Despite a long summer, we have and are making progress. Membership is going up. We also have a new relaunched web address - please link to it/pass it around for others to get a window on us and our laudable endeavours: https://ertarail.co.uk/
Please stay with us. We face multiple front-lines from our campaigns and feel the pains of aspiration turned sour whereby the mooted idealism of the modern age of cleaner air, water, land use-ecology balances and the fit of growing populations with mixed development including housing, employment and services/facilities from hospitals to care centres to swimming pools and leisure provision just is not in any kind of tandem. Masses of houses with few facilities. Development planned with multiple car dependency from day one assumed contrast to the need to nurture rail infrastructure, public transport and healthier lifestyles (walking and cycling) just not cutting the mustard in many cases.
Grant Shapps launched the new Rail Reopenings Fund and organisations like England's Economic Heartlands and other similar organisations give themselves 2050 to get something done, gainful employment there then (!) But there's a serious need for a logistical and transport switch (modal shift) from road to rail and you can't do that without putting tracks back and building some new ones. Shovel ready projects like Bristol-Portishead have not been given the go ahead, whilst Oxford-Bedford rail link is happening, 2024 is a mooted date for trains to actually run and according to some 2030 is a cut off date for irreversible Climate Change damage with impacts on weather, food production, costs and many other news-worthy spin offs.
In short, delivery is where speed is needed, not how fast trains go. If congestion means 20 mph is the average speed of lorries and cars for example, a train going the exact same location to location is much faster with no hindrances at say 30mph... makes 225mph for HS2 seem a tad unnecessary. Of course there's more to it, but for our money starting off with getting something small, growing it and replicating the model across the system like more recycling by rail (freight off roads) is where collaboration needs to be tangible. Trading reports and citations all laudable debate-worthy stuff, but ultimately it is delivery which makes or breaks our very sense of well-being, let alone ability to compete on a sustainable platform and conscience.
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