Dinky Earnshaw

EE507 wrote:
> On Jun 21, 6:32 pm, JohnG <jpgree...@> wrote:
>> At a Public Presentation last Monday it was announced that the "Local
>> Rail" option has been chosen to go forward to final design costing/
>> submission for approval stage. This is the 1 tph Oxford- Milton Keynes
>> Central plus 1 tph Oxford- Bedford and 1 tph Aylesbury- Milton Keynes
>> Central all via Bletchley flyover (with new island platform (inc. bay)
>> option which local authorities and developers will largely fund.
>> Bletchley Bedford all stations (School kids!) downgraded to 1 per
>> approx. each 2 hours. If proposed Eco town west of town goes ahead
>> then new station Bicester Parkway will be built and Islip closed.
>
> Do you have a reference for this news? I'm surprised there is nothing
> on the eastwestrail site.
>
> To all the naysayers confidently predicting a lack of demand, I would
> point out that the X5 'Beeching bus' frequency has doubled in recent
> years due to patronage growth. This is medium-distance traffic rather
> than end-to-end - the full journey to Cambridge is rather painful. My
> view is that public transport demand at the western end is
> significantly suppressed, and this is before considering the 400,000
> new homes destined for the MK Growth Area.

Yes but the "MK Growth Area" is actually the MK/South Midlands Growth
area which includes MK/North Bucks, all of Bedfordshire and all of
Northamptonshire. This means stretches from the Northern end of
Northamptonshire at the top (up near Stamford!) to the southern end of
Bedfordshire in the south, and from Daventry & just outside Banbury in
the West to almost as far as St Neots in the East.