EWR - whither Bedford St John's?

[Bletchleyite]

One of the features of the East West Rail publicity is a push for removing some Marston Vale stations as they're too close together. But they want to have both Bedford Midland and St John's despite these being under a kilometre apart.

To me, a better option would be to rebuild Midland onto a site immediately south of the road bridge that presently lies to the south of the station. There's plenty of land there that could be used with some possible siding relocations.

Midland is a poorly designed, old, inadequate station, and connectivity suffers badly by the fact that there is no up-fast platform, which means inserting a stop in a fast service costs upwards of five minutes. A new station, designed like a smaller Reading, could be located the other side of the bridge with platforms on all lines and a couple of decent bays, and with decent walking/cycling provision towards the hospital etc could replace both stations, and "free up" a consolidated-option station for an additional east Milton Keynes EWR station. Lost parking could be regained by way of a multi storey.

Thoughts?

 

[Magdalia]

Midland is a poorly designed, old, inadequate station, and connectivity suffers badly by the fact that there is no up-fast platform, which means inserting a stop in a fast service costs upwards of five minutes.

I am old enough to remember the old Midland Road station, which was further south. It had no platforms on either of the fast lines, which were where they are now. The lines were so far away from the Midland Road platforms that it was difficult to read the numbers of locomotives passing on the fast lines.

A new station, designed like a smaller Reading, could be located the other side of the bridge with platforms on all lines and a couple of decent bays, and with decent walking/cycling provision towards the hospital etc could replace both stations

The factor that you are ignoring here is the River Great Ouse. The 2 railway bridges over the river are 300-400 metres apart, so it would be very difficult to design a station south of the Midland Road bridge that joined up with both river bridges, whilst retaining current speeds on the fast lines. One of the reasons, at electrification, for placing the Midland station further north was to get better alignments between the station and the river bridges.

The river is also a significant barrier for active travel and vehicle journeys in Bedford. There are only 2 road bridges in the vicinity at Prebend Street and St Marys Street. It is a long while since I was there but I remember the access to the Prebend Street bridge from the Midland Road end as being, shall we say, problematic. There is a footbridge over the river, between the 2 railway bridges, but it is not going to be adequate for access to the hospital, which is south of the river, if the only station is north of the river.

Lost parking could be regained by way of a multi storey.

That's what is proposed at Bedford St Johns, see section 8.1.2 of the Technical Report.

To replace the lost parking at Britannia Road car park and provide capacity for EWR passenger demand, a new multi-storey car park is proposed on the hospital-owned land west of the railway. The site chosen would improve access to the hospital for staff and patients due to its location and EWR Co is working with Bedford Hospital and other stakeholders on this proposal.

 

[bramling]

One of the features of the East West Rail publicity is a push for removing some Marston Vale stations as they're too close together. But they want to have both Bedford Midland and St John's despite these being under a kilometre apart.

To me, a better option would be to rebuild Midland onto a site immediately south of the road bridge that presently lies to the south of the station. There's plenty of land there that could be used with some possible siding relocations.

Midland is a poorly designed, old, inadequate station, and connectivity suffers badly by the fact that there is no up-fast platform, which means inserting a stop in a fast service costs upwards of five minutes. A new station, designed like a smaller Reading, could be located the other side of the bridge with platforms on all lines and a couple of decent bays, and with decent walking/cycling provision towards the hospital etc could replace both stations, and "free up" a consolidated-option station for an additional east Milton Keynes EWR station. Lost parking could be regained by way of a multi storey.

Thoughts?

I agree in principle. Bedford St John’s station is a bit of a waste of time at the moment, and Bedford Midland isn’t great either as it’s poorly sited for the town centre, and is operationally awkward. One can also add that the environs around it are a dump and give a poor impression of Bedford as a whole. The carriage sidings are also operationally awkward, with insufficient 12-car sidings.

But I’m not sure how all this is fixed, as the river makes it all very constrained.

Re-route the LNWR line at Elstow so it runs as an extra pair of tracks on the east side of the Midland, a new combined station south of Ford End Road, and then site the carriage sidings on any spare land. But the amount of work required would be immense, and would involve a fair amount of demolition too. So just not going to happen for a small fairly insignificant town that has a feeling of “left behind” about it. Indeed if it wasn’t for the river embankment which is quite pleasant, Bedford would simply be a pocket-sized version of the nearby abomination which is Luton.

 

[InTheEastMids]

Midland is a poorly designed, old, inadequate station, and connectivity suffers badly by the fact that there is no up-fast platform,

Agree that the existing station would benefit from improvements, I assume there are good reasons why P3 has not already been better connected to the Up Fast at each end of the station.
NR suggested that they think the solution is to was extend platform 4 across what is now the Down Fast to provide an up fast platform, with the down fast rerouted behind P4 to give P5.

Separately in the EWR consultation, it's said they would extend P1a into a full length for TL and then add 2 further platforms (P-1 and P-2?) for through EWR services.
So the current, inadequate facilities will go anyway.

If you try and do something similar South of Ford End Road, then you end up with the EWR and MML platforms at divergent angles, with most of what is currently Bedford Carriage Sidings marooned
I'm not sure how you'd acccess a station frontage in this triangular area, and presumably most of the car parks would be north of Ford End Road?

The river is also a significant barrier for active travel and vehicle journeys in Bedford.

I was going to make a similar point; moving the entire station South of Ford End Road doesn't really improve on the current location from the South, but also makes it significantly worse from the North (both for active travel and car users). I wonder if part of the plan with Bedford St Johns is to use the Cambridge connectivity to catalyse regeneration around Kingsway/St Johns Road area.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I wonder if part of the plan with Bedford St Johns is to use the Cambridge connectivity to catalyse regeneration around Kingsway/St Johns Road area.

It could be. It does seem rather ridiculous, though, to have two stations within under a kilometre of each other in Bedford yet none between Bletchley and Woburn Sands.

Aside from relocating Stewartby and Ridgmont (the former really needs to serve the Country Park and wouldn't under the proposed relocation, and it doesn't need to be nearer Kempston Hardwick as Wixams provides for that, while the latter absolutely has to be next to the Amazon warehouse as that's the main thing it serves) I could otherwise be sold on the consolidated stations option. (I also fed back that a Redway standard cycle facility should be provided alongside the line between Apsley Guise and Woburn Sands to compensate for closing that - it's rather hilly via the existing routes and considerably longer than direct).

 

[mr_jrt]

I personally felt the St. Johns catchment could probably be served by a high-quality pedestrian link from the new Bedford Station, with the St John's station "spot" then being freed up for a station akin to a "Bedford South", serving the southern side of the town. I'm not wedded to any particular location, but I recall vaguely thinking something near the Hillesden Play Area might work, with road access off the nearby roundabout.

 

[flitwickbeds]

I've never really clocked before that some of the sidings at Bedford face St Johns station. From looking at Google Satellite View, there are 12 car Thameslink trains parked there. How do these trains currently get in and out of those sidings - do they travel out the sidings to St Johns, driver changes end, uses the road into Midland station, then change end again?

 

[JonathanH]

How do these trains currently get in and out of those sidings - do they travel out the sidings to St Johns, driver changes end, uses the road into Midland station, then change end again?

The trains from Jowett Sidings don't get as far as St Johns Station. Instead they reverse in what was the goods loop between Bedford Midland and Bedford St Johns.

 

[Helvellyn]

NR suggested that they think the solution is to was extend platform 4 across what is now the Down Fast to provide an up fast platform, with the down fast rerouted behind P4 to give P5.

I don't know why when Midland station was resited BR didn't change the fast line layout to have a P4/P5 island between the Fast Lines anyway to avoid Up trains having to lose time getting into P3 (or even P1/P2 if P3 is occupied).

 

[Magdalia]

I don't know why when Midland station was resited BR didn't change the fast line layout to have a P4/P5 island between the Fast Lines anyway to avoid Up trains having to lose time getting into P3 (or even P1/P2 if P3 is occupied).

Bedford Midland was resited more than 40 years ago. At that time the Midland Main Line service was 2tph, only one of which stopped at Bedford. There was no need for platforms on the fast lines, but there would have been significant cost and disruption to provide them.

The platform on the down fast line was added later, not sure when.

 

[Dr Hoo]

I don't know why when Midland station was resited BR didn't change the fast line layout to have a P4/P5 island between the Fast Lines anyway to avoid Up trains having to lose time getting into P3 (or even P1/P2 if P3 is occupied).

The Midland Suburban Electrification project (on which I worked briefly in the late 1970s) only made the necessary changes at Bedford to facilitate the larger number of Class 317 EMU services, including depot moves - basically three Slow Line platforms where there had previously only been two. There was no plan or budget to enhance facilities for long distance services.

I am not even clear how a Fast Line island platform would work with the constraints of road and river bridges close to the station and the need to maintain high passing speeds for trains not calling at Bedford.

 

[Robin Edwards]

Bedford St John’s station is a bit of a waste of time at the moment,

I would disagree. If my intention is to travel towards Bletchley & MK then St Johns offers a much easier experience than trying to drive to and park around Midland Station. Cheaper parking off Melbourne Street adjacent to the platform at St Johns and much easier access to the car park arriving from south or east into Bedford.
I don't think I have ever joined a train to Bletchley from Midland station since the new St Johns was built. In the future, this may of course change of course.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Jan 2025 ==

One of the features of the East West Rail publicity is a push for removing some Marston Vale stations as they're too close together. But they want to have both Bedford Midland and St John's despite these being under a kilometre apart.

To me, a better option would be to rebuild Midland onto a site immediately south of the road bridge that presently lies to the south of the station. There's plenty of land there that could be used with some possible siding relocations.

Midland is a poorly designed, old, inadequate station, and connectivity suffers badly by the fact that there is no up-fast platform, which means inserting a stop in a fast service costs upwards of five minutes. A new station, designed like a smaller Reading, could be located the other side of the bridge with platforms on all lines and a couple of decent bays, and with decent walking/cycling provision towards the hospital etc could replace both stations, and "free up" a consolidated-option station for an additional east Milton Keynes EWR station. Lost parking could be regained by way of a multi storey.

Thoughts?

yes, walking between the two stations in Bedford isn't onerous but from the years I travelled to Bletchley, I treated Fenny as just a second station in Bletchley and would walk via the Tesco underpass to Bletchley as a similar distance than the walk to Fenny? (Frequent traveller to Tavistock St)

 

[Meerkat]

Always thought a new depot/sidings should be built to the north at Oakley, with a Bedford North Parkway Thameslink terminus. Simplify depot moves and free up a big waterfront site, possibly including moving the main station south

 

[Bletchleyite]

yes, walking between the two stations in Bedford isn't onerous but from the years I travelled to Bletchley, I treated Fenny as just a second station in Bletchley and would walk via the Tesco underpass to Bletchley as a similar distance than the walk to Fenny? (Frequent traveller to Tavistock St)

This would depend which end of Tavistock St. The very Bletchley end would be about the same.

 

[Chester1]

It could be. It does seem rather ridiculous, though, to have two stations within under a kilometre of each other in Bedford yet none between Bletchley and Woburn Sands.

Do you think the plan will be to rebuild Woburn Sands, Ridgemont, Stewartby and Bedford St Johns and close the other 6 stations?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Do you think the plan will be to rebuild Woburn Sands, Ridgemont, Stewartby and Bedford St Johns and close the other 6 stations?

I think Lidlington was staying too?