A proper strategy to ease freight path deficiencies

The demand-capacity for rail freight ( RAIL 903) has to be weighed with radial lines, the legacy of closures, and what gives or takes going forwards.

The Werrington dive-under helps to ease pathing on the East Coast Main Line, but given the growth demand for more freight from East Anglia to Doncaster, a brand new strategic link from the March area to Spalding/Deeping St Nicholas (for example) would seem logical as paths between Ely and Peterborough are going to be at a premium.

Yet this is not listed as a ‘goer’, rather a Peterborough-WisbechKings Lynn new railway. This raises the questions: Where are we going? Are we singing from the same hymn sheet? Who is the director-lead person/s? And what is the dynamic plan?

Bedford-Cambridge East West Rail will probably not be a freight user-friendly line, and the gap is surely between the North London Line and Peterborough-Nuneaton.

Meanwhile, the A14 and A421 do a roaring trade in user demand for more roads, with wall-to-wall juggernaut movements east and west.

Who is willing to take a lead and say that we, like Rotterdam to Germany, need a new, direct freight line (with passenger workings in gaps) to get freight direct from the

East Coast to the West Midlands?

Otherwise, the conflict with London-centric interests, environmental concerns and junctions such as getting through

Leicester just proliferate. Southampton has issues with Reading bottlenecks and can’t run direct to the East Midlands, which gets all the lorries while Birmingham gets all the trains!

Something along the lines of a new direct PeterboroughNorthampton for M1, Daventry

International Rail Freight Terminal and wider proliferation on the one hand, and Great Central via Oxford to Leicester direct (albeit with a new link at Narborough) on the other would seem logical.