Full Steam Ahead On The Railways
As they say the devil is in the detail and this blog post on Rail News has pulled together all of the announcement about rail projects over the last few weeks and especially those concerned with the Local Growth Fund. Here’s the introduction.
Rail and Metro developments in several parts of England are among the principal beneficiaries of Local Growth Fund deals announced by the government on 7 July, it has emerged.
Note that this post only deals with England, so Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland could have extra projects to add, like this one for Glasgow.
Britain has seen nothing like this since the Railway Mania of the 1840s.
So what are the key points detailed by Rail News?
1. Birmingham gets extensions to the Midland Metro to link it to Curzon Street station for HS2, Adderley Park station and Edgbaston.
2. Wolverhampton gets a transport interchange.
3. There are further extensions and upgrades to stations and lines in the West Midland.
4. Freight interchange and distribution is to be improved at Daventry and near Cannock.
5.Manchester will get more trams and a busway in Bolton.
6. The article includes the improvements in Cornwall and Blackpool that I’ve already noted.
7. There is money for station and transport improvements in the Thames Valley to link to Crossrail.
8. There has been a commitment to link Reading to Heathrow directly by 2021 and also to look at southern rail access to Heathrow.
9. Reading will get improvements as the line to Basingstoke get electrified, including a park-and-ride station at Green Park.
10. Worcester, Bristol, Nottingham to Lincoln will get serious improvements.
11. The last one in the article is one I wholeheartedly support. It is suggested that the March and Wisbech route might be reopened. This would help freight between Felixstowe and Doncaster completely ignore the East Coast Main Line. I talked about it in this article.
If you look at the projects most are about providing better connections to outlying and forgotten parts of England to the present and future main rail network.
It looks like the Local Growth Fund awards total about £6billion.
No comments yet.
The Anonymous Widower 
Leave a comment