ERTA Dates, Times and Meetings 2022

These are goals we have, but are subject to revision. Please check with us in any case or join our free email loop: richard.erta@gmail.com

2022 Programme

ERTA Stall at Bedford Antiques & Collectables Fair – Saturday 2nd April 10am – 3:30pm
St. Paul’s Church, St. Paul’s Square, Bedford MK40 1SQ
Admission £1.50
Please visit the ERTA stall and show your support. Thank you.

Aylesbury Forum: Saturday 9th April 2022, 1pm food, 2-4pm business
The Bell, 40 Market Square, Aylesbury, Bucks. HP20 1TX T. 01296-388080
https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/all-pubs/england/buckinghamshire/the-bell
Agenda: Agenda for Aylesbury Forum 09-04-22

ERTA Ampthill and Flitwick Forum: Saturday 30 April 2022, 1pm food, 2-4pm business
The Swan Pub, 1 Dunstable Road, Bedford MK45 1HP
T: 01525 754777 E: steph@theswanflitwick.co.uk
It is adjacent to the Thameslink served railway station and with ample parking and bus links too.
https://www.swaninnflitwick.co.uk/menus/
 Agenda: Agenda for Ampthill Flitwick Forum 30-04-22
Station example: Click Here

ERTA Stall at Bedford Antiques & Collectables Fair – Saturday 7th May 10am – 3:30pm
St. Paul’s Church, St. Paul’s Square, Bedford MK40 1SQ
Admission £1.50
Please visit the ERTA stall and show your support. Thank you.

Leicester Forum – Saturday 14th May 2pm food, 3pm-5pm business

The High Cross,103-105 High Street, Leicester, LE1 4JB T. 0116-251-9218
https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/all-pubs/england/leicestershire/the-high-cross-leicester
Enquiries and expressions of interest via E. richard.erta@gmail.com
NOTE: Table bookings are not taken. We tend to sit towards the back area or out in the rear courtyard if weather clement and venue busy. Let us know if you are coming beforehand.

ERTA Stall at Bedford Antiques & Collectables Fair – Saturday 4 June 10am – 3:30pm
St. Paul’s Church, St. Paul’s Square, Bedford MK40 1SQ
Admission £1.50
Please visit the ERTA stall and show your support. Thank you.

Bedford Forum – Thursday 16 June 2022 1pm food, 2-4pm business

Pilgrim’s Progress, 42 Midland Road, Bedford, Beds.MK40 1QB

https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/all-pubs/england/bedfordshire/the-pilgrims-progress-bedford

ERTA Stall at Bedford Antiques & Collectables Fair – Saturday 2 July 10am – 3:30pm
St. Paul’s Church, St. Paul’s Square, Bedford MK40 1SQ
Admission £1.50
Please visit the ERTA stall and show your support. Thank you.

·                    We welcome offers of support, assistance and ‘light touch’ volunteering.

·                    Please make yourself known to us, join ERTA and find your niche/new calling!

Rugby Forum – Saturday 9 July 2pm food, 3pm -5pm business

Rupert Brooke, 8-10 Castle Street, Rugby, Warks. CV21 2TP

https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/all-pubs/england/warwickshire/rupert-brooke-rugby

London Forum – Saturday 13 August 2pm food, 3pm-pm business

Barrel Vault, Unit 23, St Pancras International Station, Pancras Road, London N1C 4QP.

https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/all-pubs/england/london/the-barrel-vault-st-pancras

NOTE: Table bookings are not taken

Berkhamsted Meeting – Saturday 24 September 12pm food, 2-3pm Members Meeting, 3pm - 5pm Public Meeting with Speakers. Venue https://www.stpetersberkhamsted.org.uk/heritage/court-house/ St Peters Court House, St Peter's Great Berkhamsted, Church Lane, BERKHAMSTED, Hertfordshire, HP4 2AX

https://www.stpetersberkhamsted.org.uk/about/courthouse/

Lunch at Wetherspoons the Crown, 145 High Street, Berkhamsted, Herts. HP4 3HH

https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/all-pubs/england/hertfordshire/ the-crown-berkhamsted

Station Stalls and leafleting helpers wanted! 2022

Email Simon Barber for details and offers to assist: simon4barber@gmail.com

Notes for Physical Meetings:
1. Subject to verification. Venues may change or be cancelled at short notice. Stay in touch.
2. People attend at their own risk. Everyone pays for their own food and drink.
3. There is a pre-pared agenda, please help focus on the pertinent issues

Main contact and convenor: Mr Simon Barber, 20 Fitzherbert House, Kingsmead, Richmond, Surrey, TW10 6HT T. 0208 940 4399, E. simon4barber@gmail.com

New Diagram and update of progress

Just thought I'd give a sneak preview of our new and latest diagram. Welcome your support. A new joined up network of local rail links informs a capacity creation north-south railway from East Midlands - South Coast including Brighton, Portsmouth and Southampton 'not via London, Birmingham or Oxford-Reading per se'. 

Hot spots are all along the corridor:

a. Calvert - needs domestic lines and station

b. OOC - needs baying capacity as well as the direct link-up between Chiltern Main Line and Heathrow Southern Rail Link

c. Guildford-Horsham/Shoreham on-going

d. Willoughby-Rugby

e. Rugby-Magna Park-Lutterworth-Narborough area link up.

But what we need is to grow our teams and recruit reliable volunteers to work at each chunk. We can aspire and direct interest where appropriate there. 

Enjoy and any support is welcome to entertain.

Benefits are:

a. more capacity on/off the rails

b. mops up communities without rail access

c. London west side orbital

d. Banbury, Brackley and Aylesbury - Guildford arc

e. more freight by rail potentially

f. connectivities and gains - including regenerative and modal shift choice as well as sustainability platforms for a balance between development and impacts.

Our newsletter will be out in 2 weeks time, but meanwhile feel free to tap into our meetings.

https://ertarail.co.uk/events/

New councils means we are progressively updating our records. ERTA needs administrative and campaign helpers/supporters. Reliability is a crucial skill as well as competence in handling electronic record keeping, transparency and basic commitment to managing a portfolio. If at all interested or know others like for example retired or students - we welcome both ends of the age spectrum and all in between.

We have turned a corner:

a. East-West Rail is being done now

b. Growing appreciation of what local rail can offer

c. diverse and plauralised appreciation of route protections

d. Government one agent, farming out elsewhere and third party delivery vehicles another - what gives, what takes, we just want the rail delivery regardless in a timely manner. 

Thank you. All offers via richard.erta@gmail.com For most people, joining and then offering is the normal proceedure.

Road v Rail Event - It is time for a national plan of modal shift from road to rail and that means local rail reopenings and nurture.

This event is free apparently and 'open to all': https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/roads-vs-rail-reducing-emissions-by-2030-tickets-135985449139?ref=esli&utm_campaign=201308&utm_source=LinkedInenivtefor001

Roads v Rail is a polemic, whereas what we may need to see is more nurture and integration as follows:

1. a rolling programme of local, conventional rail reopenings/rebuilds/realignment lands and select new pieces of rail to enable rail to do more, court new markets and nurture modal shift by default of rails going where flows go. Thus north-south capacity - our call to re-rail/new-build a Great Central Link between Calvert/Banbury and Rugby/Lutterworth/Narborough (for East Midlands), Northampton-Market Harborough another. Default capacity creation is a nice idea, but passenger demand post covid may go up but in any case if the rail gaps exist, rail cannot be an answer. East-West Oxbridge rail link, but a new dedicated rail alongside A14 from Felixstowe to the West Coast Main Line with radial links in between would also seem logical, as 100 mile gap between North London Line (which takes a lion's share) and Peterborough-Leicester-Nuneaton rail link.

2. A plan for every line for rail-born nurture of freight by rail. Like Green Energy we tend to be presented with a big is beautiful or bust and trade reports on costs and locations, when small and plentiful can also reduce carbon.

3. A plan for formal protection of routes/lands to keep re-railing open. The new edition of Rail Issue 922, page 16 'Regional News' today has a bit about a canal threat to the Guildford-Horsham line, saying it will not stop a rail reopening. Personally having walked the line I think it is less clear cut, especially adjacent to line edge development and issues of double track and cycle/footpath access - can it really sustain it all?

4. A national plan for modal shift from road to rail, but also more combining road and rail interim like intermodal swap-body wagons, a dedicated Piggyback rail route from Channel Tunnel to Heart of England, an inland roll-on, roll-off rail network, bring back motor-rail and every train able to carry small loads of freight by rail like parcels, pallets, bikes, luggage, and dedicated freight again wagon loads to mixed goods to Speedlink style to full block trains. If we don't have the infrastructure, can't be done, but needs to be nurtured. One planning rule could be that warehouse complexes must be rail connected and have a percentage by rail from day one, not an after-thought of retrospective nice idea without inclusion of rail.

Hope these thoughts are of interest. I am sure you may have some of your own too.

ERTA Round Up

Despite a long summer, we have and are making progress. Membership is going up. We also have a new relaunched web address - please link to it/pass it around for others to get a window on us and our laudable endeavours:  https://ertarail.co.uk/

Please stay with us. We face multiple front-lines from our campaigns and feel the pains of aspiration turned sour whereby the mooted idealism of the modern age of cleaner air, water, land use-ecology balances and the fit of growing populations with mixed development including housing, employment and services/facilities from hospitals to care centres to swimming pools and leisure provision just is not in any kind of tandem. Masses of houses with few facilities. Development planned with multiple car dependency from day one assumed contrast to the need to nurture rail infrastructure, public transport and healthier lifestyles (walking and cycling) just not cutting the mustard in many cases. 

Grant Shapps launched the new Rail Reopenings Fund and organisations like England's Economic Heartlands and other similar organisations give themselves 2050 to get something done, gainful employment there then (!) But there's a serious need for a logistical and transport switch (modal shift) from road to rail and you can't do that without putting tracks back and building some new ones. Shovel ready projects like Bristol-Portishead have not been given the go ahead, whilst Oxford-Bedford rail link is happening, 2024 is a mooted date for trains to actually run and according to some 2030 is a cut off date for irreversible Climate Change damage with impacts on weather, food production, costs and many other news-worthy spin offs. 

In short, delivery is where speed is needed, not how fast trains go. If congestion means 20 mph is the average speed of lorries and cars for example, a train going the exact same location to location is much faster with no hindrances at say 30mph... makes 225mph for HS2 seem a tad unnecessary. Of course there's more to it, but for our money starting off with getting something small, growing it and replicating the model across the system like more recycling by rail (freight off roads) is where collaboration needs to be tangible. Trading reports and citations all laudable debate-worthy stuff, but ultimately it is delivery which makes or breaks our very sense of well-being, let alone ability to compete on a sustainable platform and conscience.

https://ertarail.co.uk/