Let's make the most of England's 'oven ready' railway

The first half of East West Rail, Oxford to Bletchley, opens next year, 2025. It will, theoretically, connect the West Country and South Wales to the East Coast Main Line. Will the government be bold enough to maximise its potential, with through, long distance trains?

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The Oxford to Cambridge railway, the Varsity Line, linked the two university cities for 100 years. One thing we underplay is the part it played in the siting of the wartime code breaking centre. Bletchley Park is just yards from the intersection of the East West Rail (EWR) line, as it is now known, and the main line from London to the Midlands and the North. (Why the enemy didn't figure out that there might be something strategically significant going on there, and bomb it, is a mystery.)

It was shut in the mid 1960s. For about half of the 60 years since there has been political agreement that the railway should be restored. Support and funding by successive governments means that half of that aspiration will be met in 2025, when the missing 21-mile (33km) Bletchley to Bicester section is reopened, connecting to existing line to Oxford to the West Coast Main Line (WCML).

At a time when it is vital that we increase our use of public transport if the UK is to meet its net zero targets, this is a piece of completed infrastructure to be celebrated. (Let's gloss over the fact that the the route for the eastern section, from Bedford to Cambridge, is still being consulted upon, with that line unlikely to be completed until the early 2030s.)

From conception in 1995, when Ipswich Borough Council launched the 'East West Rail Consortium', to delivery of even the first half of East West Rail, it has been an awfully long wait. Imagine, in the proud days of Victorian railway building, a relatively short line taking half of the queen’s reign to be finished.?

But the tracks are down, the signals up, and soon engine drivers will be trying it out. The new Transport Secretary Louise Haigh is sure to be at the opening. We must hope that she keeps her promise of bold action – she said the new motto of the Department for Transport (DfT) is 'move fast and fix things' as she set out priorities to deliver 'the biggest overhaul to transport in a generation'.

While the HS2 saga drags on, with the more difficult funding decisions still to come, Haigh said Britain 'desperately needs new infrastructure to better connect underserved parts of the country.’ Here, then, is an already completed, and paid for, public transport asset. Time to exploit it for all it’s worth??

As the first new east-west railway since the 19th century, its importance extends far beyond Oxford and Cambridge. Missing out on the logjam of London, it creates a direct link between the West Country and South Wales and the East Midlands and East Anglia, connecting the West Coast and East Coast main lines to the main line from Paddington to the West.

In line with UK governments’ habit of doing things on the cheap, costs have been cut and its potential curtailed – at least for now. A Conservative transport minister decided not to electrify the line, with the result that through electric trains can't operate from those three strategic, and electrified, lines listed above. For the time being only CO2-producing diesel trains will run over the line. This is despite a (previous) government commitment to withdraw diesel passenger traction by 2040.There was talk of hydrogen trains, but the technology has only made a tentative start in parts of Europe.

But this is still a shining opportunity for the government to tempt people out of cars and onto trains, by offering ambitious new services. There are already through services from Manchester to West Wales on other lines. Why not Milton Keynes to Cardiff, and even Swansea, as well as to Exeter and Plymouth in the west??

Another priority is to ensure the new railway is easy to access. The link to Aylesbury, which would have involved upgrading a still functioning, occasional freight line, was scrapped as a cost saving by the Tories. Time for a much cheaper alternative, for the time being. Say, a swift, dedicated bus service, ideally in attractive new electric buses, between Aylesbury and Bicester Village Station on the new line?

EWR could showcase the new government’s transport intent, at a time when it must surely to be seeking good reasons not to spend billions on new roads. Rather than encouraging more driving, it should work to fulfil the prognosis of consultancy Steer, whose research for the Railway Industry Association published earlier this year showed that rail passenger numbers could double by 2050.

Then came the?‘Rail and Urban Transport Review’, published by Arup this month (August 2024). This independent review’s recommendations include the establishment of an ambitious transport infrastructure plan. But why wait? In EWR Ms Haigh has a piece of 'desperately needed new infrastructure’ which is ‘oven ready’, as some politician once said.