Great Western Coffee Shop

At long last a decision appears to have been made regarding the route of the Oxford-Cambridge Varsity Line. Perhaps, if we're lucky, and if we believe the govt. will support Andrew Adonis' infrastructure committee's recommendations, something might happen in CP6?

http://www.bedfordtoday.co.uk/news/business/business-news/bedford-sandy-rail-link-gets-the-go-ahead-1-7301673

Not sure why the subject line mentions Bristol - this is confirmation of Bltechley-Cambridge.

There are many restrictions as to why Bristol - Cambridge won't happen for at least a decade.

Yet again a news outlet uses the phrase 'gets the goahead' for what is only an early single step in the process.  The NR announcement is a 'preferred corridor' and IMHO is basically a way of ruling out some of the fantasy suggestions.    It isn't a mapped route yet, as is plain from NR's whole statement.

It won't seriously be the goahead until someone funds it.

Paul

And that only comes after the route is defined. CP6? someone's dreaming

Alright - perhaps CP8...

With momentum and Adonis and his big hitters behind it, I predict it'll be rushed through.  So, end of CP7 - which won't actually exist by then as Hendy/Carne/DfT will have changed the whole Control Period structure to better reflect longer term investment strategy.

A decade or so hence, I'd agree

I have a particular interest in this proposal, having lived in the early 90s in a property built on the former trackbed in Sandy. Indeed I still have a study published by the EWR Consortium dated Jan 96 which looks remarkably similar to the current proposal (except that it proposed no new line east of Sandy).

So 20 years on, and we haven't even started the massively difficult task of reinstating a line which was only taken out of use in 1993 and is still broadly intact (Claydon to Bletchley).

Given the challenges that now exist, firstly in Bedford, then the development to the north of Sandy in the last 20 years, and the need to cross the ECML, I wouldn't bet on the line being started within the next 10 years.