Olney Parkway

[WolvertonWorks]

I can't find another thread about this... so thought it might be useful to have a thread about it.

I was at a heritage (not railway heritage!) event in Northamptonshire on Sunday and there was a stand "Northamptonshire needs re-railing"

They are wanting to get the Bedford to Northampton line and Northampton to Kettering and Northampton - Market Harborough - Leicester lines re-opened.

The Bedford-Northampton route is being called B2N and the others N2MH.

They suggest journey times of 27 minutes for Bedford-Northampton and also mention Olney Parkway (so good commuter location) to London Blackfriars Thameslink in 1 hour 15 minutes.

Northampton - Leicester is 34 minutes and Northampton-Kettering 17 minutes.

Their USP is "Putting Northampton back in the centre of a national rail hub" and they mention connectivity with E-W rail at Bedford and sustainable journeys to the new Universal Theme Park proposed for just outside Bedford.

I have always thought it a shame that the Northampton-Olney-Bedford line was closed and then not long afterwards Milton Keynes was built, Olney being one of the areas of the Borough of MK that is taking a lot of the recent housing expansion but badly served by public transport.

BUT MK Council (as they were at the time) refused to keep the route of the disused railway and allowed building on it. So I was interested to see that this group's plans include a new Olney Parkway station located at the junction of the A428 and A509 at Warrington.

They also want a new station at Northampton Waterside (for the Uni campus) and at Great Houghton and Brackmills industrial area.

More info about all this at brtarail.com/b2n and brtarail.com/n2mh.

 

[The Planner]

I think this one has done the rounds before. Take note of the section at the end where its basically saying loads of things need to happen, but they aren't doing it. The rest of the site is just clutching at straws for reopening things that never will be, saying Stratford to Cheltenham to take freight off the Lickey is doing some very heavy lifting, a lot cheaper just to bank it as they do now. Bridgnorth to Shrewsbury etc. The ubiquitous Great Central gets its own page too.

 

[SargeNpton]

BRTA was originally a Bedford group of crayonistas, which then expanded to become a slightly larger group interested in the whole of England. It has since expanded again to look at Britain as a whole. However, it overestimates how much influence it has, and the chances of any of its campaigns succeeding is close to zero.

Same as a similar group headquartered in Daventry - full of idealists, but going nowhere.

 

[MP33]

Is one of the lines, a closure in the 1980s. The one with a long and narrow tunnel, which restricts the choice of rolling stock.

 

[Halish Railway]

My choice of reopenings in that part of the world would Northampton to Wellingborough. My view is that Northamptonshire’s rail issues lie on its lack of internal and east-west connectivity. Being able to change at Bletchley onto East West Rail services will also help with this in the long term.

Build a chord north of Harringworth viaduct, making use of the former Market Harborough to Luffenham alignment and you’d be able to run a service from Birmingham to Peterborough via Northamptonshire.

 

[Farigiraf]

My first thought is who do they want to pay for it?

Even if devolution gave them the powers to fund it as a local project, local authorities struggle to keep base level public services and maintenance works funded.

The only way I see private companies funding it is if they're allowed to build a lot of homes along the route. But I don't think the locals will be too supportive of their Northants/Leics village becoming an extension of the London commuter area.

Since we're in the speculative section, let's assume the DfT/Treasury by some chance decides that this is a vote winner of a route that they want to prioritise. What arguments do the campaigners for the reopening of this route suggest could be made to assure the local voters that this rail project in particular would be a good use of tax money over, say, the rest of HS2, or an EWR eastern chord at Bletchley, or mass transit projects in Northampton/Leicester?