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It was with some disappointment that, on the 28th July, we learnt that our bid to the UK government’s New Station Fund had not been successful. However the letter from Network Rail, who manage the Fund, stated stated that although we were unsuccessful, ‘Magor and Undy ‘could have a strategic case’. It also included an invitation to meet DfT officials to discuss further. Personally, I was not too downhearted as I thought that our application was a little early and would have been better placed if our ‘GRIP 3’ study had been fully completed. Apparently most of the winning bids had failed on their first applications so that information was quite uplifting and encouraging.
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Since the news on the New Station Fund, we have been invited to attend a feedback meeting with Network Rail and Christian Schmidt of Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) on 12th October.
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Following that meeting we will be holding a ‘workshop’ with Mott MacDonald, MCC and Network Rail to make sure that the remaining work on the GRIP 3 study (being carried out by Mott) will include and report on everything necessary to meet Network Rail’s, UK Government’s and Welsh Government’s requirements. We are grateful to Karin Williams, our sponsor at Network Rail, for making these arrangements.
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Finally, while the work continues to complete the new main road-bridge at Severn Tunnel Junction, driver training on the new Hitachi ‘hybrid’ electric trains has started.
The picture shows one of the new trains stopped at STJ recently. The work on the overhead line equipment is due to start in the not too distant future!