Why is it called Milton Keynes Central?

[Master29]

Just count your lucky starts it ain't called Milton Keynes Parkway

 

[AnonymousUser1]

Slightly off topic but is Lincoln Central now just Lincoln as all timetables and National Rail seem to say that now.

given that there is no easily confused station ... even if it is still officially Lincoln Central there is little practical reason to use the suffix , given it;s ?30 years st Marks closed

 

[Bletchleyite]

Just count your lucky starts it ain't called Milton Keynes Parkway

It's a bit close for that

 

[fowler9]

Every other station in the Milton Keynes area is named after the appropriate suburb so I don't understand the suffix Central applied to MK unless in the past there were other stations named Milton Keynes.

Can anyone explain why Milton Keynes is suffixed with Central?

So you know you are in the middle of the sordid grief hole. Ha ha.

 

[PermitToTravel]

I like the number of bus destination displays in Milton Keynes that just say CMK

 

[Bletchleyite]

I like the number of bus destination displays in Milton Keynes that just say CMK

That is what the centre is known as locally. Or the rather odd sounding "central shopping centre" if asking for it on a bus. It's also nice and short, which helps on destination displays as almost all the routes run across town along the central boulevard and only a very few of them terminate there.

 

[GatwickDepress]

I like the number of bus destination displays in Milton Keynes that just say CMK

You get quite a lot of variety in Milton Keynes for that - the Food Centre alone has a few variations. I've seen Food Court, Food Hall, Food Market, and Food Center used by bus companies. The bus stop signs still say "Theatre District" though.

 

[DarloRich]

I do like pointing out MK isnt a city. Seems to upset the locals

So If Bletchley and Wolverton ( both established communities in thier own right) were to be renamed what of Fenny Stratford and Bow Brickhill

 

[Bletchleyite]

I do like pointing out MK isnt a city. Seems to upset the locals

So If Bletchley and Wolverton ( both established communities in thier own right) were to be renamed what of Fenny Stratford and Bow Brickhill

If we were in DB-land they'd be "Milton Keynes Bletchley", "Milton Keynes Wolverton", "Milton Keynes Fenny Stratford" and "Milton Keynes Bow Brickhill", with the "Milton Keynes" in a font about half the size of the main station name.
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So you know you are in the middle of the sordid grief hole. Ha ha.

Have you been here? Enjoyed our vast green parks, lakes, segregated footpaths and cycleways, low density housing and other excellent facilities?

I'll be the first to admit the centre is a bit nondescript and grim in places, but to be honest I rarely bother going there.

 

[pitdiver]

I moved to MK in 1984, In those days there were signs on the approach rds saying "Welcome to the New City of Milton Keynes" I never thought it would ever become a city though. However I think it stands more chance of becoming one than Luton.
I don't live in MK now, not because I didn't like the place but because my personal circumstances changed.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Personally I think they should just do it all in one big bang. Everything should switch to the BR policy given the use of modern electronic lookups.

You could argue the opposite: Many modern electronic lookups will match characters anywhere in a name - doesn't have to be at the beginning. For example, if I go to the TfL journey planner and type in Act, I get shown all the stations with Act in the name - including East Action and West Acton, etc. That would seem to imply that it doesn't matter which way round you make the station name, so there's no real need to change anything.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You could argue the opposite: Many modern electronic lookups will match characters anywhere in a name - doesn't have to be at the beginning. For example, if I go to the TfL journey planner and type in Act, I get shown all the stations with Act in the name - including East Action and West Acton, etc. That would seem to imply that it doesn't matter which way round you make the station name, so there's no real need to change anything.

This was more of an issue 20 years ago than now. It is indeed much easier to index a string for "starts with" search, but modern computing power is such that tablescanning[1] the relatively short list of stations on the national network really isn't much of an overhead at all, and can even be done locally on the user's PC if that is felt to be the best approach.

[1] Basically iterating all the records and seeing which ones fit, one at a time.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

This from Wiki:

"In its planning, the government of the day intended Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, to be a "new city" in scale, and it was referred to as such in contemporary supporting papers, but was gazetted in 1967 as a New Town. It has used the term "City Centre" on its buses and road signs for many years, mainly to avoid confusion with the centres of its pre-existing constituent towns."

 

[edwin_m]

This was more of an issue 20 years ago than now. It is indeed much easier to index a string for "starts with" search, but modern computing power is such that tablescanning[1] the relatively short list of stations on the national network really isn't much of an overhead at all, and can even be done locally on the user's PC if that is felt to be the best approach.

[1] Basically iterating all the records and seeing which ones fit, one at a time.

Most stations got their present names in the era of manual timetables and manual everything, when someone who wanted to travel to Acton for example would have looked it up an alphabetical index to find all the Acton stations listed in the same place (though I think the GBTT listed stations within a larger place in light type following the main place listing).

 

[DarloRich]

So you know you are in the middle of the sordid grief hole. Ha ha.

That is the standard response to MK especially from those who have never visited or lived here. It is tired.

I live in a traditional village with a high street, terraced houses, pubs, shops, a railway station and a canal.

Have you been here? Enjoyed our vast green parks, lakes, segregated footpaths and cycleways, low density housing and other excellent facilities?

I'll be the first to admit the centre is a bit nondescript and grim in places, but to be honest I rarely bother going there.

I have lived in worse places. Much worse! There are no areas I have ever felt unsafe ( even the bits the locals think a rough!) there don't seem to be any rough or deprived areas like I am used to at home.

Don't get me wrong it is a bit different and a bit toy town in places and i am sure it isn't perfect but it is FAR removed from the boring stereotype many have in their minds.
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If we were in DB-land they'd be "Milton Keynes Bletchley", "Milton Keynes Wolverton", "Milton Keynes Fenny Stratford" and "Milton Keynes Bow Brickhill", with the "Milton Keynes" in a font about half the size of the main station name.

Indeed - but I wonder what BR might have called them. We couldn't be MK East and MK bit more east could we

 

[Bletchleyite]

I have lived in worse places. Much worse! There are no areas I have ever felt unsafe ( even the bits the locals think a rough!) there don't seem to be any rough or deprived areas like I am used to at home.

The Lakes Estate, Conniburrow and Fishermead are a bit of a dump, the latter in particular has a not insignificant race relations problem. But I agree, the whole place is very middle class for such a big town, and is unusual in having one of its most prosperous and pleasant village-style areas, Loughton, right adjacent to the centre.

 

[Trog]

Have you been here? Enjoyed our vast green parks, lakes, segregated footpaths and cycleways, low density housing and other excellent facilities?

I'll be the first to admit the centre is a bit nondescript and grim in places, but to be honest I rarely bother going there.

What about the large rat problem in the area between the station and shopping centre.

 

[fowler9]

If we were in DB-land they'd be "Milton Keynes Bletchley", "Milton Keynes Wolverton", "Milton Keynes Fenny Stratford" and "Milton Keynes Bow Brickhill", with the "Milton Keynes" in a font about half the size of the main station name.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Have you been here? Enjoyed our vast green parks, lakes, segregated footpaths and cycleways, low density housing and other excellent facilities?

I'll be the first to admit the centre is a bit nondescript and grim in places, but to be honest I rarely bother going there.

Apologies mate, take whatever I say with a pinch of salt. I'm from Liverpool and we have more than a few people with their "opinions" of the place. I was in Milton Keynes on the August Bank Holiday Monday, nothing wrong with it. Excellent staff in the station and I had a pleasant visit.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

That is the standard response to MK especially from those who have never visited or lived here. It is tired.

I live in a traditional village with a high street, terraced houses, pubs, shops, a railway station and a canal.



I have lived in worse places. Much worse! There are no areas I have ever felt unsafe ( even the bits the locals think a rough!) there don't seem to be any rough or deprived areas like I am used to at home.

Don't get me wrong it is a bit different and a bit toy town in places and i am sure it isn't perfect but it is FAR removed from the boring stereotype many have in their minds.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Indeed - but I wonder what BR might have called them. We couldn't be MK East and MK bit more east could we

Again apologies mate. I was just taking the mick.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What about the large rat problem in the area between the station and shopping centre.

There are rats, but they have never presented a problem to me.


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[najaB]

What about the large rat problem...

Is that a problem with rodents of unusual size?

 

[All Line Rover]

Have you been here? Enjoyed our vast green parks, lakes, segregated footpaths and cycleways, low density housing and other excellent facilities?

Next week we'll be hearing about the lush green meadows, delightful lakes and striking architecture of the Barbican Estate.

Milton Keynes and the surrounding area is perfectly pleasant in parts, but (most of) Loughton, which is unique for the proximity of its type of housing stock to a major railway station, helps (not that it is affordable for most).

 

[thenorthern]

Milton Keynes is like most new towns, it's got a large amount of 1960s buildings, it has most the new things like fast broadband before most places and it has an Ice Rink (which seems to be the sign of a new town).

There are many other stations with strange suffixes though some of which aren't even official any more such as Derby Midland Station, Carlisle Citadel Station, Chesterfield Midland Station, Leeds City Station, Newcastle Central Station, Nottingham Midland Station, Reading General Station. All of which have official lost their suffix but still retain it unofficially.

I never understand though with Derby why when the station was renamed from Derby Midland Station to Derby in 1968 they put the words "Derby Midland Station" on the present building when it was built in 1985.

 

[urbophile]

If we were in DB-land they'd be "Milton Keynes Bletchley", "Milton Keynes Wolverton", "Milton Keynes Fenny Stratford" and "Milton Keynes Bow Brickhill", with the "Milton Keynes" in a font about half the size of the main station name.

Same in Italy. Genoa (Genova) is about 30km long with many stations within the city limits. They are all officially known (and described in announcements) as Genova Nervi, Genova Quinto, Genova Sturla etc, though on platform signage Genova is often just abbreviated to G. The same seems to be the case elsewhere. In the UK only terminals, in the main, seem to be credited with the city name.

 

[cjmillsnun]

Milton Keynes is like most new towns, it's got a large amount of 1960s buildings, it has most the new things like fast broadband before most places and it has an Ice Rink (which seems to be the sign of a new town).

Off topic post.

I think many in MK would dispute this about broadband. It's a well known fact that Virgin Media dumped their Cable TV service because it could only do analogue and couldn't do cable broadband, and to upgrade it would require them to either pay BT Openreach a metric crap tonne of money to upgrade the network they rented from them (Virgin uniquely rented the cable network from BT in MK and Westminster) or build their own network from scratch.

Meanwhile the telephone system had long local loops due to having 2 main exchanges and routing cables along the main road grids and used aluminium cables instead of copper and was of such poor quality that there was no ADSL in many areas until 2004, and even now there are some dead spots where speed is maybe only 1 mb.

There finally was fibre broadband in the last 3 years (mainly FTTC) and there are some FTTH. The fibre ironically being blown through the old CATV ducts.

 

[randyrippley]

Why is it Milton Keynes Central?

Well.....Maynard Keynes Central just wouldn't be right

 

[class303]

Milton Keynes is like most new towns, it's got a large amount of 1960s buildings, it has most the new things like fast broadband before most places and it has an Ice Rink (which seems to be the sign of a new town).

There are many other stations with strange suffixes though some of which aren't even official any more such as Derby Midland Station, Carlisle Citadel Station, Chesterfield Midland Station, Leeds City Station, Newcastle Central Station, Nottingham Midland Station, Reading General Station. All of which have official lost their suffix but still retain it unofficially.

I never understand though with Derby why when the station was renamed from Derby Midland Station to Derby in 1968 they put the words "Derby Midland Station" on the present building when it was built in 1985.

Northampton Castle, still called by the locals.

 

[Trog]

Is that a problem with rodents of unusual size?

If you walk about there early in the morning there are a lot of large rats running about, but not as unusually large as the one in the film clip.

 

[The Planner]

1960s buildings? where? I thought the majority of MK is at least mid 70s vintage.

 

[AlterEgo]

1960s buildings? where? I thought the majority of MK is at least mid 70s vintage.

Indeed. And most of the city centre is 1980s onwards.

Milton Keynes was only designated as somewhere a town should be built in 1967.

 

[DarloRich]

Milton Keynes is like most new towns, it's got a large amount of 1960s buildings, it has most the new things like fast broadband before most places and it has an Ice Rink (which seems to be the sign of a new town).

Could you point me in the direction of these 1960's buildings please? BTW Durham had/has an ice rink. I don't think that is a new town

MK wasn't authorised for construction until 1967 so the 60's style buildings are few with many in the centre from the 80's or more recent times.

The Lakes Estate, Conniburrow and Fishermead are a bit of a dump, the latter in particular has a not insignificant race relations problem. But I agree, the whole place is very middle class for such a big town, and is unusual in having one of its most prosperous and pleasant village-style areas, Loughton, right adjacent to the centre.

The places I have lived in the North East make the Lakes Estate, Conniburrow and Fishermead areas look like exclusive estates! The good people of MK really are clueless when it comes to "poor" areas.