Going forward these things are in our consideration:
1. Horsham-Guildford* for links to Reading and Gatwick and Heathrow. Heathrow link from Woking to extend to Old Oak Common (interchange) and a tunnel to physically link with the Chiltern Main Line. *Currently under threat from a dual canal application.
2. Rebuild Grendon-Calvert.
3. New stations at Calvert (new town mooted) and Claydon (growing satellite settlements) whether served by east-west rail trains and/or GC/Chiltern or both, we don't mind. Getting Chiltern and other operators on board would be a major step forward and any help to that end is a job in itself we welcome any offers to manage.
4. New domestic lines alongside the HS2 new corridor which assumes the old GC corridor to south of Brackley and deviates around the extended town to the east to head north-westerly, whereas our domestic line would a. provide a domestic Parkway Station adjacent to lands near A43/bus link to Silverstone b. rejoin old GC formation north of Brackley for Woodford Halse, which we are looking at carefully, as industrial style units have encroached the old trackbed and unsure on parish's view of a railway now with NIMBYISM rife v poor public transport and a dire need regionally for modal shift choices from road to rail, north-south and east-west. A document out of the quango called England's Economic Heartland (EEH) called for a Banbury-Northampton cross-country rail link serving Daventry, and that could link in with GC north-south feeding both accordingly.
5. South of Willoughby to go via North Barby to join WCML into Rugby. New construction. Needs studying carefully.
6. New build rail link out of WCML Rugby via old Midland formation/corridor serving Magna Park and Lutterworth and joining existing Nuneaton-Leicester lines at Narborough as the old route into Leicester is heavily built on. Our colleague Owen O'Neill is covering that project which we support. 2 MP's have given support to that section being rebuilt/with new interpretations.
7. Therefore our focus is on south of Rugby - Calvert and links to east-west rail into Oxford and beyond (passenger and freight) Southampton/Bristol split for example/could be part of extended Cross Country Network too.
If you feel keen and interested and/or willing to help assist with the project that is welcome. I have one man tackling councils and MP's to build consensus around the general idea and another looking at ground level at the old route today doing a list of blockages and where and his reports will be put on our website in coming months.
Please feel to join ERTA anyway, when lock-down is lifted we hope to hold meetings again. Meanwhile we do Zoom.
Here's our membership page: https://ertarail.co.uk/
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