According to rail maps on the website describing the Electric Spine, however, no regular train traffic presently operates between Bicester and Bletchley (though presumably the track reamins in place), so it seems a bit curious that such disused route would be chosen to be part of the scheme.
The East West rail re-opening project was already well on the way to funding, predominantly for a passenger service, but its advantages for freight (particularly in the southbound direction) were already widely recognised. So I should think the 'electric spine' decision process probably considered it to be almost guaranteed to be open. Then of course the
GW▸ electrification had by then included Oxford. Because EWR's business case already assumed through running of services between at least Didcot and Milton Keynes, if not from Reading, I suggest electrification of EWR started looking like a 'no brainer' for the passenger service anyway, as both ends of the route would already be wired.
Going back to freight mentioned earlier,
NR» had earlier worked out that crossing conflicts of southbound freight trains in the Nuneaton area could be solved by leaving them on the
WCML▸ slows as far as Bletchley, where they'd be able to take the flyover route towards Oxford, joining the GW without conflict at Wolvercote Jn, so you'd have a sort of one way route system for freight, with northbound through Leamington and southbound through Northampton!
Another issue is that for through services from the south getting through Nuneaton towards Leicester for the
MML» and thence the north and northeast, is a bit of a nightmare in the current layout. To cross the WCML without conflict would require a reversal beyond Nuneaton on the Birmingham line, returning over the flyover and through the new platform 7.
Paul
