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My suggestion to re-open the Whole Great Central route

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swt_passenger

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Chiltern were never, ever, going to open a line to Rugby.
It was a "secondary aspiration" in the Chiltern2002 franchise agreement:
Part 3 - Output Aspirations

Secondary Aspirations

The parties have agreed that, in addition to the Primary Aspirations, it may be appropriate for the following additional outputs (“Secondary Aspirations”) to be made or procured by the Franchise Operator over the course of the Franchise Term in relation to the Franchise Services:

2.2 Great Central

The Franchise Operator proposes to operate a new passenger service between an M1/M6 Parkway Station and London Marylebone. It is envisaged that in order to comply with this output that the Franchise Operator would open a new line between Aylesbury (or Calvert if the East – West line has been opened) and Leicester, including new parkway stations on the A43T at Brackley and near the intersection of the M1 and M6 north of Rugby. The line would integrate at each end with the national rail network.

Schedule 14 of this: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...e/598481/RED_Chiltern_Franchise_Agreement.pdf
lists all the potential improvements as of 2002.
As I posted earlier, it was one of a shopping list pf proposals put forward by Chiltern as part of the requirements of the ten year extension of their franchise. 10+10 rather than the 20 year franchise usually described. The whole long list of proposals was never required by DfT, only an agreed number.
 
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DarloRich

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Chiltern were never going to rebuild that line no matter what that document says. Secondary aspiration? Pie in the sky more like.
 

swt_passenger

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Chiltern were never going to rebuild that line no matter what that document says. Secondary aspiration? Pie in the sky more like.
I expect many people thought Chiltern to Oxford via Water Eaton was pie in the sky back in 2002 as well. I don't see how you can be so sure, but then 15 years of hindsight is helpful...
 

DarloRich

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I expect many people thought Chiltern to Oxford via Water Eaton was pie in the sky back in 2002 as well. I don't see how you can be so sure, but then 15 years of hindsight is helpful...

How can I be so sure? Because it would cost £bns! There is no way Chiltern, even with a 30 year franchise (say) would commit the level of funding needed to build such a line. You think what you like. It wasn't, ever, going to happen once Chiltern did the sums. however it need create good PR and column inches.
 
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edwin_m

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Oxford via Water Eaton was a much smaller scheme, especially when the government decided EWR was going ahead and chipped in for some parts of Oxford-Bicester so it would do both. It was nearly all classed as operational railway so planning risks were relatively minor. It also had a clear traffic objective of Oxford (not sure how important Bicester Village was at the time but it has certainly helped since!) where Chiltern could see the size of the market and anticipate grabbing a reasonable share once they compared their journey times with GWR's.

I'm not aware of any heavy rail service that survives entirely on park and ride patronage, though a P&R station like Warwick Parkway can add reasonable numbers to a service that runs mainly for other reasons. If there was enough demand for P&R in the Rugby and Leicester areas to justify a new service and reopening a long section of route, then someone would already have build them on the faster WCML and MML routes where the cost would be far less and the service into London would be faster.
 

DavidGrain

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Let me just say that the source of my information was a talk given by Adrian Shooter, former chairman and MD of Chiltern Railways, in a talk he gave to the Railway and Canal History Society a few years ago. He said that Chiltern were not able to fulfill that objective because of the likely route of HS2. Now even back many years ago HS2 was a known possibility and Shooter, a whole life career in railway management, would have likely worked out possible routes for HS2 through the Chilterns before anything was put down on paper.
 

The Planner

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They could have quite easily done so, the section around Calvert is being moved to accommodate HS2 so there is no reason why they couldn't have run parallel to where HS2 diverges off towards the West Midlands. Whether the government would have said different or allowed it is another discussion.
 
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