East West Rail

East West Rail is a strategic aim to establish a new main line railway between East Anglia and Oxfordshire. The immediate plan is to build a line linking Oxford and Cambridge via Bicester, Milton Keynes and Bedford, largely using the trackbed of the former Varsity Line. Thus it provides a potential route between any or all of the Great Western, Cotswold, Chiltern, West Coast, Midland, East Coast, West Anglia and Great Eastern main lines, avoiding London. The government approved the western section in November 2011. The eastern section, the new Bedford–Cambridge route and the Oxford–Bedford improvements are categorised as a nationally significant infrastructure project.