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
|
