Earlier this week I flew from Cambridge to Bicester. This gave a beautiful view of the route of HS2 which will whisk people in comfort and speed from Birmingham to Quite Near London.
At Calvert, HS2 crosses the other major rail infrastructure build taking place in England right now – East West Rail, which goes from Oxford to Towns Quite Near Cambridge. (OK, OK, Bedford.) The site where they cross seems to be a major HS2 construction compound.
Assuming East West Rail does get extended to Cambridge itself, its route will run past Cambourne, pretty close to Cambridge Gliding Club. For most of the way it will run alongside the new A428 being already built, as you can see below:
The old equivalent of East West Rail, the “Varsity Line”, goes right past the end of our gliding club’s driveway (but was closed in 1968). Here’s what the old route looks like at ground level in Hayley Wood.
These new gouges in the landscape are ugly, but will heal (especially the relatively narrow railways). Meanwhile though, the brown dirt seems to get warm and create thermals, so as glider pilots we are fully in favour of infrastructure investment. More brown gouges please, government.
