and location may be prohibitive to bridges or underpass developement.