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Milton Keynes station group?

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The thread about Birmingham stations https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/birmingham-stations.284639/ got me thinking.

As we will soon have a new E-W rail route Oxford to MKC which calls at two stations within Milton Keynes - Milton Keynes Central and Bletchley - assuming there isn't already a Milton Keynes station group - might we get one?

ie might we get an option of Oxford to MK stations that meant the ticket was valid to alight at either Bletchley or MKC, or even change train and alight at Wolverton.

I suppose not as the current Bletchley-Bedford route calls at four MK stations already - Bletchley, Fenny Stratford, Bow Brickhill and Woburn Sands - and I'm not aware I can purchase a Bedford-MK stations ticket which is valid to any of the four.

This maybe more appropriate in the speculative forum so please move if needed. Thanks.
 
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Jan Mayen

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I would have thought it's just as easy to leave things as they are, and just buy a ticket to an actual station rather than a group.
 

Bletchleyite

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Personally I'd be in favour of a group. I very often purchase tickets from Bletchley to places north on the WCML which forbid break of journey on the outward (or at all if an Advance). Unfortunately however the connections from Bletchley to MKC can be a bit unpunctual, and for some destinations they are rather tight (or if you add in extra change time far too loose). As such if it looks like the train up from Euston is starting to pick up delay I prefer to go direct to MKC in a taxi instead of walking to Bletchley, as I generally prefer getting to my destination on time over being an hour late and getting Delay Repay, particularly if travel is in the evening (when this is the greatest problem).

Obviously it'd be possible to refund the original against a £5 fee and repurchase, but that's a faff and means going back to Bletchley on the way back costs more. And I don't see why I should pay nearly £10 extra on top of the taxi fare I'm already paying because the railway can't be bothered to sort its punctuality problem out.

It happens to be the case that for most destinations I've tried (I suspect not Euston) the gateline at MKC does accept tickets with an origin of Bletchley, and staff are also OK with this despite the break of journey restriction officially forbidding it. But given how hardline the railway can be at times (I wouldn't put it past them at some time in future to start looking for evidence of starting short on tickets with break of journey restriction and sending nasty letters demanding settlements, for instance) I would prefer it to be an official Milton Keynes Group, and if it was then this would be permitted on walk-up tickets at least because the group would be the origin.

For what it's worth, though, if buying tickets that allow break of journey you might as well just buy the longest as the fares are generally the same, e.g. if getting an MKC-Euston season just get a Wolverton-Euston one, it costs the same and you get the extra validity free in case you might want it once or twice.

The one exception is Bletchley-Euston, where the fares are different - the Anytime and season is traditionally slightly cheaper than MKC and the rest of the structure is totally different due to Oval. This could I suppose be sorted out when Oval goes to MKC, and put the group in then, or you could continue having slightly cheaper Anytime Day Singles and seasons from Bletchley-Euston specifically (noting the below, routed "Not Milton Keynes Central", perhaps) if you wanted to encourage use of Bletchley (e.g. because the car park doesn't get full).

Furthermore, it would be useful if there were suitable easements such that doubling back was always permitted within the group, as at some times of day an Avanti to MKC then a WMT back can be quicker than a direct Bletchley train (and the same for Wolverton for a journey to/from the north). You can obviously do that if you have a Euston-MKC season, but you can't do it on any single or return fare, and given that long distance fares are priced the same I think it would be good if it was allowed in this specific case (and similar ones).

I suppose this is a bit of an unusual case because station groups are normally just used (for fares) where there are a set of stations in the city centre, rather than spread across a city, but in this specific case I can see lots of advantages and few downsides. It also stands as an example of why break of journey restrictions on Advances (rather than simply a requirement to use the booked trains for any travel) are a bit nonsensical - and Northern is known to enforce against passengers when they do exactly the sensible thing I outline above.
 
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Hadders

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Didn't there used to be Bletchley Group? Bletchley to London used to be valid via Milton Keynes until relatively recently which I suspect was a handover from when Milton Keynes replaced Bletchley on inter-city calls.
 

Bletchleyite

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Didn't there used to be Bletchley Group?

There was and still is a Bletchley routing group but not a fares group.

Bletchley to London used to be valid via Milton Keynes until relatively recently which I suspect was a handover from when Milton Keynes replaced Bletchley on inter-city calls.

It has never been valid while I've lived here (since September 2001), though some staff may have tolerated it in the past. Was there previously an explicit easement or was it just considered a Reasonable Route in BR days?

There's less of a case for it now Bletchley has 2tph fast to Euston. When it was just one (and none in the main peaks) and when the Sunday service was just 2tph of Northampton stoppers it was much more useful, of course. However I seem to recall that if you arrive for the last fast Avanti of the day before the 2 track timetable kicks in it is quicker on that specific service, but I haven't checked recently.
 

BlueLeanie

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Will having the extra 2 E-W trains an hour from Bletchley to MK make a substantive difference to the journey reliability?
 

Bletchleyite

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Will having the extra 2 E-W trains an hour from Bletchley to MK make a substantive difference to the journey reliability?

Having had a quick look it certainly appears that the Bletchley-MKC part of the EWR services improves the resilience of the connection onto the Liverpool and Birmingham services without leaving too much of a gap, which is two out of the three ICs, so yes, it appears so. Manchester probably has a sufficiently long connection off the xx02 Birmingham off Bletchley not to need it.

That said one wonders how often they'll end up being spun at Bletchley when things start getting a bit messy.
 

kieron

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There was and still is a Bletchley routing group but not a fares group.
The Bletchley routeing group was removed in 2013. This means a Milton-Keynes–Halifax ticket isn't valid via Fenny Stratford, but a Bletchley–Halifax one still is.

As ever with the routeing guide, this isn't done in a consistent way, with (as examples) Sheffield having mapped routes to neither station via Fenny Stratford, and Leicester having mapped routes to both.
 

Fawkes Cat

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As we will soon have a new E-W rail route Oxford to MKC which calls at two stations within Milton Keynes - Milton Keynes Central and Bletchley - assuming there isn't already a Milton Keynes station group - might we get one?

(...)

I suppose not as the current Bletchley-Bedford route calls at four MK stations already - Bletchley, Fenny Stratford, Bow Brickhill and Woburn Sands
This seems to be based on the idea that a station group should be based on the local authority boundaries? If so, I fear it's flawed. Alternatively, I look forward to the North Yorkshire station group - after all, both North Yorkshire and Milton Keynes are unitary authorities.
 
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