Bletchley disused platforms

[HowardGWR]

Well yeah, I don't propose routeing the Oxford-Bedford trains via MKC anyway. Would just slow them down without giving MKC any extra destinations. I'm just saying the chord is easily viable and would be for faster MKC-Bedford trains, as well as MKC-Luton, freight and diversions.

I think what I gain from these discussions is that Beeching never thought in a million years that there would be viable cross country railways. We now see this was wrong (I don't blame Beeching, at the time we thought there was a doubtful future for rail, full stop).

What we now see in the case of the Bletchley / MK conundrum is that the E/W line would have gone through the centre of MK without going near Beltchley. That would have been the proposal if the new town had been planned with rail in mind instead of the reverse.

So we are now shoe-horning existing rail connections into old formations that were designed for another era, as the discussion about the WRR / LNWR /GWR rivalries exposed.

I fully believe that the notion that eventually the E/W pax railway service will not go to MKC and reverse is a shortsighted one.

 

[Helvellyn]

I think what I gain from these discussions is that Beeching never thought in a million years that there would be viable cross country railways. We now see this was wrong (I don't blame Beeching, at the time we thought there was a doubtful future for rail, full stop).

I think it gets forgotten how many road schemes never got off the ground when people talk about Beeching, plus the fact that back in the 1960s I wonder if people projected the UK population or car ownership (multi-car families) to be as high as they are today.

 

[mr_jrt]

I am sure the operating would just love a conflicting move junction across the MML fast lines as well. If they are so keen on running trains from Luton to Milton Keynes it is a shame they just ripped up the Dunstable Branch, for their bus way as that would have been an ideal starting point.

Quite. I see the Stewertby chord as a non-starter not only for the conflict (which you could solve with a flyover), but simply the capacity on the MML that isn't there.

Far better for me would be a reinstatement of the branch from Luton all the way to Leighton Buzzard, then a new pair of lines next to the existing WCML all the way to Bletchley, where a flyover and reinstated west-south chord could link them to the EWR line to Bicester. You wouldn't be able to serve Bletchley with that though, but if you decided you were going to run to MK and reverse back to the Marston Vale line anyway, running down to Leighton Buzzard (especially on a separate pair of lines south of Bletchley) wouldn't be much of an ask. Alternatively, you treat LB as an interchange with the WCML again and don't run these EWR Luton services to MK. Either way, you get to Luton without using MML line capacity, and if you don't run via Bletchley and MK, WCML either using the new lines.

Once you're at Luton, then you have a prime opportunity to head south on new build alongside the MML and dive under to reach Luton Airport, so you could do away with Luton Airport Parkway (improving Luton's service), as passengers would be able to change at Luton...thence perhaps as mooted across to Stevenage for the Hertford Loop or Hitchin for the Cambridge branch.

 

[Tobbes]

Far better for me would be a reinstatement of the branch from Luton all the way to Leighton Buzzard, then a new pair of lines next to the existing WCML all the way to Bletchley, where a flyover and reinstated west-south chord could link them to the EWR line to Bicester.

This would also be very useful to link HS2 with one of the PolicyExchange thinktank's proposal for a new Luton airport based on Kimpton to replace Heathrow.

Once you're at Luton, then you have a prime opportunity to head south on new build alongside the MML and dive under to reach Luton Airport, so you could do away with Luton Airport Parkway (improving Luton's service), as passengers would be able to change at Luton...thence perhaps as mooted across to Stevenage for the Hertford Loop or Hitchin for the Cambridge branch.

Yes.

 

[zn1]

are you talking of the platform adjacent to the old parcel and mail loading bays ?

If you are then platform one was the last time i using BY for stock stabling etc.

the island line had the buffet bar - the Kiln, now a long gone memory..

In the old days when Bletchley was an inter city station platform one was used quite a bit for jobs starting and ending Many years ago 1978/9 maybe a year or so earlier merrymakers would start at bletchley, the one dad took me and my brother on went to chester, with tour and meal, the train home the lighting failed and i remember going through the tunnels and the Birdcage in the dark.

 

[Buttsy]

In the 80s there used to be a parcels train from platform 2 which was a north facing bay next to the current platform 1 (used to be no3). I often managed to cab the 08 that would shunt the vans in or the 81/85 that was booked for the run.

 

[87015]

Some info and old phots here http://www.leightonlogs.org/Bleydocka.htm

 

[L&Y Robert]

In 1966 and 1967 I travelled on several occasions back to Oxford from Lancashire by train. On one journey the ticket clerk (at Preston, I think) routed me via Bletchley, and then the Bletchley-Bicester-Oxford line, rather than through Birmingham. This was OK by me, it saved a tedious trek through Birmingham from New Street to Snow Hill (the old Snow Hill!). I distinctly remember boarding a green liveried DMU in a bay platform on the west side of Bletchley station. By and by we rolled out of the station and almost immediately onto a curve to the right, leaving the main lines away on our left. The line straightened out to parallel the (still new) flyover embankment, a ramp reducing in height until the lines out of the station and the flyover tracks were at grade and where the two joined on a double track junction. The line onward to Oxford was double tracked. The trip was a huge contrast – the rush and hurly-burly of the main line part of the trip, set against a leisurely pastoral journey across country. My recollection of the Bletchley-Oxford part of the trip is of a rural branch line, the train stopping often at minimal stations surrounded by fields, manual operated level crossings – at least one of them opened by a woman who emerged from a nearby house. I left the train at Islip, and thumbed my way to my digs at Stanton-St.John. On other occasions I sometimes went via Manchester, and once via Leeds, and then somehow over the still operational Great Central main line to Woodford, thence over the link line to Banbury and onward to Oxford.