Here's a little more information on the history of the campaign and the latest successes...

The railway across the South Midlands linking East Anglia to the West Country by way of the cities of Cambridge and Oxford was closed amid great controversy in the 1970s. An act that has been greatly regretted not least by the railway operators ever since.

Almost immediately after closure, plans were put forward to get the route reopened but it was not until Railfuture took hold of the idea in 1995 and put forward plans circulated to every County Councillor across the regions, that the idea of the reopening really got going. Out of this lobbying the East West Rail Link Consortium - a special group of local authorities - was created. Since then, various railway operators have become excited by the potential of the route circling London to the north, describing it as the railway's "M25". However, read the leaflet, download it, as it will tell you the potted history and the rationale for the reopening.

We are confident that the 'western' part of the route will soon reopen. There are exciting plans.

See: http://www.eastwestrail.org.uk and http://www.miltonkeynespartnership.info/media_centre/press_releases.php?ID=121.

In the mean time, the routing of the 'central' part of the project is still unresolved. This is the section from Bedford to Cambridge, a very short gap (in fact, the only section of the whole route where the old track is built over). To be a real inter-regional route this section must now take priority.

The EWRL Consortium's original plan was to the use the Cambridge to Hitchin railway as far as a new 'Stotfield Road Junction' just southwest of Letchworth, from where a chord would run northwest to the Hitchin to Peterborough railway. The EWRL would use the slow lines to Sandy and then turn west onto the remains of the Sandy to Bedford railway, with some new routing here and there. Owing to a planning hiatus, this route is now difficult to achieve.

As a result, you will see on the leaflet's diagrammatic map, Railfuture has been a little vague with the node in the Hitchin/Letchworth area just being labelled 'East Coast Mainline connection'.

Things are happening in that area of our map, as there are funded plans for the 'Hitchin flyover' route that will indeed create a 'Stotfield Road Junction'. This, we feel, could be taken advantage of as it should be possible to combine the flyover route with the East West Rail Link route to the west side of the East Coast Mainline at Cadwell. From here, the flyover route will curve south to the Hitchin station area using the solum of the former Hitchin to Bedford railway.

The EWRL, having traversed the new flyover route from Stotfield Road Jct to Cadwell, could curve to the northwest and join/use the same solum to the Cardington area of Bedford, from where a short new spur can be forged to the route of the Sandy to Bedford railway mentioned above. This is but one of a number of options that could be used to make sure the East West rail link actually connects Cambridge with Milton Keynes and Oxford in the most economical way possible. We would urge a closer investigation into this route.

Alternatively, the report the EWRL Consortium have commissioned on possible routes from Bedford to Cambridge suggests this:-

It finds Cambridge is the place to aim for with two possible routes to be further investigated... one via Sandy and presumable then on existing tracks south to Hitchin and then Cambridge; and one via Luton - rather than Bedford - and a completely new route thence to Stevenage, presumably linking the Midland Main Line with the Marston Vale route at Millbrook. Both these routes would entail expensive building of fly-overs at the junctions with the ECML and the MML for the latter.