Posted 19th December 2023 | 6 Comments
East West Rail: some Christmas cheer, but challenges remain
Track laying for East West Rail between Bicester and Bletchley is now ‘99 per cent complete’, according to East West Rail Co (writes Sim Harris).
The route was already equipped with track between Bicester and Calvert Junction, but this has been relaid. The formation of the rest of the route between Calvert and Bletchley was intact but disused. As a result some rails and sleepers had disappeared, and were presumably stolen for their scrap value, while the flyover which carries the route over the West Coast Main Line at Bletchley has been been replaced, along with all the track between Bletchley and the junction with the Oxford line at Bicester.
But although moving forward, the project has also sustained some hard knocks.
Plans to electrify the route as part of the ‘Electric Spine’ of 2012 were dropped some years ago, although passive provision is being made for a future overhead when structures are built.
Meanwhile, the section of the former Great Central Main Line between Calvert and Aylesbury has been singled but still carried freight trains until 2021. The line north of Quainton Road has now been lifted and the connection at Calvert Junction has been removed from the current plans, meaning that Aylesbury will not gain its hoped-for connections with Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford and eventually Cambridge for the forseeable future.
The project’s value for money has also been questioned in a new report from the National Audit Office, which has concluded that it is ‘not yet clear’ how the benefits of the £6-7 billion scheme will be achieved, nor how it fits in with other government plans for growth in the region.
The Treasury has set up a cross-government board to support the development of a ‘shared vision for growth’ associated with the scheme. The NAO is recommending that the Department for Levelling Up Housing & Communities, the Department for Transport and the cross-government board should establish effective ‘cross-department governance’.
Head of the NAO Gareth Davies said: ‘The rationale for East West Rail rests on its wider strategic aims of increasing economic growth in the Oxford to Cambridge region.
‘To maximise the economic benefits from its investment in East West Rail, government must ensure stronger strategic alignment between departments and with wider local growth initiatives, so that there is a shared, coherent vision for the future of the region, and the contribution that the East West Rail project will make is clear.’
Reader Comments:
Views expressed in submitted comments are that of the author, and not necessarily shared by Railnews.
david C smith, Bletchley
The quantifying of "hidden" benefits and costs are indeed of interest and importance for railway economics. i do think this is an important way forward if it can be "honed" to contribute to a set of market forces that are more complete than often at present. This sort of task seems more appropriate for Whitehall than trying to micromanage the railway.
Stephen Dearden, New Mills
The nature of cost benefit analysis is that a discount rate is applied to any returns, which it make it very difficult to justify any investment with a very long term payback. It does rather fit in with our political systems 'short-termism'.
Bassman, Beaconsfield
HS2 have lifted the track just north of Quainton Road up to the former Claydon Junction so there is no freight traffic at present. I don`t know if Calvert waste terminal is still open but any deliveries would have to be by road. That leaves are rather useless stub at Quainton which might see a railtour once a year and is sometimes used for training new Chiltern drivers.
I agree the Ayls-MK line is vital and should be built before Bed-Cam. It would be a fraction of the cost and timescale, has already a trackbed requires no new stations and requires no demolition of properties. Apart for its diversionary value, if (as originally proposed years ago) trains were extended to Marylebone (or Old Oak Common?) this could serve many of the expanding Bucks. towns. Possible, but not ideal this could be achieved some existing Myb. trains.
H Gillies-Smith, South Milford
The Bletchley-Oxford reinstatement also affords a diversionary route but the Milton Keynes to the county town, Aylesbury, is a must to my mind. Far more important than the Bedford to Cambridge section, initially. Again another diversionary route made available.
Neil Palmer, Waterloo
"The section of the former Great Central Main Line between Calvert and Aylesbury has been singled but still carries freight trains. Even so, the link has been removed from the current plans "
I certainly hope they aren't even installing a physical link/junction. It could be useful as a diversionary route for example.
[The last 1500m on the Aylesbury line to Calvert has been lifted to allow HS2 to construct earthworks. There is no early prospect of this being replaced.--Ed.]
king arthur, buckley
Benefit cost ratios for these projects are highly subjective and I suppose the pessimism is coming from accountants more than anyone else. For example the whole business case is built on the assumption that the line will have a working life of 60 years, but who's to say it won't reach 100 years and beyond? Economic and social benefits are difficult to quantify and so the figures used for these are largely guesswork. You only have to look at the success of recently reopened lines (Borders, Okehampton) to see that patronage is often underestimated, and it's hard to see how in a country with poor east to west links that this line could ever be a failure.