East-West Rail: Bicester residents call for rail crossing update

[whole diary]

[ChrisB]

From The BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)

Residents in a town are calling for an update on how a new train route will impact a busy level crossing.

East-West Rail is designed to connect communities between Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford and Cambridge.

But Bicester residents near the London Road level crossing are worried a higher frequency of trains means they will be "cut off completely" from the rest of town.

East-West Rail Company (EWR) said an update on the line will come in May.

When East-West Rail is completed, more trains will run across the London Road level crossing in Bicester.

Oxfordshire County Council has previously said that the new line will mean the crossing will be closed for about 50 minutes every hour during peak times.

A resident who has lived in one of the houses next to the crossing for 88 years said she is worried they will be cut off due to the wait time to cross the railway.

"It's unbelievable," she told the BBC on Tuesday. "We're just going to be cut off completely."

Bridges and underpasses have been suggested to stop splitting Bicester in two but she said "if they built a tunnel, these houses would just collapse" as she said they don't have sturdy foundations.

But Paul Troop from the Bicester Bike Users Group said an underpass would be better than a bridge as "it is definitely cheaper".

Carole Hetherington, chair of Langford Village Community Association said: "We want to hear some concrete plans. I understand they have come up with some sort of solution, but they are not sharing that information.

"Everybody has said it has just gone on for so long without any viable solutions and we do need to see what EWR are suggesting."

EWR has said: "You may have seen that [the] Spring Budget mentioned a route update announcement (Bedford to Cambridge) in May.

"We're expecting this will also include updates for other sections of the line, including the London Road level crossing and feedback on the 2021 public consultation."

Mods - feel free to move to East West Rail if deemed sensible

[IndustryInsider]

88 years living in the same house.  That can’t be far off the record!

[PhilWakely]

88 years living in the same house.  That can’t be far off the record!

Forgive the digression, but it is a long way off the record!

[stuving]

88 years living in the same house.  That can’t be far off the record!

Ooh, I doubt it! For one thing, my Mum's cousin Gwen was 90 when she died in the house she was born in in Ilford.

[IndustryInsider]

Let’s check back in on her in 14 years then, Phil.  Unless the house falls down when they build a tunnel!

I wonder if any millennial babies will get close to that longevity of occupancy.

[Bob_Blakey]

From The BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)

..."It's unbelievable," she told the BBC on Tuesday. "We're just going to be cut off completely."...

Hyperbole writ large! In the current weekday timetable the number of TPH^▸ (trains per hour) (RTT^» (Real Time Trains - website) data) using the London Road level crossing (LC^▸ (Level Crossing)) for each hour, starting at 0000, is 2,0,(2),(1),(1),3+(1),4+(1),4,6,5,4,4,4,3,5,4,3,3,4+(1),4,4,3,5,3 (Note: numbers in brackets indicate 'On Request' services which may not run). In some cases the train timings at BIT indicate that two services would pass over the LC at essentially the same time so in the hour 0800-0900, which has the maximum number of services, I guess the crossing would be closed to road traffic for around 10 minutes out of 60 (17%). When the new EWR services are introduced, NR^» (Network Rail - home page) state an additional 2 TPH, and possibly with a bit of timetable tweaking the LC closure time might be restricted to no more than a maximum of 20%.

Hardly being 'cut off completely' and in any case, as mentioned in the BBC report, the EWR team have already published a list of 6 options for dealing with this issue. Worst case scenario - permanent closure of the LC with traffic diverted via the A41 - increases the journey time between the two significant junctions on London Road nearest to each side of the LC from 1 minute to 7 and there are a couple of obvious options for small sections of new road to reduce this to 4-5 minutes.

[didcotdean]

> Carole Hetherington, chair of Langford Village Community Association said: "We want to hear some concrete plans.

Plans involving concrete? 

[Bmblbzzz]

An underpass "is definitely cheaper" than a bridge. Really? I would have thought tunnelling would be more expensive than building a bridge. Anyway, from Bob-Blakey's post above, it sounds like the current crossing will cope just fine, being open for 50 minutes every hour, not closed.

[IndustryInsider]

An underpass "is definitely cheaper" than a bridge. Really? I would have thought tunnelling would be more expensive than building a bridge. Anyway, from Bob-Blakey's post above, it sounds like the current crossing will cope just fine, being open for 50 minutes every hour, not closed.

There will be eight passenger trains movements per hour, plus the odd freight, so the barriers will be down for quite a lot more than ten minutes per hour…but less than fifty!

[stuving]

88 years living in the same house.  That can’t be far off the record!

Ooh, I doubt it! For one thing, my Mum's cousin Gwen was 90 when she died in the house she was born in in Ilford.

And now Metro has a more realistic contender for the record - she's just left her home in Street after 102 years. And she wasn't born there - she arrived aged 2 - nor died there - she's going into a nursing home.