Railway Activity in Our Area - Part 1

This is dominated by Network Rail`s four track West Coast Main Line which after passing through the Chilterns via Tring Cutting heads across the Aylesbury Vale past Cheddington and Ledburn Junction to Leighton Buzzard, then after passing through Linslade Tunnel with it`s unique three bore formation resulting in the centre hole having tracks in reverse order, i.e. from West side Up Fast then Down Slow, the line then twists and turns through the North Bucks countryside to next reach Bletchley. Here there is a junction with the branch which until the late 60s went through to Cambridge and was cut short to just serve the intermediate stations to Bedford. The Flyover here now sees use and a run round loop is provided at the west side at Newton Longville to allow infrastructure trains to reverse before either going north via Denbigh Hall South Junction or East to the Bedford Branch which it joins just outside Fenny Stratford.

Proceeding northwards from Bletchley the WCML passes through the city of Milton Keynes which has at it`s heart Central Station, it`s layout currently undergoing a major upgrading, built on what was the site of the former Loughton Goods Yard and is located at the middle of a long straight stretch of line. This is then interrupted by the Wolverton deviation built in the 1870s when the line was widened to four tracks and diverted to avoid the rail entrances to the ever growing Works. A new station was built on this section of line which also acted as the Junction for the now closed Branch to Newport Pagnell, now a “Redway” cycling and walking route.

After passing over the River Great Ouse Viaduct the line heads for Castlethorpe past the site of the former water troughs which can be identified by the remains of the tower on the Down side, used to soften the water supplies for this facility. Shortly after the remains of the closed Castlethorpe Station can be seen which were for once located near the centre of the village!!

SERVICES

PASSENGER - Intercity services are provided by Virgin Trains which to the South originate and terminate at London Euston. Destinations to the North include Birmingham New Street/Wolverhampton, Manchester, Liverpool, Holyhead, Preston/Carlisle and Glasgow Central/Edinburgh Waverley. There are also overnight sleeper services run by First Scotrail to Glasgow and Edinburgh with portions going on to Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William.

London Midland which is part of the Govia organization now provides the local services which run between Euston and Northampton plus from Bletchley to Bedford Midland.

	87019 at Wolverston with a Willesden PRDC- Shieldmuir Postal

FREQUENCIES - the current 2008 Summer timetable sees Virgin operating an off peak services of 2 trains per hour to the West Midlands and to Manchester with hourly frequencies to Liverpool and destinations in the North West or through to Glasgow Central with one train per day to Edinburgh Waverley. For North Wales there are 3 daily services to Holyhead with 2 others going to Llandudno. In December 2008 Virgin are to introduce their high frequency service which will see both Birmingham and Manchester with 20 minute services and faster times to other destinations. London Midland uses their Class 350/1 Desiro fleet mainly on the Northampton outer suburban trains with the Class 321s being seen on other services some of which still take them through to Birmingham New Street. The Bletchley - Bedford Branch service continues it`s hourly pattern for most of the day.

MOTIVE POWER – as well as the Class 390 Pendolinos which are used on the majority of Virgin West Coast`s trains, the sole Class 90 Mark 3 DVT train continues to being used on the 16.51 SX Euston-Birmingham and 19.00 SX return although reports suggest that as the Mark 3 coaches are now in need of major works overhaul the use of two surplus Class 180 units might be employed in the short term. Voyager Class 221 units work certain North Wales services along with the two Pendolino sets which visit Holyhead each day. The Virgin Class 57/3 Thunderbird rescue locos are still to be seen but have recently been stationed at Bletchley due to the remodelling work at Rugby where they were originally strategically placed. The Class 350/1 Desiro fleet is based at Siemens Northampton Depot whereas the Class 321/4 fleet is still looked after at Bletchley TMD which was due to close but has had to be re-opened due to the dramatic drop in reliability of the Class which has had to be addressed by London Midland. The imminent arrival of a further tranche of 37 new Class 350 units which are to replace the Class 321s should eventually allow the closure of the TMD as the fleet`s use is planned to be used elsewhere in the South East. The Bedford Branch now uses a mix of both Class 150 and 153 units provided by Tyseley.

37612 and 37608 pass Bletchley on 4L46 11.18 Ditton to Purfleet.

Class 185127 on delivery by EWS on 6X16 14.31Q Wembley Yard - Longsight Siemens DMUD at Denbigh Hall.