Select Committee on Transport Written Evidence


Memorandum by the Bedfordshire Railway and Transport Association (RR 03)

RURAL LINES

  I write on behalf of BRTA concerning the above inquiry and wish to place on the record our support for this initiative for the following reasons:

    —  We support the Governments stated aim of transferring freight and passengers to rail.

    —  Rural line are those most able to accommodate growth both in terms of service and loading capacity.

    —  We hope the committee will recognise the benefit of the railway to these rural areas, areas which generally are less well provisioned with alternative public transport.

    —  We support the idea of reduced "specification" for maintenance and renewals, albeit with lower line speed than mainlines.

    —  We suggest a cascade of ex mainline or higher specification equipment will over time also assist in reducing costs.

    —  We suggest that the remit for these rural railways is spread as far and wide as possible and not just to isolated stand-alone areas.

  May I also suggest that many of our rural rail networks are casualties of the pruning of the network done throughout the 1960s and in some cases reinstatement of modest bits of track or rebuilding could tap important flows of extra passenger and freight potential. Examples could be:

      (a)  Exeter-Barnstaple: extension to Bideford and Ilfracombe (roughly nine miles a piece).

      (b)  Bedford-Bletchley: extension to Oxford and Sandy (track exists to Oxford, Bedford-Sandy is a    mere nine miles for strategic ECML/MML/WCML and GWML link.

      (c)  Ripon-Harrogate (extra passenger flow under 10 miles needed).

      (d)  Luton-Dunstable (track exists already, Dunstable has 40,000 people without rail access).

      (e)  Cambridge-St Ives (track exists already, large rural commuter population catchment either side    of the railway).

      (f)  Barmouth-Dolgellau (mere 10 miles of track required to plug large population into Cambrian   network).

      (g)  Maiden Newton-Bridport (mere 10 mile of track required to plug seaside resort back into rail   network and create Bridport-Weymouth commuter service revitalising the southern half of the   Bristol-Weymouth line. A west to south curve at Yeovil Junction would allow Exeter-  Weymouth service patterns too).

  These distances are approximate, but show how reopenings could make existing lines more profitable, useful as well as added benefits such as creaming off excessive traffic congestion and pollution.

Richard Pill, Chairman

BRTA

(including North Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and West Cambridgeshire Areas)

29 March 2004





 
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