Title of officership: Project Coordinator
Goal: The re-railing of the former Great Central Corridor from Calvert to Narborough. This a new-build to 21st Century standards for passenger and freight. This will require new-build rails.
From Leicester going south we need to check:
1. Check where the old GC used to cross the Leicester-Nuneaton existing lines at Narborough area. Is there enough land to enable a ground level connection or is it developed over?
2. Is the route of GC free from obstruction to Lutterworth or blocked? If so what blockages/who owns it/name of company/individual.
3. Is there adjacent land to the blockage which may inform a deviation?
4. Talk to Lutterworth Town Council/ask for permission to inspect the old station site. Can it be used or is a new station required?
5. South of Lutterworth is more complicated. Old GC trackbed – it is available? What blocks it and what is missing? Likewise serving Magna Park with rail, a study is needed on best options and then:
6. You need to court local council support to the IDEA of a rebuilt or new-built railway corridor. They in turn could contact landowners and other developers like Gazeleys (developers of Magna Park) to contribute to a study for a new railway.
7. Rugby. A study is needed to:
a. Can an access to existing Rugby West Coast Main Line (WCML) Station be done/is it feasible and within or without what parameters/break down the objections and opportunities.
b. If coming across WCML by a new GC flyover/bridge and reopening Rugby Central as a second Parkway Station for the town going towards Brackley, Aylesbury and Oxford respectively and vice versa to Rugby.
c. Orbitals of Rugby: a study is needed for example, south of Lutterworth alongside the M1, serving DIRFT (Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal) and south and west to the former GC corridor more or less. Could such a new link orbit south and east of Rugby built area and serve via a new station Barby and Willoughby areas (growth areas).
8. Woodford Halse a problem area, needs either compulsory purchase and relocation (extremely unpopular!) or a new alignment (expensive). If it were HS2 they would just plough through, deviate or tunnel! All rail projects are equal, some more than others it seems!
9. Brackley East – new-build deviation with station along the A43 roundabout area for road-rail connectivity as a Parkway Station with a 10-mile catchment including the town of Brackley which is growing.
10. South of Brackley East is new build to join with a western curve, the Oxford-Milton Keynes East-West Rail for wider linkages to Oxford, Bristol and Southampton for example. It would also have a new rail direct link to the proposed Milton Keynes-Aylesbury curve (former Claydon Junction knocked out by HS2) for Aylesbury, Old Oak Common (needs new Chiltern served bays) and the proposed through tunnel (new) to link with (proposed) Southern Heathrow Rail Link for direct access (new east curve for Waterloo direction) and west via Woking to Guildford for Portsmouth, Redhill and if we get out way via Horsham/Shoreham to Brighton and Chichester for example/South Coast. These audiences to the GC corridor new-build.
11. Let me be clear, we’re talking of £billions, say 1 mile of double track is £20 million per mile. It is a major project and goal which requires professional buy-in, adoption and taking all the way as did HS2 to Government adoption, support and third-party funding.
12. Case studies should examine technicalities, feasibilities, engineering ‘can-do’ and where pinch points arise beit Narborough, Lutterworth, Rugby, Woodford Halse, East Brackley, Claydon area linkages and so forth, to come up with solutions, options and choices.
13. Once the case is made and the benefits direct and indirect formally appraised and evaluated from local to regional to national in scope, then the position may be more favourable to recovery and can-do. See No. 11 as a key coalition build goal to strive for.
14. You could break it down to segments like:
a. Capacity through Leicester (reopen Melton Mowbray-Nottingham direct for example)
b. Leicester-Narborough
c. Narborough Junction
d. Narborough-Lutterworth/Magna-Rugby
e. Orbitals for Rugby and new routes/alignments
f. South of Rugby
g. Brackley East (lollipop rail-head which could, if delivered serve Silverstone and feed connecting buses, helping sustain the public transport choice network more.
h. Claydon Connectivity
i. South of Claydon-Grendon and OOC
j. OOC adequacy, capacity and tunnelling options
k. Heathrow Southern Rail – getting a broader vision and coalition on board
l. Guildford
m. Guildford-Cranleigh area, Horsham and direct line to Shoreham for South Coast east and west.
n. Reading-Brighton arc.
15. It needs a lead-volunteer and a team of volunteers coordinated working together. They need to be people committed to able-bodied action, who say what they do and do what they say in a timely manner.
All offers via richard.erta@gmail.com or Kuljit Maan kuljitmaan74@gmail.com
16. If we don’t act now, development is blinkered beyond own balance lines and councils complicit in such blinkeredness, it like other options will be lost within 5-10 years beyond recovery. Even now it is an 11th hour. Be clear, this is a new railway to 21st C designs for freight and passenger use, capacity and trying to decongest M1 and other roads. Development through these corridors is unsustainable without it, as all associated vehicles – passenger or business, goes by road as a norm, compounding an environmental problem of some magnitude nationwide and as of model, completely the wrong way.
“And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible. We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator. “
Secretary-General's remarks to High-Level opening of COP27, 07 November 2022.
Ref: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2022-11-07/secretary-generals-remarks-high-level-opening-of-cop27
There are many climate change deniers, maybe not vocally, but quasi-religious ignorance, rooted in beliefs or indeed, unbelief (!) and many who dissent from denialism, find they are locked into a system which favours roads, traffic and congestion.
The closures of most local railways including the Great Central happened best part of 60 years ago, decades of abandonment, neglect, other agendas, uses and entrenched lifestyle otherliness/indifference and so salvage what you may, but see opportunity for new creation and also pragmatic what gives, what takes is ‘it’ in a new rail term.
17. A new railway presents new on and off the rail’s opportunities.
a. Footfall and spend/new flows of business, income and employment direct/indirect and associated supply chains
b. Cleaner traffic reduction context of life and purpose
c. More freight by rail, less congestion, less accidents, quicker end-to-end timings
d. Could design, if national goals wanted Piggyback and roll-on, roll-off facilitations e.g., Lutterworth-West London (Lutterworth area is where M1, A14 and M6 meet but has no rail whatsoever!).
e. More seats as ‘not via London or Birmingham’ for North-West-South-West rail-based travel shaves time and cost and frees up other tracks and main place stations for other growth and business.
f. Cleaner air, less litter and more opportunities for creating wildlife habitats/ecology as well as saving land for farming, conservation, housing and employment sustainably.
18. See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transport-business-case/transport-business-case-guidance Gov.UK Department for Transport
If you have the time and tenacity to wade through all the bits, pieces and giblets of all the considerations, caveats and minutiae here, we’d welcome your kind offer of help with open arms! There’s always the kybosh that Government Elected/treasury turns round and says “great idea but no money” and so having a strong coalition of support at all levels and third-party funding like developers sponsoring costs, contributing and professional leadership is crucial to court and maintain all the way along the corridor as well as trying to court and reach out to NIMBYs – there always will be – and win over where can do/invite helpers to find alternatives without bumping into other vested interests. Good luck, as in this game, it is exactly imprecise and un-guaranteed to win or find fortune, but in the scheme of things, every reason to bother. Again, ability to build teams of people and assign to reliable people chunks to focus on and then round-table to measure progress, identify challenges and prioritise are skills which come from know-how, but experience can also be telling.
R. B. Pill, ERTA Secretary 13-02-2023
Speaker will be announced at the Market Harborough meeting + a mini book stall with back nos of magazines and booklets to do with transport.
All enquiries and offers via richard.erta@gmail.com / T. 01234 330090
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