THE Department for Transport has indicated it expects to give details “in the coming weeks” of the next schemes to progress as part of its ‘Restoring Your Railway’ (RYR) programme.
As no new bids have been invited since the closure of round three of the competition (for which winners were announced last October), the upcoming announcement will relate to applications that have already been submitted.
In November 2021, just eight months after the Government announced £40.5 million of investment in the project, the restoration of services between Exeter and Okehampton became the first scheme supported by RYR to reach fruition. Track relaying and upgrading work allowed the route to reopen to regular non-seasonal passenger traffic after a gap of almost 50 years.
For successful RYR applicants awaiting feedback to develop their business cases, however, progress has been less dramatic.