East West Rail - Bletchley to Bedford | Marston Vale Upgrade 

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If they hadn't built the white elephant in the room (guided busway) this would have been so much easier!

That’s a lot of level crossings to close - I’m not surprised by the timescale!

Since the Marston Vale line is a fairly rural route I can understand the need to ensure there's not as much noise and disruption for local communities, but it is disappointing to hear about the reduced tph and line speed.

Honestly early access is always worth it for these, a solo loving the info

Lots of heavy infrastructure upgrades is crucial to EWR as this would be the central core of connecting the Midland cities more efficiently. Disappointing that some aspects have been scaled back, but it's better than being cancelled. I'm placing my bets that the line speed will be upped to 75mph - a nice number that Network Rail thinks is suitable. Although I might feel sorry for passengers on the line - they've had no service for nearly a year due to the 230 fiasco, and soon enough they'll have to face periodical closures for route upgrades. Not a good look to increase passenger numbers!

The new East-West line is coming along very nicely. Nice to see it coming back again with the section between Bedford-Cambridge still to be decided.

I read some proposals at some point of moving the the stabling sidings at Bedford south some ways near an existing depot. I can’t see how they’ll be able to retain Fenny Stratford station and still double track that section of line

The closing of so many level crossings will displease the community in Marston Vale. The price of progress.

Three trains per hour is very short sighted...especially with only one of those trains stopping at all stations. Effectively that is one train per hour for a lot of the people living along the line. That really is not going to help remove car dependency in those communities. A higher line speed and electrified trains would have reduced the impact of each stop. Resiting stations to allow passing loops is good. But if that work is not giving people in all the stations the same sort of service pattern that London Overground has (4 trains per hour) then this line is likely to become "a victim of it's own success" and need remedial work later. They definitely should have increased the line speed to 100 mph. But I think they should also have considered building one or two four track sections, designed so that the express trains could run at full speed and the stopping services could actually be run slowly enough to allow the express trains to overtake them on the same section. If the section was built with future proofing that would allow 8 or more trains per hour (four express trains overtaking four stopping trains) they could start off with two express trains and two stopping services, but also have somewhere to go if the line became more successful than originally planned. Looking at projects like the Thameslink, DLR and London Overground, they have all rehabilitated lines that were previously thought to be useless and once they have gained the trust of the commuters all those projects needed to have extra investment, because they could not handle the amount of passenger traffic they induced. I really look forward to East West Rail opening and becoming a success. But if it does become a success and we need to immediately have to start having talks about a new plan of engineering works to increase capacity, that's going to be frustrating for the passengers the line attracts. If we get a new government, in the upcoming election, I hope it is not too late for lobbyists to get extra investment pumped into East West Rail.

I contacted EWR about the Bedford proposals that are mentioned here. The answers were wishy washy and never explained how 3 bridges in Bedford would be taken out of service without major disruption, how Thameslink 12 car trains would stable at Bedford when 2 of the 12 car lanes would be occupied by EWR and how 2 new tracks through Bedford would eat away at the very limited parking we already have. As a resident of Bedford I feel like there is lots of "Proposals" but there is no plans on how it will be accomplished. To be honest I don't know how Bedford station can realistically accomodate 2 new tracks without a huge multi storey car park and a mezzanine and putting the station out of sunlight. There just isn't enough room. You could move the station to south of Ford end road and put stables north of Bedford Station in some fields ajacent to the A6 but none of this is in the current plans.

What was. the work that just finished east of fenny against caldecotte? I assumed it was connected to this.

Is their any news on northern powerhouse rail? Q

Does anyone know when it will be re opened?

In the time it took you to watch this, the Chinese built another mile of high speed line😅.