Freight by rail: example for copy and paste across the regions?

21-08-23

All laudable stuff, but I doubt you'll achieve 50% modal shift back to rail without re-railing stratgic missing links and gaps in the rail network and that means a rolling programme of reopenings and select rebuilds/new-builds. Two examples are S#horeham-#Horsham-#Guildford for South Coast-West London extra capacity and #Reading and beyond likewise using same new tracks. Another is #Northampton-Market Harborough (Northampton has a new rail-based depot) and this link would enable #Oxford-Milton Keynes-Northampton (a principal sized town) and onwards to Leicester and the wider East Midlands but also Felixstowe via Peterborough. No east-west rail for 100 miles north of London, thanks to the closures and East-West Rail east of Bedford goes the wrong way, some don't even think it caters for freight, has no west-north curve capacility for Midland Main Line access from the east and does not include an arm to Northampton for Northampton, DIRFT and West Midlands. You route all via North London and existing over-stretched orbitals and cacpacity remains the great unknown. HS2 is not a panacea, we need local line reopenings alongside, filling gaps and catering for local access to/from the international rail network.

19-08-2023

For ERTA's purposes, getting tracks back makes a load of sense. Brackmills needs re-railing like it or not as part of the Bedford Link. I attach a picture of a typical rush hour scene on the A45-Brackmills road: 

See: https://www.bis-hendersonspace.com/is-the-golden-triangle-still-the-centre-of-uk-logistics/#:~:text=The%20Golden%20Triangle%20refers%20to%20an%20area%20of,being%20home%20to%20the%20biggest%20names%20in%20retail.

Northampton is part of this, yet apart from over-used WCML, no east-west rails or links direct with East Midlands. So A14/A45/A43 gets a lion's share of juggernauts and other traffic, meeting M1 in an urban area, makes bad air! https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-matters-air-pollution/health-matters-air-pollution

Bedford is not far behind gridlock and bad air! Protect the old rail route adjacent to Delapre Abbey on the one hand, but if a new route arcingly north of Turvey were to go in, as old route via Olney is lost, how does new houses at Turvey aid that before a route is viable established as a working presumption?

It is ERTA's view Bedford-Cambridge East-West Rail should enter Bedford from the east via St John's enabling west-north movements through Bedford Midland to a new link to the west to Northampton. If Northern Route is chosen, it makes no facilitation for arcing direct across to Northampton or west to north for Midland Main Line north of Bedford = a missed opportunity of long term consequences.

We need it bringing together as a 'Y' on its side: Oxford/Northampton-Cambridge/East Anglia and vice versa. It makes more of a case for the Northampton-Market Harborough Line to bring Southampton/Bristol/Oxford to Milton Keynes Central, Northampton, Market Harborough, Leicester and East Midlands 'The North' 'not via Birmingham, which frees a load of capacity off main lines. To explore further, please email richard.erta@gmail.com 

19-06-23

This report is well worth a read. East-West Rail is cross-referenced at varying stages: https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Solent-to-the-Midlands-Multimodal-Freight-Strategy-Phase-1-June-2021.pdf Question is, how can you bring-in the ECML if no physical rail connections?

Surely these types of initiatives should have government plans and backing to roll out across the regions to clean up our environment more? Surely we need initiatives like this to be government led, nationwide and cleaning up our environment a top priority with tracks and trains to inform enablement more? https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23514766.glass-container-manufacturer-trials-delivering-bottles-rail/

Folders Sidings maybe? Northampton as well? What about near where you live? Brent Cross and Leicester too? It needs a nationwide vision! The list can go on but local or regional, the Government should be leading the way surely more and ensuring incentives to do so 'carrot and stick'?

ERTA understands there's about to be a planning application to build houses over the old St John's Station site in Bedford and the new Mayor combined with NOC Council and North East Beds MP Richard Fuller, want to oppose Northern Route E. In short, there's no Plan B? We will oppose the housing and insist there is!

Please stand by for updates as news comes in and we will orchestrate to the best of our ability. Tom Wootton Conservative (farmer and land owner based in Ravensden is now Elected Mayor). 

Meanwhile, England's Economic Heartlands has sent us this link: https://www.englandseconomicheartland.com/our-work/connectivity-studies/ Although we wish they would get behind and support our rail reopening calls, they instead plum for a. existing east-west rail Oxbridge corridor and b. Northampton-Peterborough which although re-railing in an ideal world would be a boost for freight by rail and taking on A14 to the South Midlands more, is as far gone as the original Bedford-Sandy-Cambridge Rail Corridor. Besides, 2050 is too late, longevity is fine if predicates now are soundly based. Alas, they are 'business as usual' in a Climate Emergency amidst resource diminutives whereby natural resources are depleted, recycling toyed with at best and basis of transport operations more roads and aviation than sound as a pound 'greener' rail-based solutions even with diesels, as one locomotive can haul about 16 juggernaut lorries per train... tonnages off local roads, with savings in such wakes. As ever a trade off, some just don't see the trees from the proverbial woods!

Please join ERTA and help us with these and other tasks to promote better public transport, local rail reopenings and growing association representation and efficient administration: https://ertarail.co.uk/