More freight by rail - small can be beautiful and a railway can always be upgraded!

24-10-2022

Below is an attempt to map out key areas we at ERTA would welcome more rail investment/go-aheads and progression towards delivery. 

1. Liverpool-Tees/Humber certainly for my money Woodhead and Harrogate-Northallerton could help

2. East Midlands: Northampton-Market Harborough key link for Southampton-Bristol-Oxford 'triangle' to/from Milton Keynes/Bedford via East-West Rail for East Midlands and back. Bletchley-MK-Northampton a WCML pinch point requires a certain speed for capacity. HS2 may ease and create more paths, but some way off, we need it now. Also East Midlands, Derby-Manchester via Matlock, Bakewell and Buxton/Chinley has to be hands-down a winner if allowed.

3. Thames/London: growth by rail in my view depends on capacity - loads going on beit in, across and out of London as well as London centric freight and deporting and that of Channel Tunnel, across London and circumvention. Northampton-MH frees more via Peterborough-Leicester to serve potentially Brackmills Industrial Estate, Northampton Depot (from the north 'not via London'); from East Coast or anywhere else and Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal/DIRFT via a new north-west curve. 

4. A key issue is the government refusal to grant the Ely Rail Bypass currently, which like Bristol-Portishead is being held up and that is incurring cost (Bristol) and delay (Ely) to increase what capacity and rail can offer. That in turn puts pressure to go by road (A14/A45/A43/A34 = Felixstowe-Northampton-Oxford-Southampton arcing with continuums from each of these roads to places like West Midlands (A14/Lutterworth to M1/M6) and/or London (M25 and radials) which cascades.

5. In Scotland, long overdue is Dumfries - Kirkcudbright/Stranraer - does it make any sense for A75 to be upgraded continually while there's zero rail alternative? Kirkcudbight has Deep Sea Portal, mainly dominated by the Royal Navy, but maybe some access/shared facility or new could be negotiated to bring freight into Northern areas from the North more than long-haul Southampton?

6. I would add that we need a more diverse freight by rail mix and match such as parcels - pallets - post and in France we see wagonload remergent and we used to have Speedlink which although judged unviable, was building smaller flows to larger trainloads incrementally. Charterail had curtain sided wagons for pallet loads to be forklifted and loaded for example.

7. I hear also that connecting to the railway is tedious, expensive and laborious such as to make lorry loading easier, more versatile and well, life is too short! So we used to have a Section 108 Sidings Grant which assisted with connecting costs, unsure status or translation now if any, but maybe such a thing could be revived and broadened with a credit attached in grant terms for environmental contribution for sending more by rail than road for example. 

https://www.railfreight.com/policy/2022/10/18/commission-injects-nearly-half-a-billion-into-french-single-wagonload-transport/

17-10-2022

Laudable to have more freight by rail! However, it is ERTA's view that we need to a. grow the local rail network, examples like Northampton-Market Harborough for example, would create significant capacity, open new flow by rail opportunities currently lost to road and compliment the current east-west rail Oxford-Milton Keynes. b. Government could tip the balance or level up from £40 billion new roads to make Rail Reopenings equitable, not a mere £500 million. c. Things like restoring the Section 108 freight sidings grant with a modern and pragmatic flexibility and slimming down proceedures to aquire rail network connectivity. d. a more flexible and versatile approach to 'what fits' in landscape design and whether tunnel, bridge, duck-under or a level crossing with a community education programme? Straight jacket fixations, when public abuse is more the issue of level crossings, must take into account urban landscapes for example do not lend to new bridges or whatever per se. Why should reopenings or connectivity by rail for speed, efficieincy and the environment be held back? Sadly, this is a problem and we think not only of Brackmills Industrial Park, Magna Park and Forders Sidings on the A421 A1-M1 paralell where there's loads of capacity, but zero rail-based use of assets. It has idled for decades and could inform part of a recycling and waste in/out depot for example - cars, glass, other recylables to rail, processing and finished products by rail. In addition, post, parcels and pallets by rail, not just block train containers. I suspect not looking for new money, but costs could be saved by slimming down bureaucracy and switching priority from roads to local rail recovery and growth - people and goods, a line-plan for every railway, not just whim and winds of market expediency. Bring back Speedlink for example!

https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/news/135533/the-gbrtt-launch-call-for-evidence-to-increase-rail-freight/

18-08-22

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/161-million-to-transform-oxford-station-bringing-faster-journeys-to-thousands Still leaves the Basingstoke-Reading-Oxford bottleneck and the need for more alternative routes radial to and from Southampton. If we consider majority of freight going beyond West Midlands to the North, orbital routes to core route is exactly what we need to be studying, not building more roads?

11-07-2022:

https://www.railfreight.com/railfreight/2022/07/11/uk-government-freight-strategy-questioned/

Worth a read, get inspired and join ERTA/donate: https://ertarail.co.uk/

Northampton-Market Harborough would bring freight by rail to Brackmills, Northampton Depot and with a north-west curve, direct running into DIRFT. 

The scope is East Midlands, traffic off the M1 and A508 respectively and arcing to Oxford via Milton Keynes and beyond - Southampton and Bristol and all in between. So we need support going forward and a perusal of our Blogspot can help bring everyone up-to-date.

We hope to have a meeting at Market Harborough and inform a steering committee to focus on taking the Harborough link forward as well as the Rugby-Narborough flank bringing Lutterworth and Magna Park back on track!

04-07-2022

re: https://www.railfreight.com/policy/2022/07/04/uk-government-sets-out-a-future-of-freight/

The government sets out a rail freight strategy. However, what we need is:

1. Grants not loans for pieces of rail infrastructure to boost rail-connectivity to the wider rail network, like the Brackmills Industrial Estate to the main line at Northampton Castle Station.

2. To see strategic missing links and inform policy, planning and tailoring of development to keep a rail re-connection 'open', not built on and blocked? Northampton-Market Harborough to enable East Midlands-Oxford and Felixstowe to DIRFT, Northampton Depot and more by rail aggregately than can happen without it.

3. To have a triple pronged approach to Rail and volumes, shapes and sizes more by rail:

a. give incentives and legal requirements for all freight over 50 miles to explore using rail and incentives for all carriers like DPD and others including DHL, The Post Office/Royal Mail, UPS, FedEx,

to all consider rail more. Many images of the 10% freight by rail are of containers, bulky materials like aggregates and long trains, when small can be beautiful like parcels, pallets and post by rail more. Perishables another. Amazon also. Without government carrot and stick frameworks, incentives, development for rails, depots, access and joined-up-networks, this cannot begin to be realistic. Extol the benefits of rail, equip operators to do more and incentivise. The savings is less road wear and tear, lowering congestion blight and delays (cost), less emissions x whatever rail haulage is used aggregately and freeing up of land otherwise used for road vehicles and parking, for other things like housing, employment, conservation and farming. 

b. Does rolling stock design, availability, price, stewardship and access inform a versatility and flexibility and availability needed for customer demand balanced with what rail can offer now and going forward. 

c. Government needs to be working with partners for putting tracks back (rebuilds/reinstatements/new select pieces of versatile local, conventional railways for people and goods to use and access - a post office for every station upwards of 20, 000 population within 10 miles and where that population exists like Louth in Lincolnshire, for those tracks to be put back or rebuilt alongside the A16 or equivalent roads as may be the case.

d. On larger block train consignments - pallets to containers, why not look at a rebuild of Woodhead for capacity, relief to the A628 trunk road - through a National Park being upgraded is outrageous, when rail could, if put back, take a lion's share of people and goods over the Pennines and using Hull and Liverpool more for ship to shore freight, Woodhead is just the ticket for such endeavours and should be seen in the round, ditto Harrogate-Ripon-Northallerton to enable more by rail and declutter the York/ECML bottlenecks. Government needs to join these things up more and have a block replication system which can go anywhere, fund anywhere and enable anywhere with savings in such wakes. The problem of loans is they have to be paid back, being a nation of debtors is a bad thing on a number of fronts and with uncertainty as an underlying platform of engagement, if environmental, social and economic meet and say 'yes' to rail more, then the moral thing is to do, lead and enable rail. New money may not be so incumbent, as per top-slicing the £30 billion new roads budget for rail more and cascading policy and grants from road schemes to rail schemes as a step in the right direction.

Please engage positively for rail. 2050 is too little, too late for modal choice for modal shift in a climate emergency. 2030 is the cut off date for irreversible climate change. We need plans hitting the ground now, not laying up cushy numbers for an uncertain future.

Failure of the current system and the love affair with roads whilst highlighting costs and problems of rail relative to perceived or actual 'demand' results in this being played out in Lincolnshire, where road building is rife, land lost for rail like March-Spalding is lost and locks-in an unsustainable scenario which if repeated nationwide, leaves us in an untidy mess, which Government must lead us out of.

https://www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/news/article/1125/traffic-management-details-for-spalding-relief-road-works-announced

Dear Friends, Colleagues and Elected Representatives,

See also: https://www.railway-technology.com/news/siemens-mobility-mireo-plus-h-trains-to-neb/

Above: Siemens’ first hydrogen trains ordered for Berlin-Brandenburg region, reopenings need this sort of innovation in UK as well.

Is it so hard to imagine such a service linking Northampton Castle Station with University/Delapre, Brackmills and Great Houghton? Translation is the challenge, but think and weigh benefits with problems and cons? I believe it can be done and traffic and growth means must be done? Please help us get there and give support to ERTA, its events and offer to come aboard via membership and help us practically. 

https://ertarail.co.uk/become-a-member/

Interestingly enough, now some logistics companies have bases at Brackmills, will have at Northampton Depot emergent, DIRFT operational inputs and that of East Midlands Depots, the missing link to enable more and some joined-up rail-based thinking is:

a. the re-railing of the Brackmills Branch and

b. the rebuilding of a Northampton-Market Harborough Rail Link.

These offer optimal flexibility, congestion reduction, time efficiencies, choice and much more. Weigh that of the cons. 

There is a trade-off to be done. Bigger organisations can help and loosely work with us to help push it through and save the day on a joined-up rail network fit for 21st C modal shift back to rail for reducing emissions and keeping the wheels turning sustainably more?

We need nationwide policy, plans, agendas, but that feed, can also come from local aspiration upwards as well. Realism is where they can meet and put in context, be moved towards delivery. We can only plant ideas, we need other players to work together and nurture towards that goal. See and respond to this: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/future-of-freight-plan

Offers for speakers at future events, welcome to entertain. As long as it is all voluntary, you bring your own equipment and can also include hand-outs/brochures, we welcome sponsors and collaboration towards more success. A web link can be provided as a thank you for willing speakers at future events, informing more public viewing and interest. Thanks.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Pill

ERTA Chairman

Transport for The South East Transport Plan - please ask them to include our rail suggestions!

re: https://transportforthesoutheast.org.uk/our-work/transport-strategy/

ERTA calls to support and help with informing 

1. Rebuild/with realignment spaces, a new Polegate-Stone Cross avoiding line. This would shave 20 minutes off end-to-end Brighton-Ashford services along the south coast by rail. That would improve rail's relevance, competitiveness and court more diverse usage of rail. A27 is perpetually being upgraded and widened and yet its usage is synthetically driven by the long, slow, tortuous rail-based alternative. 

Our suggestion could rectify this. In addition, far from downgrading Eastbourne Station calling, you keep the slow stopper service but add a semi-fast non-stop. Eastbourne Station needs investment and to retain sidings and track, which currently are under-used. Scope and explore small to medium to other freight by rail like parcels and pallets. Scope and explore freight along a more joined-up south coast rail system which enables more. Also look at a better marketed specific London-Gatwick-Eastbourne (Capital-Airport-Resort) direct, semi fast, limited stop, top speed service which brings in and takes out based on specific quality trains, service and marketing. The sluggish 'survivor' current system and train service is not geared for this and so we need to wake up and see agencies and councils with MP's lead from the front, make the case, talk to industry and pepp up these windows of opportunity, not throw away in the name of development with a station but keeping the 'everything in and out of Eastbourne' rail problem, whilst principal roads bypass and do more?

2. Rebuild a Guildford-Horsham-Shoreham rail link with a new connecting 'direct link' to inform a Reading-Brighton direct semi-fast 'not via London' regional service, local stopper services based on Horsham interchange and also linking Old Oak Common Interchange with Heathrow, Guildford, Horsham, Crawley and Gatwick from the south. This would create capacity on other lines, free up local roads, bring Cranleigh back onto the rail network and cut all the bads associated with congestion, pollution, land-use parking demand and wasted time for domestic and business needs. It needs:

a. route protection with realignment spaces

b. an audit of what's there and what is needed

c. studies to make the wider regional travel business case and associated demands for wider and governmental consideration

d. get industry on board. 

e. court public awareness and support.

f. slew walk-way cum cycle paths for rail, land exists for all to be catered for with a little flexibility.

3. Electrify Third Rail the Redhill-Guildford-Reading line to include as part of the Thameslink scope network with East Croydon-Guildford for example as a semi fast on top of the existing stopper services. It is a third rail area, it makes sense to use existing, clean technology and rolling stock to save time, broaden dynamic appeal for wider audiences and fill more trains, declutter local roads and delays changing informs with a degree of inconvenience in needing to change trains and platforms for example.

A study is needed. New thinking is required. Talk to us, offer to lead and help us. 

Our role as a small voluntary association is to plant ideas, we need employed agencies and funded tiers of governance to lead and progress to mutual, wider public and environmental benefit. Otherwise more congestion is the order of the day. Previous studies only looked at Cranleigh as a terminal branch off Guildford than a through link between the south coast, Gatwick and Horsham and Reading/Heathrow for example. It is time to broaden horizons and give modal shift a chance from road to rail more. You can only do that if the rail joined-up infrastructure is delivered and progressing toward that goal included as discerned goals in plans now. Any absence is an oversight and must be rectified if any new development is to be sustainable and the effects properly managed.

Getting Northampton on the right lines!

https://slp-northampton.com/ 

The English Regional Transport Association (ERTA), is a voluntary membership-based association. We welcome the new Northampton rail connected depot and wish it well. 

We have a number of goals in the Northampton area and would welcome any professional interest to help with ushering them along in the specific and wider interest.

Principally, with Oxford-Milton Keynes being built now, Southampton/Bristol-Oxford-Northampton will be possible direct, by rail. If Northampton-Market Harborough (rail would take-on M1/A508 traffic) were rebuilt, then access from Felixstowe and East Midlands to the depot by rail would also be more apparent. 

East-West Rail and Bedford Rail Conundrums

re: https://www.bedfordtoday.co.uk/news/transport/bedford-mayor-blasts-east-west-rail-over-treatment-of-residents-during-meeting-with-company-3750103

This seems to be a widening of the tent of opposition to the rail route going north and east of Bedford Midland Station. It is ERTA's view that if the East-West Rail goes north of Bedford (Route E), it will require track re-working, expansion of tracks and platform capacity and that means land-take. Bedford Midland is something of a capacity bottleneck already, Bedford-Bletchley usage is capped with access to MML north of Bedford because of the capacity of getting through the Bedford Midland 'box'. I feel that given Cllr Michael Headley has been on the Board and Council, he should have flagged these issues up prior to the 2019 Consultation, which was flawed and perverse. Instead Borough wants cake and eat it and is playing the field to position itself as a possible objector to the Bedford-Cambridge leg of the overall scheme. Its failure to support the rail link going east of Bedford via St John's is why we are where we are. If either EWRC or Bedford Borough supported the rail link going east via St John's, that is what we will support. Otherwise it is a stand-off and the clock is ticking, wasting time and energy for nothing.

In short, the message is clear:

1. There is a current need for more tracks and platform capacity at Bedford Midland 'box'

2. Add East-West Rail and that is doubly true (no. 1)

3. In our view 6 tracks will be needed if Northern Route E is pursued.

4. If Borough lines up against it, the question then is how will trains go on to Cambridge et al?

5. Our route via St John's area and east of Bedford makes a load of operational sense:

a. allows east-north movement of trains

b. weeds out east-west rail movements not for passenger interface i.e. Bedford Midland (capacity)

c. enables a new Bedford-Northampton option to be entertained

d. Even if you opt for a 'glass half full' Oxford-Bedford rail via Bedford only, you will still need more capacity - tracks and platform capacity at Bedford Midland for these new train movements and also more access to Midland Main Line-East West Rail for west-north and vice versa train movements

e. St John's area -Bedford Midland is currently 10 mph, more trains means upgrades needed to enable quicker end-to-end timings. Current layout does not lend itself to that, a point I pressed to Cllr Roydon about 5 years ago.

Of course we would be delighted if the Mayor, Borough, Cllr Headley, David Devenish, Senior Pastor at Woodside Church contacted me (local area rep) and engaged in meaningful conversations to sort things out. Instead, we're getting political football, fudge and playing to the EWRC one minute and then playing to north of A4280 objectors gallery the next. This is not the way to go, rather via Bedford St John's. I remind folks that in 1988, I was told the cycleway was to protect the rail route and therefore should either go next to a railway with a fence or be reworked to do the same job, but not on the railway corridor. As to fauna and flora, railways exist better with nature than 24x7 roads. Once a train goes by, all is quiet, roads, especially main roads are 24x7. The latter is what has been opted for by councils, governments and subsidiary agencies for the last 5 decades and unless we get a rail link east of Bedford 'all singing, all dancing', roads, congestion and pollution is the lot - that which erodes the charm of an otherwise nice place to live, namely, Bedford.

A problem for us x nationwide stretched coverage, is we lack resources, and sadly in these sorts of theatres, is used against us and yet these problems and implications are perfectly resolvable.

As for quisling sooth-sayers who say "three trains per hour plus one freight won't need more tracks, upgrades and platform capacity" to marginalise what we say, consider this: what goes into Bedford Midland or through it, also comes back, so by their own tacit admission, we're talking a minimum of an extra 8 trains per hour on that basis. Add to that growth - beit frequency or length of trains or extra and our calls - and indeed seeking to see the design - seem more reasonable. Realism is what can work, head-in-sand is trying to get pints into quarts.

This plan: 

https://mayordave.org.uk/en/article/2022/1431238/final-local-plan-2040-consultation-begins seems daft and detrimental to achieving a proper east-west rail which:

1. Goes east of St John's in Bedford and approaches the Tempsford area from the south western angle, not the northern route e, which has much against it, not least the solution to engaging Black Cat Roundabout, River Great Ouse and to cap it all and make things even more complicated Bedford Borough/The Mayor endorses a load of housing to boot! An interchange station is no substitute for physical rail connectivity between the north-south main line and the east-west rail. Failure to physically connect and plan adequate land to enable that at this stage, north or south of Tempsford Station Road, seems churlish, nonsensical. This, regardless of route.

2. Our route avoids Poets demolitions and that of Ravensden, it avoids Black Cat Roundabout + River Great Ouse crossing. So if you tunnel under A1, you still have to cross the River Great Ouse!

3. Kempston Hardwick? A load of houses, A421? When the 4 decade un-delivered cry is for the Retail Park at Kempston to have a station with a large population, easy walking, cycling and bus access, why not do that where clear immediate demand exists? More traffic means more queues down Ampthill Road to turn to the Retail Park with no remedy and disenfranchisement for pedestrians crossing busy roads. It is bad planning, bad for the environment and the Borough should consult before putting these plans forward with us and others. 

4. If the Borough blocks the old St John's site with housing, it locks-in northern route e or bust. That is unwise to say the least. Our route takes on A421 and A603 traffic, northern route e, provides nothing for no-one locally and is avariced cost, upheaval and a poor substitute for the original route visa vee Willington and new build on embankment (flood aversion) to cross Ivel River, A1 and enter Tempsford area.

Please don't double-cross us, Bedford and think again. Meanwhile land needs saving for stations north of Bedford at (Beds area) Oakley and Sharnbrook to spread the load, use the slow lines so as not to bung up the fast lines. Modest car parking, encouraging drop offs, walking, cycling and bus connectivity. I doubt Bedford Midland will be able to cater given land available and unwanted multi-storey car park blight on houses opposite in Ashburnham Road. 

5. If you settle (cynically) for just Oxford-Bedford, block off east of St Johns and so forth, any new rail for the Bedford-Cambridge 'gap' will have to avoid Bedford with more upheaval and costs. Make no mistake, you can influence a better outcome now. Then, we won't have such a luxury and yet the gap remains, roads alone cannot cope, are accident prone and congestion has not been ameliorated as media once portrayed by bypasses, rather volumes have grown to fill extra capacity. We cannot go on like this, you seem to be blowing in the wind of pseudo opportunism amidst the fan-fare of plethora of events, but sustainable businesses being a 6-8 month wonder before the shop is empty again. We need sustainable footfall and spending to the town centre and only public transport can deliver that - bus and rail respectively.

Yours sincerely,

Richard Pill

ERTA Chairman

From 18-06-2022 above:

re: https://mayordave.org.uk/en/article/2022/1430941/rail-strategy-sets-out-mayor-dave-s-priorities-for-bedford-borough

ERTA supports the east-west rail project but wants the route east of Bedford to go via the old route east of Bedford St Johns to a new alignment around Willington to link with the physical north-south main line in the Tempsford area. What it does after that is for Cambs to determine. But in any case, a north-east curve from St Neots onto the east-west rail, would enable all south of Peterborough direct rail access to Addenbrookes, Cambourne, Cambridge and possibly Stansted as well as East Anglia, places like Ipswich direct? 

We don't agree with a new main line and cramming in on just 4 lines north of Bedford, more capacity and lines will be needed unless you adopt the old route with passenger workings out of two new bays facing south at Bedford Midland (redesigned). 

On Bedford-Northampton rail link would have to avoid Olney and so whereas the old Victorian route went curve south to align with Olney, off Stevington Walk to curve north, east of Yardley through Castle Ashby southern estate to link the old route into Great Houghton. That is my thinking, would require a viaduct over Great Ouse north of Lavendon on a south-east trajectory. But consider this: 1. our route into St John's from the east, allows east-Midland Main Line/MML north routing though Bedford Midland, Route E does not. 2. Our route would have a flyover off slow tracks and a new bridge over Great Ouse to cross MML at height (flyover) and off westwards. Route E makes no provision, despite: a. Northampton, part of Golden Triangle b. Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal/DIRFT access/inland port c. WCML access. If passenger trains are scaled back to Milton Keynes Central due to capacity on West Coast Main Line/WCML issues, surely more long freight off Bedford-Bletchley tracks would mess that up too? Therefore Bedford-Northampton 'new' makes a load of operational sense surely with Thameslink arm on the back - old Connex terminating at Rugby? 

Open to chat, but Retail Park Station, Kempston should be sacrosanct as would serve more population and direct Ampthill Road congestion, contrast out-of-way Kempston Hardwick? d. via St John's from the east enables direct east-west to flow by rail without all through Bedford Midland, which eases capacity and optimises potential, ditto linking north-south East Coast Main Line/ECML somewhere in the Tempsford area. Rebuild Bedford Midland by all means, but capacity is premium now, so we need to think honestly and strategically. North of Bedford, stations at Oakley, Sharnbrook, Irchester, Burton Latimer, Desborough and Kibworth on the slows as well as Ampthill (south) are required to spread the load in a context of growth alleviate concentrates of traffic like at A428/A6 junction in Clapham Road, which really does throw all vehicles in one proverbial 'basket'! 

Always happy to discuss, be invited to round table discussions. But I feel the political spin is to aspire to have cake and eat it, when Northern Route E, does not deliver what is required and playing down, whilst seeking to block the old east-west rail route off with housing, locks-in a straight-jacket. If we are listened to and included, outlets and personnel will find us congenial enough, but if excluded for power or plough-through, we will watch as things unfold and be thoroughly entertained probably! 

So, please communicate and give us your support/help keep Bedford's rail options 'open'. For a copy of our Kempston Retail Park Station document, please email richard.erta@gmail.com or any other related matter/join our loop. See https://ertarail.co.uk/publicity/ for our other documents.

Join ERTA and donate via https://ertarail.co.uk/ and join our free email address: richard.erta@gmail.com

https://www.bedfordindependent.co.uk/council-double-down-on-their-opposition-of-east-west-rail-six-track-proposal/

Comment: This seems to be rubbish quite frankly! 1. Cllr Headley has been a board member for a long time and not once has he ever initiated a meeting or round table with ME, despite my being involved since the mid 1980's and used to go to his Church at Woodside one of whose Leaders did live in the Ravensden area. Working together, talking and exploring options should be seen as healthy, instead we have stealth with convulsions. "We want a church/solution built on relationships, not institution". 2. The Mayor could talk and reconsider going east of Bedford via St John's which would resolve many conflicts and issues and with difficult issues like Cardington Road, you lobby and grow a coalition to get what is required. If you look at Cauldwell Street rail bridge, maybe a similar one for Cardington Road could be done if speed is reduced to 20 mph? What studies for accommodation? Fenlake Road could be made one-way off Cardington Road as a slip-way access to London Road? 3. If, as I suspect some say, they want Oxford-Bedford and will happen, fine, but then that still leaves a. the gap between Bedford, East Coast Main Line at Tempsford (Sandy is blocked off, thanks Central Beds Council former Mid Beds District Council) and Cambridge/East Anglia generally and vice versa. b. More bay or through track capacity will be needed at Bedford Midland Station with remodelling to accommodate more trains coming and possibly terminating there. London Commuters won't want to be held up outside whilst Platform 1 & 2 are occupied by either passenger trains off East-West Rail or long freights x however many there is. 4. As someone has said, the east-west rail plan makes no provision for east-north movements anywhere and coming in via Bedford St Johns area from the East enables that whilst also allowing non-Bedford Midland/freight to go east-west without recourse to Bedford Midland. 5. I do not believe if the Northern Route E is adopted, it will be possibly to put all trains on the slow lines existing and more lines will be required. So, someone, somewhere is playing politics, when it is avoidable. Despite challenges, old route is straighter, flater, quicker and probably saves money. It was preferred route - notwithstanding new build east of Willington to the Tempsford area now needed. Again physical links with main north-south main line could enable Peterborough, Cambridge, East Bedfordshire and Stevenage access to Bedford County Town and vice versa, why not do it? https://eastwestrail.co.uk/get-in-touch

ERTA News, Views and Organisation - Join up and be part of the pro-affirma answer!

13-08-2022:

The ERTA Bedford Forum meeting is 2pm back of Pilgrims Progress tomorrow and all are welcome to join us. I attach the agenda we will aim to discuss around and subject to human and other resources and help, will and do aspire to move forward.

Loads going on, with the east-west rail debate in Bedford. 

Our other events are on our website: 

https://ertarail.co.uk/events/ Feel free to tap in. 

If any enquiries, please contact me on richard.erta@gmail.com

ERTA is clear, we need to marry the inequality and cost of living crisis with care and good stewardship of land and the environment in balance, not play one off with each other whilst bending over backwards to appease a falsehood of a. burning fossil fuel, endless and cheap supply ad infinitum, b. finding £30 billion plus for new roads, whilst defering even ready-to-go rail projects like Bristol-Portishead, let alone failing to protect old rail routes, realignment spaces and select new build rail corridors from development blocking them? Government is not doing this critical spade work, is not even pursuing road-rail equality, rather still wants cake and eat it and plays to the gallery. 

How do we take it out of government hands without scenarios of bull dozers turning up at places and people being given hours notices to move out? That is what the Third World is used to, bad enough for them, but we must reject it whilst getting political set ups and individuals with power to inform a solution to these vexations, than compound or short cut proper public health, safety, land use, environment, health care and enough for all is taken into consideration and given due process which does not cost the earth of divide and rule on supressive affordability inequalities. Looking for work costs: time, education, transport, relocation etc. 

But the demand is blinkered to this very often, it is left to the individual.

ERTA's public transport aspirations wants more fair play for all and cherish the best, bring up the lower eschalons to enablement and empowerment to engage comprehensively. 

Finally, nationwide or local, if you know anyone who may be interested in joining our email loop to get our newsletter, please feel free to recommend them to us or us to them accordingly and pass on our contact details. Thank you.

Pre 13-06-2022

Chris Hyomes is our Northern Area Rep and is building a team to make progress to support and usher these sorts of schemes along. We fully support him and the scheme itself and welcome more news and development to that end. ERTA is growing and doing more, but Governmental shift from road to rail still is not full throttle in policy, process or delivery emphasis it seems.

We need more Executive Committee members to help with things like administration, membership support, marketing events and external work on lobbying MP's, Councils and other outlets and agencies. Please help us do more and enable us to be better. 

We all have respective strengths and in some cases and I include myself, weaknesses. I am not overly technical, but am better than some, whereas people who grew up with modern digitality, it is second nature. 

Getting younger people 18-60 to join and get involved, to see relevance to their lives now and in the future is a worthwhile challenge to court success with as well. Sadly we live in an ageing population and whilst that generation is welcome too, unless like many organisations, we replenish our teams with new people, we will decline or be hindered in scope. Many are analogue in a digital age and we need to reflect all ages in scope to reflect our relevance to wider society at large.

It takes all to make a team and as long as I remain chairman, hopefully will retain the broad welcome of all members and volunteers to enable ERTA to be as good as it can be. 

Thank you all for your contributions and membership is a grand start! 

https://thestrayferret.co.uk/ambitious-bid-to-reinstate-harrogate-ripon-northallerton-trainline/

Meanwhile, any support for our southern campaign for restoring a variant of the former Polegate-Stone Cross direct line to shave 20 minutes off end-to-end Ashford-Brighton services and inform more potential operational flexibility for freight and modal shift, we welcome support. Freight of course is not just containers or aggregates, it can be all shapes and sizes from parcels to pallets to other creative applications, it needs nurture and getting the Government to play its part in incentivising, is a crucial part of the jigsaw. What will it take? Likewise, an 'ahead-of-the-game' opposition with a vision, faith and aspiration that has a 'can-do' attitude and approach, not just shadowing or reflecting what others are doing.

I extend a welcome to recent new members and our new Patron. Our website shows what events are coming up: https://ertarail.co.uk/events/ Please tune in and make common cause with us. We can always do more, if we have the team, especially locally living to do it. Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, South of London  to the South Coast, North of England and the West Country are all areas we need to grow more. We are on the case, slowly but surely! 

The model we have is first membership as gateway, then area repping to recruit more and identify issues and then forum facilitation to bring people together, assign roles and take the campaigns to where they need to go. Some have a 'you get on with it' remote arm approach, whereas our constitution and website makes clear, the Executive Committee is about enablement, facilitation and ensuring the administration of the association, it is its members who do the external work more. We fill in gaps sometimes, but like an octopus, our members are our ears, eyes, intelligence, roots and branches for forwarding the work in delegated form. Thank you.

Reopen a new Polegate-Stone Cross avoiding line!

 A new-build Polegate-Stone Cross avoiding line offers these opportunities:

1.      End-to-end timings shaved between Brighton and Ashford by 20 minutes

2.  More capacity into and out of Eastbourne for Capital-Gatwick-Resort access

3.      Make South Coast Rail competitive to the A27, giving realistic, attractive modal choice!

4.      Lure people out of cars, reduce congestion and locked-in road monopoly.

5.      Consider freight by rail more and all different sizes from parcels to pallets to aggregates and more!

These are just some benefits and we urgently need councils and agencies to stop developing over the route, weight the gains of reinstating it and act now before we scupper options!

If interested in helping nurture wider appreciation, please:

1. Join ERTA as a member: https://ertarail.co.uk/become-a-member/

2. Offer to be an area rep with recruiting and growing the team more in mind.

3. Write to the local MP asking for support: Caroline Ansell MP: House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA 

Phone: 020 7219 3000

Email: caroline.ansell.mp@parliament.uk also Mr Huw Merriman MP, Bexhill and Battle, Constituency Office, 29-31 Sea Road, Bexhill on Sea

TN40 1EE Phone: 01424 736861 

Also sits on the Transport Select Committee!

4. Join our growing email loop for updates and newsletters: richard.erta@gmail.com

5. Write/email to Rother District Council and encourage them to commit to a study and explore options whilst keeping the land available for either-or old or new alignment avoiding lines for modal shift off roads passenger and freight by rail more. https://www.rother.gov.uk/ and also the Wealden District Council: https://www.wealden.gov.uk/ as well as all others from Brighton-Eastbourne-Bexhill-Hastings-Ashford/Kent. It is in all their interests for a healthy, bouyant and successful rail link, quick, dynamically better than upgraded roads and cutting time and congestion, the rail investment has much to offer these corridor arterys. Without the avoiding line, the rail currently is crippled and uncompetitive and that is less-than satisfactory. So, please give us your support, join ERTA and our free email loop and let's work at making in-rails together!

6. Write/email these as well: https://transportforthesoutheast.org.uk/ 

They should be leading from the front instead, seem to dither, be clueless, cost a shed load and a nice professionalise, clincial middle class lifestyle career builder. Is it any practical good, what and where are their local rail reopenings lists/pursuits? Unless we re-rail like Polegate - Stone Cross and that of Guildford-Horsham-Shoreham, we have little chance of traffic reduction, cutting pollution, speeding things up and tailoring development to rail infrastructure, not new road building and upgrades? Act now, Government demanding upward of £50k for studies, must either undertake to do them themselves and pay or cut the rot and save our railway solutions now on the basis of free, strategic thinking, investment, actions and a load of common sense!