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Promoters of the East West Rail Link have secured ^2m to carry out GRIP Stage 4 work as part of Network Rail's eight-stage GRIP project development process (link below.)
http://www.transportbriefing.co.uk/story.php?id=5212

Further GRIP 3 work will also be required to take into account Chiltern Railways' recently announced plans to create a link between Oxford and London Marylebone and the plans for an eco-town at Weston Otmoor near Oxford.

Pardon my ignorance - but what does "GRIP" stand for and what do stages 3 and 4 involve?

GRIP stands for Guide to Railway Investment Projects. It's a eight stage process, but it's not until stage six before any actual physical work commences! Perhaps that demonstrates just how long-winded it is to actually get anything built in this country!

   1. Output definition
   2. Pre-feasibility
   3. Option selection
   4. Single option selection
   5. Detailed design
   6. Construction test & commision
   7. Scheme hand back
   8. Project close out

I thought that the Chiltern announcement would throw a bit of a spanner in the works to the East-West Rail proposals, but perhaps the overall cost of the scheme will reduce as a result?

Maybe the fact that part of the route is already receiving investment will focus minds on the project, too. People love bandwagons!

It is a good sign that it has got to GRIP 4, (GRIP is an agreed process with OOR and DoTp) it allows for outline design (stage A) which enables costs to be determined so many projects and schemes fall at GRIP 3.

NR is now in a stage of its evolution to be seeking to enhance and build new.

Oxford Mail article link.
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/3700524.East_West_rail_link_gets___2m/

Thanks for that. Can we have that added to the 'acronyms' list?

It's not going to get any further than Milton Keynes!

a - a reversal would be required (or an expensive new line from Milton to the Bdfd-Bltchly line) - this would also snarl up the busy WCML

b - the very important and beneficial 2012 Olympic rowing lake is severing the route east of Bedford, and a bridge is too expensive (plus would make rowing impossible)

c - a Park and Ride site (and probably lots of homes) blocks the route at Cambridge.

But Oxford to Milton (and London Marylebone to Milton) is very desirable. How about an extension to Buckingham/ Silverstone / or an M45/M6 -M1 parkway for Chiltern?

And why 90 mph? The route is straight, they need to be aiming for 100 at the least! I can't see it costing much more, and it's not as if the trains will stop much!

The promoters of the scheme have every intention of integrating the Bletchley-Bedford service into East-West, even if it does involve reversals at Bletchley and MK, or just calling at Bletchley, which is, after all, the station for the southern part of Milton Keynes anyway. See map of the  East-West aspirations (Cambridge not included as no-one knows where the money might come from for that):

http://www.eastwestrail.org.uk/downloads/Maps/schematic_milton_keynes_south_mid.pdf (http://www.eastwestrail.org.uk/downloads/Maps/schematic_milton_keynes_south_mid.pdf)

Yes, but the killer point is the fact that it won't go further than Bedford!

The re modeling design of Blechley and Milton Keynes has had to take into account the possible future Oxford - Bedford link by not irrevocably preventing such a link, this is Network Rail actually looking to the future of the 2030 railway and not just looking at today.

I think even if the project were fail this time around it is not totally doomed.  Interesting also is this has relit the fire in some of the campaigners for the rebuilding of the High Wycombe to Bourne End line.

And how is this a killer point? MK will be one of the biggest cities in Britain by 2020 and further development in the area between Oxford, Bicester, Aylesbury and MK will add many more people to the mix. East of Bedford, the only place of any size the old route served before Cambridge was Sandy - and it's no Milton Keynes.

Yes, going all the way to Cambridge would be nice, but as you point out, there are problems with the route beyond Bedford, while reopening the full route west of there is pretty straightforward and would be of immense benefit to all the places it serves, so let's get on with that, even if Cambridge takes a while longer.

My last but two house was built on the trackbed of the railway at Sandy, as part of an estate built in the late 80s. Despite that, a relatively straightforward diversion was planned north of the housing. The only stumbling block has been the decision, hotly contested, to build a rowing lake at Willington, east of Bedford. It's never been clear in my mind why, with the whole of the country to choose from, a site had to be chosen that effectively killed off one of the most potentially useful railway projects. However, maybe the fact that when I moved to Sandy it was under consideration, and 17 years later even the "easier" western section has not been opened, well that says it all.

Hopefully when the western section opens, and is hugely successful, the councillors of Bedford will realise how short sighted they were in allowing the Rowing Lake, and how they have impacted on the transport links of their town and county. But of course, they won't care.

The Chiltern scheme is said to fully compatible with any East West Scheme plus the fact that Chiltern reckon they could do their project in a relatively (for current railway work) short time should give added impetus to the East West scheme.


The extra capacity at Milton Kenes is said to able to take an East West Service.

b. Olympic rowing is in Eton College's gravel pit in Dorney nearest station Taplow!

Chiltern are proposing to have a station  at the North Oxford Park and ride near to the M40/A34 junction. They already have an A46 parkway near Warwick.

Chiltern are also proposing 100 mph from Bicester to Wolvercote tunnel.


If only for Bourne End - Wycombe, coupled with the East West route with its must have  link North from Ayesbury gives a sort of cross of railways linking the South with North and the county town of Ayesbury.

East of Bedford appears to more problematic but it ought be in teh plans with possibly a triangle onto the ECML to allow Oxford Milton Keynes Bedford Peterborugh trains.

Of course you've also got the option of going North from Bedford. Didn't someone come up with Corby - Swindon service.

Of course D(a)fT aren't going to allow any scheme even  Chiltern's so don't hold your breath.

Look: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/5197422.stm

It is an Olympic one, and I think it is a scandal. And I bet Tessa Jowell will be full of "the Olympics will benefit everyone" when it opens - nonsense, this lake has ended the possibility of an East West arc (from Dicot to Norwich perhaps connecting the GWML, Cotswold, Chiltern, GC, WCML, MML, ECML, GEML and Anglia region) allowing people to avoid London. It would have been really difficult for the cash to be raised if the trackbed was still there, but with the possibility of several diversion (the main one being this) it is now regarded as "never going to happen).

But the Olympics are more important than that of course!
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What I meant by "killer point" was about getting a full East West Link.
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I know about Warwick and Water Eaton Parkways, but Chiltern have expressed an interest in extending their line further up the Grand Central trackbed (let's face it - no-one else is going to use it the way things are going) towards Rugby the M45/M1/M6. This would relieve pressure on the M1.
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I, however, still think that getting as far as Milton would be fantastic!

If Chiltern is to qualify for its full 20-year franchise, it has to provide a number of enhancements. Involvement in East-West itself and the Aylesbury-Verney Junction link to the East-West route are other possibilities. Chiltern has so far delivered all the enhancements it has promised, so why not this one? And even DafT isn't stupid enough not to like schemes it doesn't have to pay for!

And if Chiltern's plan gets the go-ahead, I don't think FGW would be too upset to be relieved of the need to operate Bicester Town branch workings from Oxford. The speed limit on the existing track makes journey times unattractive, even with the A34 being choked with traffic, so passenger numbers are small, but it ties up a Turbo and crew for much of the day.


But it doesn't kill the entire scheme, as the phrase suggests, and the Oxford-MK-Bedford section was always going to be the most important, and the backers of the scheme admit that.

While the idea of an Oxbridge link always looks attractive, the fact is that a recent attempt to get an air service going was dropped soon after it was launched, due to low demand. Just like the Liverpool-Norwich and Birmingham-Cambridge rail routes, there might be a number of people travelling long-distance but the majority using the train through the course of its journey will be making shorter trips, with the bulk of journeys on East-West likely to be concentrated on the sections where there are already rails in place.

Even without the rowing lake - whatever it will be used for - it was always going to be more difficult on the eastern part, because the line had been abandoned

I've added what it stands for ... there's a whole big project out there for someone (any volunteers?) to provide full descriptions and / or links for all the acronyms listed!

Around 20 kilometres of disused railway line between Bletchley and Claydon Junction will be cleared of scrub, brambles and overgrown vegetation so that survey and investigation work can be carried out for the design development phase of the East-West Rail project (link below.)
http://www.transportbriefing.co.uk/story.php?id=5472

Starting on 26 January, the clearance will take two to three weeks and some will be done with manual equipment, although the more densely overgrown areas will need to be cleared with chainsaws and tractor mounted flails. All of the waste materials will be left chipped and spread on the site.

The design development work is being undertaken by Atkins which was recently appointed to carry out the design work (Guidance for Railway Investment Projects - GRIP Stage 4) on the western section of the East-West Rail project.

Surely they will build the line now they are speding the cash / time clearing 1¹/₄ miles of track! Hopefully for 100+ mph as the alignment is dead straight. ;D

Well, it's the next necessary step in the long ladder from 'what a good idea' to the Mayor of Bicester cutting a bit of red tape when the service is launched. Many a project has failed at a much more advanced stage than this though.

I agree.  The survey will, I guess, accurately map the route and want to look at cuttings, embankments, culverts, bridges etc to see if any will need further more invasive investigation, too many of these with major defects requiring major works could scupper the concept after all the route has not been maintained or monitored for how long?.

It is a positive step it this project

The plans to create a new rail route between Oxford and London Marylebone have taken another step forward with the advertisement of a tender for a design and build contract for Project Evergreen 3.

http://www.transportbriefing.co.uk/story.php?id=5797 (http://www.transportbriefing.co.uk/story.php?id=5797)