Dear Friends, Colleagues and Elected Representatives,
This statement has been brought to my attention:
East West Rail going through Bedford debate.
An ePetition is now live to call for Bedford Borough Council to publicly debate and review its support for EWR Route E. We need 30 signatures in the next 24 hours to get this on the agenda for the next full Council meeting, and as many e-signatures as possible after that. Please register and e-sign this petition if you support it (registration takes 2 mins). Thank you for your support.
This link goes directly to the Borough Councils website.
ePetition - Bedford BC's support for East West Rail Route E - Bedford Borough Council
Click the links above to access the petition sites.
You could use it to argue passenger trains could reverse out of Bedford Midland and go east via the old St John's site and part old trackbed part new build as we have long suggested. Need any words from me, just ask. Freight would also go that way by a reinstatement of a triangle at St John's for direct running in any direction. Hence lands must be saved. If any Borough Councillor or Officer worth their salt wants to meet 121 with me to discuss and work together I am very ready to do so.
I believe you can redesign Bedford Midland with new concourse etc and new twin tracks for through movements to/from the Midland Main Line and East-West Rail, but the old route via St Johns with realignments at Willington and thence back over the river to head towards Tempsford Plain via north of Blunham approaching from the south-west and using that plain not for 500 houses nor any new station but physical rail connectivity enabling Peterborough, East Bedfordshire, Stevenage and Cambridge access to Bedford and the Oxford corridor and vice versa - call it diverse rails, contrast the northern route which having negotiated 2-3 hills and a flood plain, also has to get through Black Cat Roundabout Box.
If you go over it you then have to descend to the Tempsford flood plain from the North West to go out easterly at best? If you go under, you then hit the River Great Ouse basin and Ivel confluence. The East Coast Main Line will need modification anyway, as height over Overhead Wires will be hideously out of keeping, tunnelling on a flood plain unwise and costly. Likewise trains could run direct from all south of Peterborough, Huntingdon and St Neots direct to Cambourne, Cambridge South (Addenbrookes) and Cambridge or beyond itself. Via Ely is a long way round and tracks between Ely and Peterborough have intensive passenger and freight use and increasingly so, so capacity will be at a premium. Quadruple tracking Huntingdon-Peterborough should be looked at.
Oxford-Bedford is no problem.
Via St Johns is not without problems, but much less so that the proposed northern trajectory. Cambridge is a place people want to get to as quickly and efficiently as possible, not all round Will's Mother's! If we sacrifice the old St John's site to housing infill, we lock-in the northern route and if that flounders due to Renhold-Ravensden-Wilden or indeed Colesden and Chawston then what? Happy to answer any questions, but this petition is a chance to have a say and debate. I prefer roundtabling, but as not asked yet by anyone at the Borough, my stall and instinct is via St John's is the straightest, flatest, less cumbent option and whilst the eastern end is no panacea, can be reasonably implemented and save money whilst capturing more audiences. Remember from Sandy or St Neots by direct rail services, you could be in either Bedford or Cambridge within 20 minutes, but with changing at Tempsford new station, you could say 30 minutes plus and more cost and I suspect many will still be tempted to drive into Bedford or Cambridge.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Pill
ERTA
richard.erta@gmail.com - join our free email loop.
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