Fenny Stratford railway station explained

Fenny Stratford
Symbol Location:gb
Symbol:rail
Borough:Fenny Stratford, Milton Keynes
Country:England
Coordinates:52°N -0.717°W
Grid Name:Grid reference
Manager:London Northwestern Railway
Platforms:1
Code:FEN
Classification:DfT category F2
Years:17 November 1846
Events:Opened
Years1:22 May 1967
Events1:Goods services withdrawn
Years2:15 July 1968
Events2:Became unstaffed[1]
Footnotes:Passenger statistics from the Office of Rail and Road
Mapframe:yes
Mapframe-Zoom:14

Fenny Stratford is a railway station that serves the Fenny Stratford area of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. It is on the Marston Vale line that links Bletchley and Bedford, about one mile (1.7 km) east of Bletchley railway station.

This station is one of seven serving the Milton Keynes urban area. The others are,, Bletchley,, and .

Services

All services at Fenny Stratford are operated by London Northwestern Railway.

The typical off-peak service is one train per hour in each direction between and which runs on weekdays and Saturdays only using DMUs. There is no Sunday service.

History

Opened in 1846 by the Bedford Railway,[2] Fenny Stratford station is just over from . The station buildings are in a half-timbered Gothic Revival style that had been insisted upon by the 7th Duke of Bedford for stations close to the Woburn Estate. The buildings are now residential and Grade II listed.[3] West of the station is Watling Street, which was raised by some 6feet to allow the railway to pass beneath; immediately west of Stag bridge in the direction of Bletchley are points leading onto the disused freight-only railway line toward via the Bletchley Flyover. The passenger line and station are protected here by trap points, but they are sited such that any runaway train caught by it would subsequently crash into the bridge.

The station was originally built with staggered platforms, a wedge-shaped down platform being near the Simpson Road level crossing to the east. The platforms were rebuilt in 1948 so that they faced each other in the conventional side platform arrangement. One platform was taken out of service in the 1960s, as were a number of sidings. Fenny Stratford was reduced to an unstaffed halt in 1968, freight facilities having been withdrawn the previous year., the station remains unstaffed. All that now remains is one platform and an area of wasteland east of the station, before Simpson Road crossing, which was controlled by a now demolished signal box that was taken out of service in 2004.

Accidents and incidents

There was an accident here on 7 December 1925 at 8.43 pm when a bus crashed through the closed crossing gates on Simpson Road and collided with the 6.30 pm train from to Bletchley. Six people in the bus, including the driver, were killed instantly, and four others were seriously injured. The train, however, was undamaged.

Marston Vale line

Fenny Stratford station, in common with others on the Marston Vale Line, is covered by the Marston Vale Community Rail Partnership,[4] which aims to increase use of the line by involving local people and the train companies.

, the line through the station is single track (from Bletchley to just east of the A5, from whence it is double track until just short of).

Location

The station is on Watling Street near its junction with Aylesbury Street. The nearest post-code is MK2 2XE.[5] In the chainage notation traditionally used on the railway, it is 1miles from Bletchley station on the line to Bedford.[6]

References

Sources

Notes and References

  1. Book: Clinker, C.R. . Clinker's Register of Closed Passenger Stations and Goods Depots in England, Scotland and Wales 1830-1977 . 1978 . Avon-AngliA Publications & Services . Bristol . 0-905466-19-5 . 160.
  2. http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/f/fenny_stratford/index.shtml "Disused Stations - Fenny Stratford"
  3. https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=1393265&resourceID=2 English Heritage Grade II listed building status
  4. http://www.marstonvalecommunityrail.org.uk Marston Vale Community Rail Partnership
  5. Web site: Streetmap.co.uk . 8 August 2018 . 8 August 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180808202827/http://www.streetmap.co.uk/idgc.srf?x=488176&y=234283 . dead .
  6. http://www.railwaycodes.org.uk/elrs/_mileages/b/bbm.shtm Engineer's Line References: Bletchley south junction to Bedford