The Combined Authority is committed to working in partnership with rail operators, Network Rail and the Rail Delivery Group to adopt an integrated approach to rail services, including community rail partnerships. The Combined Authority is heavily involved in funding and enabling a range of local rail projects that include reinstating of Soham Rail Station that closed in 1965, improvement of Fenland services, rail connectivity Wisbech to Cambridge, capacity improvements through Ely and a new station at Cambridge South serving the biomedical campus and local community.
Our role is to integrate key rail projects with the rest of the transport networks in the region, lobbying for appropriate investment to support local projects that will contribute to the connectivity of the region and driving strategic delivery of joined-up travel solutions.
Rail connectivity is crucial to reducing car and freight travel on roads with its associated pressure on communities and the environment, and we will promote and support schemes to help alleviate that pressure. For example, we have already delivered the new railway station at Soham, reintegrating the town into the national rail network, and the Combined Authority Jointly funded the early work on Cambridge South station. That work has paid off as Cambridge South construction is now in the Government timetable and will provide a direct route into the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. This project continues to have Government support and appears within the September release of the Growth 2020 report The Growth Plan 2022 (publishing.service.gov.uk)
We are a key stakeholder in East West Rail – the proposed new rail link from Cambridge to Bedford, Milton Keynes and Oxford, that will transform public transport connectivity along the Oxford to Cambridge corridor – and we champion the construction of a desperately-needed new rail link between March and Wisbech that would revolutionise public transport connectivity to the latter.
We will always push for rail improvements, such as the Ely Area Capacity Enhancements (EACE) scheme, that will enable more frequent services and make journeys quicker for passengers.
Our rail projects
Soham Rail
Soham Station was closed in 1968, and since then the people of this growing market town have not had a rail connection.
Find out moreClick for Soham RailWisbech Rail
The Wisbech Rail project aims to reopen the Wisbech to March rail line, which has been closed since 1968.
Find out moreClick for Wisbech RailFenland Rail Regeneration
Fenland District Council area contains three railway stations, at Manea, March and Whittlesea that are in need of significant updating.
Find out moreClick for Fenland Rail RegenerationEly North
Five railway lines converge on Ely from Cambridge, Newmarket, Norwich,King’s Lynn, and Peterborough. The lines to King’s Lynn and Norwich split from the Ely-Peterborough line at Ely North Junction.
Find out moreClick for Ely NorthCambridge South Station
A railway station serving the busy and thriving Cambridge Biomedical Campus is essential for projected growth in jobs and visitors to be sustained.
Find out moreClick for Cambridge South StationRELATED NEWS
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