Thank you for all the replies it's very interesting to read , although I do not profess to funky understand the technical sides , but that description of the experiment from lowering mine speeds only to slowly increase them , means they should have if possible or workable , lowered the track , I guess that eoukd have been cheaper, but not sure if that would have been possible.
Really as was said they should have just altered it re built the bridge , and for aesthetic reasons in countryside they could have built a modern structure and refaced it with the old dressed stone work , to blend in better , than some motorway style modern bridge . Like they have at Leven with the Bawbee bridge.
Also this curve people are discussing , is this for the proposed link to Aylesbury or wherever it was supposed to reach .
As for GWR there was actually a mention in one of the railway magazines that ran an article on EWR , then again recently about the various new open access operators and new train routes , and there was mention of GWR trains running west from Oxford toward Milton Keynes .
After all the EWR services , are using cascaded or loaned 6 car 196's I think they are , I'd need to check , but if they are not running many services a day, it seems a missed opportunity to provide competitive services , that would give rail users more choice , simarly when it is eventually joined up to the greater Anglia region they took could extend their services westward toward Bedford for example , EWR is a pretty big project and probably one of the longest reopenings of all.
The fact it crosses the West coast mainline , midland mainline and ECML ought to give plenty of scope for extra services .
One thing that isn't being mentioned is will they allow freight trains to run, as this would help alleviate traffic on the roads , even though they are supposed to be upgrading roads .
The aim of government seems to be to get as many people on public transport as possible..this is clearly seen and was in the magazine article about the number of new stations being opened this year alone and last year or perhaps Chiltern could run it's Intercity services along there .
Other wise this expensive project is going to be very under utilised .
And that wasn't the aim when they decided to build it.