East-West Rail (EWR): Consultation updates [not speculation]

[21C101]

Nobody's going to sit on a train for 30 mins to get to MKC station a bus for 20 mins to get to the industrial area when they could drive the same journey in 40 mins. And the employment area growth is away from the city centre because they can't develop more in the city centre (and that was pre-Covid).

You have obviously not watched hordes of people getting on trains at Victoria, Clapham Jct East Croydon and London Bridge in the morning peak, decamping en masse at Gatwick, then heading straight down the Airport Fire Escape stairs to the bus stop underneath the airport on the A23, where a vast queue forms, then getting one of the procession of buses to the Beehive and Manor Royal industrial estate in Crawley.

Thanks for the offer of historic images etc.
I'm interested as I'm a long term resident of Milton Keynes (moved here for work in 1980), but the few I've tried have returned "Bad gateway" and similar responses.

"Bad Gateway" Which district of MK is that?

There are some odd ones like "Coffee Hall" but I've never heard of that one?

 

[Bald Rick]

Everyone seems to want EWR to start being things it can't / shouldn't be - we've had the 'it should serve Luton Airport' line, which ignored the lack of capacity on the MML, 'it should serve Peterboro' which means finding paths on the ECML, 'it should serve Reading' ignoring the pathing challenges between Oxford and Reading, 'it should serve Bristol' - see Reading.

Indeed. I’m really cross that the line doesn’t serve St Albans. Unless of course it meant building a railway anywhere near St Albans, then I’d be really cross!

You have obviously not watched hordes of people getting on trains at Victoria, Clapham Jct East Croydon and London Bridge in the morning peak, decamping en masse at Gatwick, then heading straight down the Airport Fire Escape stairs to the bus stop underneath the airport on the A23, where a vast queue forms, then getting one of the procession of buses to the Beehive and Manor Royal industrial estate in Crawley.

To be fair, that’s not a journey that can be done in 40mins by road, which is the comparison being made.

 

[cle]

All this debate about whether E-W rail should serve MKC rather depends on what it's for.

If it's for connecting the major towns/cities on the Oxford/Cambridge corridor, then MKC is an absolutely vital stop, and (in normal times), one only has to go to the station at about 8:30 to see the large number of incoming travellers.
If it's to allow people to interchange to North South services, then the MKC stop is vital
If it's to enable fast trains from Oxford to Cambridge then the MKC stop isn't important. But, I suspect, just like most flows in UK, that intermediate journeys are as important, if not more so, than the end to end ones.


I suspect that the planners have used all sorts of surveys to determine who is likely to use the line. I doubt that those are currently valid but who knows what the situation is likely to be by the time the railway has been built?

Definitely the first two.

Oxford to Cambridge is nice branding - two famous, equivalent places at either end. But it’s like XC, about all of the new journey pairings along the route, which overlap and their critical mass adds up to a business case.

Milton Keynes is a huge part of this, but so are the economies of Oxford and Cambridge (tech and tourism over dons, lol) - plus the growth of Bicester... and the compass point connections of Bedford and Bletchley.

And if they can get to Reading, even more jobs and connectivity.

 

[Tobbes]

Definitely the first two.

Oxford to Cambridge is nice branding - two famous, equivalent places at either end. But it’s like XC, about all of the new journey pairings along the route, which overlap and their critical mass adds up to a business case.

Milton Keynes is a huge part of this, but so are the economies of Oxford and Cambridge (tech and tourism over dons, lol) - plus the growth of Bicester... and the compass point connections of Bedford and Bletchley.

And if they can get to Reading, even more jobs and connectivity.

Oxford - Cambs direct is unusually likely to be a big end-to-end traffic flow. It fell away when the line was open because it was faster via London, I suspect - I'd expect 2tph direct (stopping Cambs North/Cambs/Cambs South/Bedford/Bletchley/Oxford) to do very well.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Oxford - Cambs direct is unusually likely to be a big end-to-end traffic flow.

Why? I'd be amazed if it was. The X5 is about overlapping local journeys.

This image of gowned and mortarboarded professors bouncing back and forth all day just isn't the case. And tourists will likely just pick one of them to visit (most likely Oxford as it's easier to do Stratford the same day from London that way).

 

[Tobbes]

Why? I'd be amazed if it was. The X5 is about overlapping local journeys.

This image of gowned and mortarboarded professors bouncing back and forth all day just isn't the case. And tourists will likely just pick one of them to visit (most likely Oxford as it's easier to do Stratford the same day from London that way)

Do we know the amount of Oxford-Cambs traffic via London? I thought it was quite significant.

 

[A0wen]

Indeed. I’m really cross that the line doesn’t serve St Albans. Unless of course it meant building a railway anywhere near St Albans, then I’d be really cross!

Pah! Where's your sense of adventure?

It could have been sent down the MML to St Albans then a new curve at London Road it could have gone over to Hatfield, a station at the Galleria and then onto Hatfield. Quick reversal at Hatfield then north to WGC, but taking into account capacity constraints at Welwyn viaduct it could then have headed east to Hertford where there would then have been the option to go via Stevenage to Cambridge or along to Hertford East a new curve at Rye House and then either straight to Cambridge or via Stansted Airport.

Just think, St Albans would be connected to Milton Keynes and points west to Oxford along with a link to the East Coast Mainline and Cambridge with the option of Stansted Airport too - what's not to like?

Add in the conversion of the Abbey line to a tram running through the centre of St Albans, down to Watford, along the old line to Rickmansworth, a bit of on-road running to Denham - with an HS2 Interchange station en route - and then down to Heathrow and St Albans would have a totally modernised transport system fit for the 21st century.

 

[BrianW]

Do we know the amount of Oxford-Cambs traffic via London? I thought it was quite significant.

Do we know that East-West will be quicker, or more frequent, or reliable than via London? Maybe cheaper or more comfortable or prettier?

 

[A0wen]

Do we know that East-West will be quicker, or more frequent, or reliable than via London? Maybe cheaper or more comfortable or prettier?

Definitely quicker. It's 3 hours via London. EWR should be less than that. Also more convenient as currently it means Oxford - Paddington, tube to Kings X then train to Cambridge.

 

[Bald Rick]

Pah! Where's your sense of adventure?

It could have been sent down the MML to St Albans then a new curve at London Road it could have gone over to Hatfield, a station at the Galleria and then onto Hatfield. Quick reversal at Hatfield then north to WGC, but taking into account capacity constraints at Welwyn viaduct it could then have headed east to Hertford where there would then have been the option to go via Stevenage to Cambridge or along to Hertford East a new curve at Rye House and then either straight to Cambridge or via Stansted Airport.

Just think, St Albans would be connected to Milton Keynes and points west to Oxford along with a link to the East Coast Mainline and Cambridge with the option of Stansted Airport too - what's not to like?

Add in the conversion of the Abbey line to a tram running through the centre of St Albans, down to Watford, along the old line to Rickmansworth, a bit of on-road running to Denham - with an HS2 Interchange station en route - and then down to Heathrow and St Albans would have a totally modernised transport system fit for the 21st century.

There is a local politician in St Albans, who shall remain nameless, who once seriously suggested that Crossrail should be linked to the WCML and extended up the Abbey Line, and Crossrail 2 should be planned from Broxbourne to Hertford East, WGC, Hatfield to St Albans. As well as Thameslink. I’d voted for him before. I never have since.

Do we know that East-West will be quicker, or more frequent, or reliable than via London? Maybe cheaper or more comfortable or prettier?

Well that surely depends on personal taste. Personally I’d prefer the Thames Valley, the architecture of London, and the Mimram Valley; others may disagree.

 

[jfowkes]

Why? I'd be amazed if it was. The X5 is about overlapping local journeys.

This image of gowned and mortarboarded professors bouncing back and forth all day just isn't the case. And tourists will likely just pick one of them to visit (most likely Oxford as it's easier to do Stratford the same day from London that way).

The X5 is a slow and awful end to end journey though. You can't work on it, especially if you're in a group of people, and it's uncomfortable compared to a train. And the market isn't mortarboarded professors, it's all the scientists and engineers in both the universities and the vast amounts of private sector sci/tech business who can collaborate.

I suspect there might be significant suppressed demand for a service that's superior to the X5 for end to end journeys.

 

[MikePJ]

I currently live in Cambridge. Before that, I lived in Oxford, and before *that*, I also lived in Cambridge. I've worked for neither university (though my partner worked for both of them, which is why we moved) - I work in the high tech sector. The journey between the two cities is not much fun by any mode of transport: it's a 2 hour journey by road (sometimes a bit quicker if the motorways are quiet). I did it regularly by train for a while, usually on Friday and Sunday evenings. It takes a smidge under 3 hours as planned by the journey planner - sometimes if you're lucky with the tube connection you can do it in two-and-a-half. The frustating thing is that the direct journey is only 85 miles: a decent rail service could do it in a bit over an hour. The journey via London is frustrating - the trains are usually busy and the journey is in three sections so it's not like 2 hours on an intercity train where you can get some work done - you're sat down for 40-50 mins on the Cambridge leg; have a 20 minute tube ride and 30 minutes of waiting around at Paddington; then sat down again (hopefully) on the Oxford train.

Don't even start me on the X5: you can't really work on it without getting seasick. It is better than it used to be because both the roads and the coaches have got better, but I wouldn't take it again unless price was the most important factor.

Had EWR been running, we probably wouldn't have moved to Oxford when my partner got the job offer - it would have been reasonable to commute. Even now, we rarely go to Oxford to visit friends because the journey's unpleasant. A direct rail service makes it an attractive day trip (for either work or pleasure), and it also makes Milton Keynes even more attractive as a place where you can commute to Oxford, Cambridge, London or Birmingham all in less than an hour.

But the big benefit is all the other connections. In one of the various EWR studies I was quite surprised that Cambridge-Northampton was considered an important route in terms of passenger demand. That's an extremely tedious journey right now by rail, and one that would be very quickly improved with a connection at Bletchley. Likewise it would be great to have better connections to cities served by the WCML and MML, rather than going into London and out again. Giving the East Anglian towns and cities a better connection to the west will help too - at the moment you've got a choice of a long detour via London or a scenic tour of Cambridgeshire before you can get to the rest of England.

 

[Bald Rick]

Likewise it would be great to have better connections to cities served by the WCML and MML

Cambridge does already have reasonable, non-London connections to many cities on the WCML and MML - direct to Birmingham and Leicester; one change at Peterboro’ to Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool. Whilst journey times to the latter three are long, EWR won’t help much - MML trains that call at Bedford will only be going to Corby, and as mentioned copiously upthread, for the big WCML destinations you’d need to change at Bletchley and MK.

 

[cle]

Any end to end demand is gravy - if it exists and is suppressed, and helps those two places collaborate and connect, and drives non-London business/tech links further, then that is great.

Those high-value economies' existing and thriving outside of London is precious and should be supported. Reading is the same, lots of good jobs and activity.

But I don't think Oxford-Cambridge is going to be the core journey, even if it is the PR story that sells it.

Cambridge does already have reasonable, non-London connections to many cities on the WCML and MML - direct to Birmingham and Leicester; one change at Peterboro’ to Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool. Whilst journey times to the latter three are long, EWR won’t help much - MML trains that call at Bedford will only be going to Corby, and as mentioned copiously upthread, for the big WCML destinations you’d need to change at Bletchley and MK.

Bedford may well have Leeds via Toton! People do love Cambridge-Leeds via ECML. Perhaps this would be quicker.

I can also see one Corby moving to an electrified Leicester (are new platforms being looked at?) , with a Kettering shuttle in its place. Lots of carting of fresh air, I am guessing.

 

[Bald Rick]

Bedford may well have Leeds via Toton

If it does, it won’t be for at least a decade after EWR opens to Cambridge.

 

[Aictos]

Bedford was always going to be rebuilt, and it doesn't even have to be that dramatic (though I'd like to see proper fast line platforms).

The existing building is going to go and 1a extended. That will give EWR a full length platform, and likely, access directly to the EMU siding beyond. If Thameslink can be a bit more efficient with their platform usage, the EWR could potentially have exclusive use of both 1a & 1, if Thameslink can manage with just 2 & 3. Maybe a siding north of the station would help, or as mooted elsewhere, maybe moving the turnback to a new station north of Bedford where there's a bit more space might be a good idea.

Don't forgot and both @Bald Rick or @The Planner can confirm but I'm sure there are plans to enable the Thameslink services to terminate using Platforms 1 to 4 and shunt one signal length north of the station to then come back into another platform.

Indeed I believe or rather I've been led to believe by Network Rail that the paperwork has been done so it's possible to do it. I don't know if the route knowledge for Thameslink drivers has been completed but as it's one signal north of station it can't be that difficult.

Which means they don't need a new turnback or a new station north of the existing one.

 

[Bald Rick]

Don't forgot and both @Bald Rick or @The Planner can confirm but I'm sure there are plans to enable the Thameslink services to terminate using Platforms 1 to 4 and shunt one signal length north of the station to then come back into another platform.

The signals have been there for a long time. Not sure about the driver training - although that should be simple enough for a brief. However doing that shunt move costs drivers, so would only be done if there was no other way.

 

[camflyer]

Why? I'd be amazed if it was. The X5 is about overlapping local journeys.

This image of gowned and mortarboarded professors bouncing back and forth all day just isn't the case. And tourists will likely just pick one of them to visit (most likely Oxford as it's easier to do Stratford the same day from London that way).

I've been in Cambridge for 20 years and a regular visitor to Oxford on business and visiting friends but I almost always drive - and it's a journey I always hate. Apart from the mortarboard market there is also significant traffic from the scientific/tech communities for conferences and meetings.

Once EWR is open there is a huge potential for Milton Keynes to become the place Oxford and Cambridge meet rather than in London.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've been in Cambridge for 20 years and a regular visitor to Oxford on business and visiting friends but I almost always drive - and it's a journey I always hate. Apart from the mortarboard market there is also significant traffic from the scientific/tech communities for conferences and meetings.

Once EWR is open there is a huge potential for Milton Keynes to become the place Oxford and Cambridge meet rather than in London.

An interesting question is whether the sci-tech community will just turn towards online meetings, though.

 

[zwk500]

An interesting question is whether the sci-tech community will just turn towards online meetings, though.

A lot of the sense I get is that small, routine meetings will go online but there will still be a value with larger gatherings like conferences where unplanned encounters often get better results than anything in the programme. Stadium MK may well be ideally placed to cater for a reasonable amount of this market, being within easy walking distance of Bletchley station.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A lot of the sense I get is that small, routine meetings will go online but there will still be a value with larger gatherings like conferences where unplanned encounters often get better results than anything in the programme. Stadium MK may well be ideally placed to cater for a reasonable amount of this market, being within easy walking distance of Bletchley station.

That's a good point, though I suspect you might find there's also some leaning towards hotels in CMK - the one at the Hub that isn't a Travelodge has a large conference room for that sort of thing. I wouldn't say Stadium MK is "easy" walking distance from the station[1] - it's just under 2km (about 1.5km as the crow flies but the road layout means it's further in practice) - but it's not hard to put a shuttle bus on.

[1] If it wasn't the WCML but rather a more Merseyrail esque local rail service, I'm reasonably convinced that a station would have been put in near the Watling St bridge to serve that area which doesn't only have the footy but also considerable employment. That would be about 500m away which is the sort of threshold I'd think of for "easy walking distance" for pretty much everyone. You could argue the stadium area is now really Bletchley town centre, whereas the "traditional" town centre is very much a "local shopping area for local people".

 

[zwk500]

That's a good point, though I suspect you might find there's also some leaning towards hotels in CMK - the one at the Hub that isn't a Travelodge has a large conference room for that sort of thing. I wouldn't say Stadium MK is "easy" walking distance from the station[1] - it's just under 2km (about 1.5km as the crow flies but the road layout means it's further in practice) - but it's not hard to put a shuttle bus on.

It depends on the industry and event - a trade show or something similar is likely to want the exhibition space of the arena, a more seminar-style gathering could well opt for the Jury's Inn on Midsummer Blvd. Google gives 30mins walk from the station, as you say a minibus wouldn't be hard to lay on.

[1] If it wasn't the WCML but rather a more Merseyrail esque local rail service, I'm reasonably convinced that a station would have been put in near the Watling St bridge to serve that area which doesn't only have the footy but also considerable employment. That would be about 500m away which is the sort of threshold I'd think of for "easy walking distance" for pretty much everyone. You could argue the stadium area is now really Bletchley town centre, whereas the "traditional" town centre is very much a "local shopping area for local people".

Tbh the sensible thing to do would be to put a tram on Saxon Street between Bletchley and Central MK, then head north on Grafton Street

 

[eMeS]

It depends on the industry and event - a trade show or something similar is likely to want the exhibition space of the arena, a more seminar-style gathering could well opt for the Jury's Inn on Midsummer Blvd. Google gives 30mins walk from the station, as you say a minibus wouldn't be hard to lay on.

Tbh the sensible thing to do would be to put a tram on Saxon Street between Bletchley and Central MK, then head north on Grafton Street

Hmmm... I've opened a detailed map with street names, and I'm still puzzled...

 

[zwk500]

Hmmm... I've opened a detailed map with street names, and I'm still puzzled...

Pins do not represent stops, just to get the line. Also you'd want branches at either end (and possible an East-West), this is just an indicative concept.

 

[eMeS]

Pins do not represent stops, just to get the line. Also you'd want branches at either end (and possible an East-West), this is just an indicative concept.
View attachment 89353

OK, I'm now with you...

 

[Aictos]

The signals have been there for a long time. Not sure about the driver training - although that should be simple enough for a brief. However doing that shunt move costs drivers, so would only be done if there was no other way.

I don't know about the driver training but I was led to believe that once in place, Thameslink services won't be restricted to terminating in Platforms 1 to 3 but rather would also terminate in Platform 4 which would mean a platform being freed up for a EMR to call, for a freight to use or even for the next Thameslink to use that otherwise would have to wait for a platform to be freed up which I see as being quite useful in the peaks.

But all that is void if Bedford gets rebuilt of course.

 

[Maltazer]

Milton Keynes is so spread out and un-walkable. Would it really matter that much if EWR trains called at Bletchley and not MKC, if most people would still have to switch to bus/taxi to complete their journey in any case?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Milton Keynes is so spread out and un-walkable.

Have you ever been here, specifically CMK? What you say isn't true in the slightest.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Milton Keynes is so spread out and un-walkable.

Really - I have done the walk from Bradwell to the station many times. Also done walk from Haversham to Wolverton station many times.

Have you ever been here?

I did wonder!

 

[zwk500]

Milton Keynes is so spread out and un-walkable. Would it really matter that much if EWR trains called at Bletchley and not MKC, if most people would still have to switch to bus/taxi to complete their journey in any case?

It's a lot easier to make bus connections from MKC rather than Bletchley, not to mention faster to the Northern side of town. And then there's also the connections to Avanti services to consider. I don't think Oxford-Bedford services should stop at MKC, but I do think there's demand for Oxford-MK, which could probably be satisfied with Aylesbury-MK if the connections are decent at Bletchley. However, it looks like Aylesbury is in doubt for the final plan, so who knows what the final service will actually be