Politicians and business leaders met yesterday to discuss a new multi-million pound bid to improve railway services between Nottingham and Lincoln.
Transport body Midlands Connect has submitted a plan to ministers calling for £18m to improve journey times.
If approved, train speeds would increase from 50mph (80km/h) to over 75mph (120km/h) along the Castle Line, that is used by services calling at Burton Joyce and Carlton stations.
New figures show that 10% of journeys between the cities are taken by rail.
They said that for every pound spent, it would return double in economic and environmental benefits.
One of the people in attendance at the meeting was Lilian Greenwood, Labour MP for Nottingham South.
She said: “We must ensure our transport network is fit for the future, attracting more people to use our railways and bringing investment to boost our economies.
“I support these plans by Midlands Connect, as a first step in bringing more improvements to this route.“
The plans have been developed with the support of Nottinghamshire County Council, Nottingham City Council, Lincolnshire County Council and the Local Enterprise Partnerships.
Network Rail and local train operator East Midlands Railway (EMR) are also key stakeholders in the process.
Midlands Connect recommends proposed milestones for work to start in April 2026, and complete in Summer 2028.
There is nothing in this press release to tell what the money will be spent on. In the short term more trains should stop at the intermediate stations especially Carlton with the growing population, at marginal extra cost.
I hope these hypothetical improvements don’t mean losing trains that stop at all the stations. A limit on linespeed is the distance between stops and braking distances. I’ve experienced a delay at the crossing with the East Coast Main Line as it goes into Newark Northgate. Perhaps if Network Rail could sort out the route priorities at this junction so that local trains aren’t delayed by late running services on the East Coast Main Line.
A major improvement could be achieved by returning to a previous timetable when all trains went through to Lincoln throughout the day, not just to Newark and more robust marketing of the train system as a commuter line especially from the intermediate villages.