Monday 30 December 2019

ERTA Calls for the re-railing and rebuilding of the Northampton Brackmills Branch!

ERTA Calls for the re-railing and rebuilding of the Northampton Brackmills Branch!
The English Regional Transport Association believes there is a strong case for re-railing the Brackmills Branch as a piece of railway infrastructure. Benefits of so doing could include:
Ø    An out of town park and ride could be established to give more parking capacity off the A45/A428 into the town centre and main railway station of Northampton
Ø    A drive for getting the big players located at Brackmills Industrial Estate to club together and explore sending more freight by rail. Being off main lines, it keeps existing tracks open for more trains.
Ø    If the Northampton-Market Harborough line reopens with a local service to Leicester, trains could wait over on the capacity and land the Brackmills Branch enables.
Ø    Special Trains, Heritage Operations, running around trains, the branch could help existing lines operational efficiency.
Ø    ERTA believes these and other gains including the medium term rebuild/new build back to Bedford for links with Luton, Luton/Gatwick Airports, St Pancras Eurostar, Thameslink and east-west rail to Cambridge and vice versa to Northampton for vital traffic free footfall and spend commands that local councils take an interest, form a consortium, draw down funding for commissioning studies and keeps the option of re-railing alive. Business cases have to be made and cost money, Councils, Business and other leaders are best placed to secure what is required and make the case as robust as necessary.
Please write to your local MP c/o House of Commons, Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA and
1. Northamptonshire County Council, Northamptonshire County Council, One Angel Square,
Angel Street, Northampton, NN1 1ED
2. Northampton Borough Council, The Guildhall, St Giles' Square, Northampton NN1 1DE
3. South Northants District Council, The Forum, Moat Lane, Towcester NN12 6AD.
Please let us have copies of any useful replies or forward emails to richard.erta@gmail.com




ERTA Northampton Forum – Saturday 22 February, 2.00-4.00pm,
Northampton Quaker Meeting House, Wellington Street, Northampton NN1
If interested contact Mr Simon Barber T. 0208 940 4399, E. simon4barber@gmail.com

1. Chairman’s Welcome
2. Apologies for Absence
3. Appointment of a Minute Taker
4. Previous Minutes and Matters Arising
5. Brackmills Branch Issues, Discussion and Solutions
6. Bedford-Northampton – getting councils, organisations and others involved/East-West Rail adoption.
7. Northampton-Market Harborough/Progress/Support
8. Northampton Depot News/Parry People Mover and re-railing goals/how to advance them
9. How to get more locals on board to turn out and join
10. Appointment of any officers beit area reps, project helpers, trackbed watchers, fund raisers
11. Any Other Business
12. Date, Time and Place of Next Meeting (Autumn 2020)





Monday 23 December 2019

Southern Choices - who, what, where and when?!

Probably for the New Year now, but this has come to my attention and seems to dance around real issues and us.
1. Guildford-Horsham et al should be in the frame, little chance of more capacity without more rails both sides/flanks of the Brighton Main Line (symmetry).
2. Electrification of the North Downs Line even to Guildford would enable an hourly Thameslink to Guildford for connections beyond. Getting to Waterloo from Kings Cross is crowded and protracted. Reading at a push, Thameslinks have dual voltage capability and Reading links are considerable. It means less changes and more options on spare capacity lines?
3. Could a Thameslink also turn off once an hour at Redhill for linking with Tonbridge for Hastings and Ashford etc?
4. Polegate avoiding curve for more not less diverse train services inclusive of Eastbourne, not one versus the other.
5. Is Dorking physical curve link now not viable?
6. If our line came off, you could have Redhill-Cranleigh-Horsham-Gatwick-Redhill loop.
7. Canterbury curves, can they still be done?

Friday 20 December 2019

Local to Global - it starts in our back yards!




Here is a local snap-shot of #Bedford related activity and letter:

Thank you for your letter dated 19-11-19 delivered by hand this week to my letterbox. For 20 years I've been asking for the following:
1. CPZ extension and inclusion. This would bring bad parking, cheats, fraudsters and non compliant nuisance drivers and parking to book/increase intelligence and boost security to our road. Currently we are a 'free for all' parking lottering and bad parking is part of that ill-managed affair. 
2. A one-way street scheme for the Saints area. We must get away from cheque-book empowerment, politics and influence and insist on equality for all not an 'all are equal, some more equal than others' sort of configuration/interpretation/practise. We often get speeders, stand offs and no where to go given parking either side of the street means a single carriagway and a blind corner from St Georges Road into St Michael's Road. Tempers can flare, Alexandra Road and Park Road North are other cases on the same issue.
3. Whilst I like trees, I fear that unpoliced/unregulated and 'free-for'all' laissez-fare parking will means backing into and knocking down saplings by bad parking and driving. Encroaching pavements is a problem for pedestrians who bear the brunt of the absence of proper highway policing, narrow pavements and multiple uses and abuses from cycles to people scooters, mobility buggies and powered other forms of transport, non registered, non vehicular but encroaching pedestrian space and safety none-the-less. High Street, North side of Mill Street and lower Kimbolton Road/St Peters Street are cases in point.
4. We should be salted in freezing weather and with trees, un-even pavements and so forth will add to the carnage problem. If you inspect the utility works in south side St Peters Street outside Portman House you will see how a. it is below 1 inch into the pavement and and b. will be a hazard for people to trip over in icy conditions. Needs inspection and amelioration.
5. I feel this works programme would be better for Spring or Summer, bad wet/icy winter seems laden with inconvenience. Pavements seem sound, are we to have black tarmac surfaces instead? Why? 
6. If the Borough has more money could it look at a. updating timetable information and a new flag at the St Peters Stop North side outside the new Eagle Bookshop? b. Make all contracted bus services go via the railway station and bus station as part of their overall routes - integration, challenge car presumption and boost usership in all probability.
7. Could a consideration of traffic signals be given to the junction of Kimbolton Road/Pemberley Avenue/Oaklands Road? Many vehicles turn into and out of and turn around top of St Andrews - it is a hazards place to cross especially dark winters nights and traffic turns 3 ways. 4pm observation or 10am when the schools are shut is not rigorous, it is only a matter of time before more accidents happen. It is a rat run from Manton Lane-Park Avenue via Turner Way/Park Road North and Park Avenue - Kimbolton Road - Goldington Road via Oaklands and Goldington Avenue and vice versa. It needs stemming. These intermediate roads and areas have 20mph speed signs but no enforcement of them day or night and Rothsay Gardens is another hot spot for speeding. They go to/from Goldington Road and The Embankment for St Marys Street and Kimbolton Road avoiding town centre and Bushmead Lights. Could a bus and cycle only one way between Bushmead and Howbury Street down Castle Road be done, as this narrow piece of road gets cluttered with buses, vans and cars and is a disincentive for pedestrians trying to cross between the numerous small shops either side. Buses often can't get through and the Highway Code Book of pedestrians and giving way to buses seems to be out to lunch these days.

These articles may put it in a wider context, but from localism to globalism, we need grassroots changes and modal shift to be nurtured more, not pandering to popularism and ever more exhaust emisssions. Trees may absorb carbon, but it is like a bucket of water into the river, compared with ending fossil fuelled engines and cutting volume and thus friction from tyres on hard surfaces. 

Monday 16 December 2019

Getting from a to b in reopenings and rebuilding railway terms – a layman’s view:


Getting from a to b in reopenings and rebuilding railway terms – a layman’s view:

I have limited access to resources and mobility.
I have never worked in the rail or transport industry.
However, I am qualified to degree standard and have been active in railway interests since childhood first with observing the progress of the preservation movement in the late 1970’s especially the Ffestiniog Railway and the break through to Blaenau Ffestiniog and then in 1981 I joined the newly fledgling Bedford Bletchley Rail Users Association (BBRUA), met Mr Richard Crane its Chairman, served on it and the Railway Development Society (RDS) predecessor to Railfuture from 1985-1987 and helped convene the first meeting of what became the Oxon and Bucks Rail Action Committee (OBRAC) in 1986 and stayed with them until 1987.
In 1987 I founded the Bedford and Sandy Rail Reopening Association (BASRRA) and in 1990 the first Bedfordshire Branch of Transport 2000 which (nationally) today in known as Campaign for Better Transport (CBT). I ran T2000 until 1994, had a break for 3 years and then in 1997 inaugurated the Bedfordshire Railway and Transport Association known as ‘BRTA’. That ran until 2008 when we realised that there was a wider dimension to localism and immediate re-railing agendas and needed to court a wider dynamic appeal and also make solidarity with other people elsewhere in similar positions. In 2013 the English Regional Transport Association (ERTA) was inaugurated and I have been elected as its Chairman.
The point is that if they can face an obstacle like a lake and an electricity generating station in the way of the bid to get back to Blaenau and come up with a creative solution ‘take the railway to a higher level, blast a new tunnel and clear the side of a mountain and re-join the old alignment into Blaenau’; why is it that we face such fuss and monumental barriers, costs and obstructions when it comes to realigning on relatively flat lands, using often adjacent fields to get round where blockages have occurred and indeed in some cases, for the greater good, have a stance of ‘here’s the cheque, move please’? We are talking about 12 units/houses per time in numerous locations or one big obstruction or combinations?
Given that the lion’s share of closures occurred in the 1960’s (some before and afterwards granted) we are now talking 50+ years since the withdrawal of infrastructure, 50 years of development, change and patterns of lifestyle, business and behaviour which has adapted, forgotten and largely indifferent to what was once there and generally has moved on in accepting terms. Obviously, it is unpleasant if a home or businesses is asked to relocate even with compensation packages. But given the woeful neglect of trackbed corridors by all tiers of Government, who equally must take a share of blame for the predicament we are in. They also need to feel the weight of responsibility to rectify and balance the demands for re-railing, modal shift, the environment, air pollution and carbon emissions with the operational needs of business, people and communities. We are a roads, rubber and fossil fuel laden society. The rail network is absent in many cases. The challenge is getting from this low point to re-railing, plugging glaring gaps and optimising the switch from road to rail in passenger and freight terms from day one. Too much waffle about 2050 goals and deadlines, we don’t have that luxury in a climate emergency – akin to a paramedic saying to a caller, I’ll call round after breakfast, when they need seeing to asap! Its maybe like portraits of contextualisms between Wind in the Willows and Gone with the Wind! Many badgers abound, what we need are aces who can get things done, lawfully yes, but delivery and cost times down, focused, pithily so and produce products people will use and buy into and indeed before, during and after be investors and share holders in. What works, we need it doing. Many have struggled. Some companies are doing lower cost/lower specification trains for local lines, smaller projects and operations but we don’t have the equivalent track relaying/rebuild using old or recycled tracks to get something running and investing to continually upgrade and refine to Network Rail Standards. We used to have the old Light Rail Orders which permitted running up to 25 mph – the speed being obvious – to prevent casualties if things go wrong. 9/10 times they do not, but the need to have a ‘light touch’ get started all, encompassing company which delivers railways – track, trains, signalling, timetables, car parks, lighting, stations, toilets, disabled access and yes passenger and freight revenue generating operations and feeds/links with a Network Rail portal for wider feed into and out of is missing currently and is much needed.

If you agree, why not join our email newsletter loop and make for solidarity with us in the quest? richard.erta@gmail.com We need help, we need answers, we need working solutions. I fear HS2 has given the endeavour a bad name. But even so, if a road or motorway they just compulsory purchase and just plough through, with a railway it is a much more protracted affair. Maybe put rails on motorways and charge trunk roads for the privilege!




Thursday 21 November 2019

English Regional Transport Association (ERTA) calls for a reappraisal of reopening the Brackmills Branch


20 November 2019
Press Release

English Regional Transport Association (ERTA) calls for a reappraisal of reopening the Brackmills Branch

The recent announcement of a ‘525 home development’ adjacent to the Brackmills and Great Houghton locations should act as a catalyst to a reconsideration of opening the Brackmills Railway (the stub of the former Northampton-Bedford railway) and should be protected and studied further.

Our concerns are that strapped for cash councils avoid the rail link issue saying “no business case means no need to protect the route” but given that the local roads are at capacity and congestion is a major issue, without improved radial rail links restored, all new development will go on local roads compounding the situation.

Our call is for the councils and other entrepreneur organisations to club together, invest in a study and look at what the re-railing the line could offer. In our view even as a local shuttle from a large car park near Brackmills/Great Houghton to Northampton Castle Station, the line could offer out of town Park and Ride relief as well as serving the new University Waterside Campus and South Northampton areas including the popular Delapre Abbey.

Local Councils should also be looking at the East-West Consortiums bid for an Oxford-Bedford-Cambridge rail link and how rebuilding a new rail link to Bedford would link Northampton to it and Cambridge, but also Luton Airport. These audiences could well come to Northampton informing renewed footfall and spend minus the traffic and give people more options.

Richard Pill, ERTA Media Spokesperson said “We need to keep options open and not be blinkered. There is a need to protect the railway route and realignment spaces at places like Olney and in the Northampton urban cordon. We are against further development unless it is linked to reviving a rail link as the congestion is bad for air quality, public health and needs a better vision for the 21st century.”

End of Press Release

Further comment: Mr Richard Pill 01234 330090 / richard.erta@gmail.com


https://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/politics/525-home-development-near-brackmills-approved-by-northampton-borough-council-1-9148669

https://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/people/rebuild-brackmill-s-derelict-train-line-into-northampton-s-own-park-and-ride-tram-service-says-transport-group-1-9158115


Saturday 16 November 2019

Boris' £500 million reopenings bid is wholly inadequate

We note Boris Johnson's offer of £500 million for reopening local rail links but this is wholly inadequate as even Bedford-Cambridge, some 25-30 miles is coming in new build at £2-4 billion. However you would get many '30 miles' of rebuild for the £100 billion outlay avariced on HS2, which should be cut and the money cascaded to 'reverse Beeching' or in otherwords a rolling programme of reopenings and rebuilds whereby all regions get a fair share. 

Alas, this is not what is being offered and so the discourse continues in a context of a 60 year rut of entrenched locked-in road presumption as a main stay of transport and only now at the 11th hour the climate emergency stimulus is flagging up the need to change track and re-rail the country and improve capacity, access and quantity of public transport for passenger and freight. Working up schemes, starting up schemes is expensive requiring specialist knowledge to meet strict specifications, indeed a level playing field between road and rail would deliver more rail for less cost anyway and the obvious fact that if something is there 'choice' then people can use it whereas if a line like Bedford-Northampton or Guildford-Horsham remains closed, roads are the default setting until a reopening occurs. There are about 100 credible schemes for rebuild, reopening or select pieces of new build, and a 10 year programme of 1-2 per region would soon sink that figure and we would be better for it.

Please help spread the word of ERTA and its conference and help us move these agendas forward regardless of who wins the General Election. Meanwhile route protection can help keep options open and here we see the neglect and lostness amidst 'other priorities' means constant drowning out and deferment. ERTA is working on these things and needs expanded membership and volunteers to reinforce our effort.

https://www.ertarail.com/ Email richard.erta@gmail.com to request our free pdf pamphlets (see below).





Friday 15 November 2019

English Regional Transport Association (ERTA) Vision for the South East Region and our commitment to see it through.


15 November 2019
Press Release

English Regional Transport Association (ERTA) Vision for the South East Region and our commitment to see it through.

The English Regional Transport Association (ERTA) fully supports the rebuilding of a Guildford-Horsham-Shoreham rail link in full for a variety of good reasons. Local and regional rail choice is lacking and patchy and whether traffic reductions or environmental concerns the corridor needs to have a railway pushed through. Far from threatening a walkway cum cycle way, it is envisaged the ‘green corridor’ could be expanded in places and suitable fencing delineate the railway from the walkway. Where pinch points exist, yes, the cycle way would need to be slewed and where blockages exist like at Cranleigh, alternative rail route options need to be being allocated and planned in designs now. If we wait 10 years and do nothing to advance the railway you will get ribbon development, road bypasses and the heaping up of volumes of traffic and overcrowding at existing railway stations and urban area which lack the capacity to cope beyond price managing access.
The rail link would enable access by rail between Reading/Heathrow and Brighton as well as Gatwick via Horsham from the south.

Other proposals we have are:

Ø    Build the Arundel curve to enable Horsham-Shoreham now and give more options
Ø    Rebuild a new Polegate-Stone Cross avoiding line north of Eastbourne which will enable more direct Brighton-Ashford rail links and make rail a more attractive alternative to road proliferation.
Ø    Look again at building curves linking the 2 lines at Canterbury for more diversity of options and services.
Ø    Electrify the North Downs Railway
Ø    Study a new build rail link between Gatwick and the Redhill-Tonbridge Line
Ø    We fully support the reopening of a South Coast-Uckfield through rail link as well as Tunbridge Wells-Eridge in full to enable more through workings arcing Kent and Sussex areas.

End Press Release

Further comment contact Mr Richard Pill 01234 330090 / richard.erta@gmail.com












Tuesday 12 November 2019

Great Central necessary - please give it your support

The massive cost and intrusion of HS2 is totally unnecessary. It has been marketed as various claims and one wonders if all are necessary or true. For example:
1. The claim that it would challenge inland flights but avoids linking directly into Heathrow to shave a mere 7 minutes off end to end London Capital timings.
2. The claims of High Speed, when the 127 miles from Paris-Lille is considered a shorter distance 'minimal' for operations efficiency and shorter gaps one might suggest means less efficiency with high speed acceleration but 3+ mile distance braking to stop and that means all trains must keep those head-ways at any time. Unlikely to go that speed in urban areas when grinding to a stop and that is why no station between Old Oak Common and Solihull is wanted by the promoters which translates to all brown field development in the wake of the new railway (exactly the same for road schemes) will be driven to use existing road and rail links which it claims are at capacity.
3. If it draws the masses to commute via it to London, will an equal London audience wish to commute contra and at less income rates to the regions on the back of it or it is a one-way brain drain from those outlying regions fuelling overheating more of the London and wider Southeast regions? West London/South Bucks/Chiltern areas is already congested and everything moves slowly, to compound that and overload Crossrail is a nightmare to unfold before our eyes. 

A better way surely is to:
1. Reduce costs by making it a conventional railway not High Speed, 125 mph is a totally respectable speed and freight needs to be less anyway in many cases. HS2 is not geared for mixed running, when if capacity is the name of the game, we do need more freight by rail and capacity creation. The idea that if we get HS2 a default capacity opens up, given other growth patterns and demand over the next 10 years, those existing lines will be restricted and besides, it is orbital links between Tonbridge-Heathrow and the Chiltern Main Line/East-West Rail Oxbridge Arc that is radially needed and that agenda is missing in joined-up planning and designs currently. Terminal capacity and baying is limited so that puts a cap on growth without more M25 rail equivalent links being built. HS2 has few if any answers, it cannot access Crossrail with its trains as Crossrail is not continental loading gauge.
2. If we accept a conventional rail link into Calvert from both Birmingham and Leicester via Narborough-Rugby-Brackley-Calvert with links to the Oxford line and Heathrow via Aylesbury-Princes Risborough (Clavert-Grendon could be new built for relief purposes too), you have Southampton/Bristol-West Coast Rugby and East Midlands via Leicester and/or the Knighton Junction-Burton-Derby lines. You could bolt on a conventional new link between Calvert and Solihull and still have more station capacity at Birmingham via Curzon Street new build, but save the Chilterns, water courses, bio-diversity and many lands for plethora of other uses. You could have a station west side of Southam linking with the Leamington and Stratford upon Avon lines.
3. The Great Central corridor being re-railed would serve the East Midlands from the south and west which HS2 fails to provide. Realignments and new designs are needed to:
a. get around built Brackley
b. overcome other smaller blockages including the Catesby Tunnel
c. have a Park and Ride Station south of Willoughby and a new deviation via Barby to link with the West Coast Main Lines in the vicinity of where they split, this via bestriding the Canal corridor.
d. At Rugby more interlinking options for passenger and freight could be had. Including a direct link into DIRFT which is expanding and a curve into Northampton.
e. North of Rugby you could either do all 3 or just 2 of these options such as rebuilding the old Midland route to Leicester to meet with the new built Great Central on viaduct over Rugby old route and west of M1 serve Lutterworth with a Park and Ride before linking on to the existing Nuneaton-Leicester lines as previously mentioned. 

In short the following needs to be done:
a. agree the principle and support protection policies for the remaining Great Central corridor and that does not need to be dormant, but rather generous width lands as 'green corridors' which could extend around urban cordons and new stretches to keep re-railing options open and used interim as pedestrian, cycle, bridleway cum leisure corridors which could be edited and slewed in the event of a new railway being restored/built. 
b. contact other councils between Bucks and Leicestershire and quangos like English Economic Heartlands and pool resources to commission a feasibility study to examine what can be done and if positive including business cases both as a through route for passenger and freight from plethora to plethora (with stations and information) as well as a corridor in its own right with the 'local' apparent for footfall and spend minus cars and land use parking allocation issues in urban areas for example.

Once the study is done and shows the way ahead hopefully - Bucks apparently did costings on the Great Central a while back - but needs other councils to work together, not discard the Great Central as 'gone' when for a variety of practical, social, economic and environmental reasons local, regional and national we need this corridor re-railed and a new Park and Ride Station on the Great Central south of Willoughby adjacent to the A425 and a new rail link off the Leamington Line to link with the Northampton Loop Line via Southam, Great Central and Daventry, none of which have ready access to rail and have growing populations not apparent 50 years+ years ago when the line was shut to cut 'duplicate links' when now, we desperately need 'more capacity'.

I attach a basic report outlining something of the vision and a map which seeks to show ideas for study, rather than forensic crystal ball outcomes!


Pictures below kindly given by Mr Steve Byatt. 2018




















Saturday 9 November 2019

Bedford Forum 2020 Vision to be shared together!


Would You Like to See…? (Please Tick)

Ø A new station on the Bedford-Bletchley railway at the Retail Park Kempston? o
Ø Stations North of Bedford? o
Ø Full Pedestrianisation of Bedford High Street and Midland Road for a safer shopping experience? o
Ø Pavement widening, better standards of paving and repair? o
Ø More dedicated off-road cycle paths and networks including through the town centre? o
Ø Distributor Buses serving the railway station and bus station with key places around the town? o
Ø Bus services returned to Tavistock Street, St Peters Street (north side) and Prebend street? o
Ø East-West Rail including Bedford-Sandy-Cambridge via St John’s out of Bedford? o
Ø A new direct rail link between Bedford and Northampton? o
Ø More freight by rail including a plan and vision for road-rail at Forders Sidings off A421? o ~ There is a need to get more lorries off the roads.
If ‘yes’ to any of these, please join ERTA as we want these things too and would welcome your support. Join ERTA and vote with your feet.

By joining and working together with ERTA you open up options for all as well as yourself.
ERTA is a voluntary membership-based association ‘open to all’ We have members and groups working across the English Regions seeking old rail corridor protections to keep options open, seeking a Government sponsored programme of reopenings, rebuilds and select new builds of rail links for local accessibility and new travel by rail options. We want to give choices to car dependency cultures and this capacity creation is vital to ensure:
Ø    Choice, Mobility and Accessibility for all
Ø    More Bus Passes for Under 65’s to give lifestyle choices and cut the cost of car reliance
Ø    Take lorries off the roads and put them back on the rails
Ø    Inform more modal shift
Ø    Cut pollution from fossil fuel exhausts and tyre friction particles from hard surfaces.
Ø    Cleaner air, land saved for other purposes, easing parking demand and cutting congestion
There is a better way for transport and public engagement. Overcrowding and price management techniques have not reduced problems and costs spiralling and only reopening more rail links can problems be eased. Here in Bedford, you would have thought planners could incentivise contracted bus operators to serve the bus and rail station as a part of their regular routes and if that means revision so beit. Likewise, the old chestnut of “you can’t run buses to x street because of congestion” must be challenged to “if you don’t run buses, congestion is compounded”. Likewise, cyclists on pavements could be reduced if we give them more direct route options on segregated paths even through pedestrian zones – speed and consideration notices should be made clear with sanction for abusers. Likewise, the pedestrian should be at the centre of planning not pavement narrowing for widening roads for more traffic adjacent to hospitals and schools. If you agree, join ERTA and let’s work at these contradictions and impediments together.


Join us for our regular Bedford Forum convened at the back of the Pilgrims Progress Wetherspoons on the corner of Midland Road/River Street, Bedford. It is free, no obligations. Discuss in a friendly atmosphere your cares, concerns and aspirations around transport and make common cause/meet like minds. Tuesday February 4th 2pm lunch, 3-5pm business, Tuesday 3rd March and Tuesday 5th May 2020 the same.