Work in Surrey should precede a wider plan for a ‘rail M25’
Bravo! I heartily welcome Surrey County Council’s new enthusiasm for getting electrification of the North Downs Line done quickly ( RAIL 801). It’s a relatively cheap win-win, worth doing in itself for the local reasons explained in the article.
However, in the wider picture, I have been campaigning for 30 years for a ‘rail M25’ that would incorporate this, in a route going Dover-Tonbridge-Redhill-Guildford-Reading-Oxford-Bletchley-Bedford-Cambridge-Ipswich/Norwich. Nearly all of that railway is still there, but underused or disused.
Obviously, as with the M25, the point is that millions of passengers and thousands of tonnes of freight could connect every radial route without having to batter through London. Boris Johnson, by the way, described the revived inner-London orbital Overground routes from Clapham Junction to Highbury and Islington as ‘a rail M25’. They aren’t - they are a rail north and south circular.
Remember this route includes Britain’s longest rail straight, souped up for 100mph Channel Tunnel trains and now not used by them. We already know that the Oxford-Milton Keynes part is to receive similar treatment - on that section someone foresaw the possibilities and the capacity problems by installing an expensive flyover and new signalling at Bletchley, just before the through route was closed!
Whether this gets used for freight and better local services (changing at radial hubs such as Reading), and/or 100mph expresses from (say) Norwich and Cambridge to Bristol and Bath, or Midland sites to Gatwick and Brighton, it will nevertheless be an asset as London becomes more congested.
This is a start, and with GWR electrification it should allow many possibilities of better services - not in some distant future, but in a couple of years. Oxford to Gatwick and Brighton (dual voltage trains, of course) might take less capacity on the Brighton line than a train that reverses at Gatwick, but could certainly have more carriages.
Beware of one thing, though. As Surrey should know well (need I mention Camberley?), electrification it itself does not mean faster through services! Benedict le Vay, London