‘People can see – but can’t use it’: mystery of completed East-West Rail line that has no passenger trains

The East West Rail project linking Oxford to Milton Keynes was finished in 2024. There’s just one hitch: no services

T

he rumbling noise in the night, still enough to waken the unhabituated, is what really goads some people living in Winslow, Buckinghamshire. Freight trains running through the new station since late 2024 prove this stretch of railway is operational. But the long-promised passenger services have yet to appear – and there is no sign of any arriving soon.

Welcome to East West Rail, open or not. For well over a decade, ministers have talked up a new railway linking Oxford to Cambridge via Milton Keynes to accelerate the drive for housing, jobs and growth – an arc of tech industry hailed as the UK’s answer to Silicon Valley.

With the first phase from Oxford to Milton Keynes built, it was highlighted again by the chancellor in January 2025: Rachel Reeves, laying out her economic vision, cited it as the “transport link needed to make the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor a success”. She looked forward to the start of passenger trains in the coming months, with Chiltern Railways officially taking over in March 2025.