East West rail, Bletchley to oxford line

[Bernard Lamb]

19 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

There are developers and there are developers. Unless you happen to be a high up executive in Bellway, Redrow, Vistry Group, Crest Nicholson, etc I would suggest your experience of the ability to rig the planning system is very different.

 

 

 

Indeed there are.

I note that you do not mention Bloor Homes.

A friend of mine is involved with them regarding a development of several hundred houses and they seem to be very nice people.

Bernard

 

[Davexoc]

The area around the Whaddon - Mursley road that provided a plant access point is in the progress of being re-landscaped. Don't know whether it is being returned to farm land though. Maybe the public rights of way will be restored through to Swanbourne station soon too...

[lmsforever]

The house building rampage in the south of England is ruining many villages in my area ,no new bus routes are being put in place so we are being strangled by more cars and a new population that does not want to blend with the existing one.All in all the whole area is being ruined by houses that can only be bought by escapees from London there is hardly any affordable homes ,on estate near me had only two of these out of a total of several hundred.Local young people again lost out and the councils are aiding these mistakes.  This what will happen along the route and will lead to problems for years to come.  Electrification should have happenned but the DFT as usual stopped it with no thought to the future.   Rant over

[just fishing]

On checking Realtime trains there appears to be no movement on the East West Rail link presently, does anyone know why or is the dispute effecting the building of the line?

[Davexoc]

12 hours ago, just fishing said:

On checking Realtime trains there appears to be no movement on the East West Rail link presently, does anyone know why or is the dispute effecting the building of the line?

 

I seem to remember a few pages back that someone posted that track laying was being progressed from the other end for now.

I wonder if there is the desire to get materials for HS2 into Calvert/Claydon facility from the west now that the line is truncated at Quainton. That wouldn't have been possible anyway until the Bicester ring road bridge was completed, which I think was more recent than the Bletchley flyover, so it would have made sense to start from Bletchley initially.

[Tony Teague]

14 hours ago, just fishing said:

On checking Realtime trains there appears to be no movement on the East West Rail link presently, does anyone know why or is the dispute effecting the building of the line?

 

There have been ballast deliveries to the West end of the line every day this week.

They are runnning to & from Hinksey Sidings, hauled by GBRf.

Tony

[melmerby]

22 minutes ago, Tony Teague said:

 

There have been ballast deliveries to the West end of the line every day this week.

They are runnning to & from Hinksey Sidings, hauled by GBRf.

Tony

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:B33298/2022-09-06/detailed#allox_id=0

Edited September 7, 2022 by melmerby

[Covkid]

On 24/08/2022 at 22:53, lmsforever said:

The house building rampage in the south of England is ruining many villages in my area ,no new bus routes are being put in place so we are being strangled by more cars and a new population that does not want to blend with the existing one.All in all the whole area is being ruined by houses that can only be bought by escapees from London there is hardly any affordable homes ,on estate near me had only two of these out of a total of several hundred.Local young people again lost out and the councils are aiding these mistakes.  This what will happen along the route and will lead to problems for years to come.  Electrification should have happenned but the DFT as usual stopped it with no thought to the future.   Rant over

 

Totally agree.  Here in South Staffordshire there are similar housebuildings in Lichfield and Cannock around Cheslyn Hay, as well as many others I am sure.  Actually, in Bloxwich (West Midlands) there has been an estate built  o nthe former Elkingtons foundry so the ground was obviously cleansed / decontaminated.  Bloxwich is fortunately in having a good NXWM and Diamond bus service. South Staffs bus service on the other hand was Arriva until they sold to D&G who branded the buses "Chaserider"  Cannock bus depot is closed in Sundays and i drove past the yard on Bank holiday monday and the gates were closed. 

 

Really not sure how the influx of new residents are expected to exist with very very sparse or no bus services, no doctors surgeries, no more policing etc etc.  Sorry to be negative but it seems that houses are being built, but the infrastructure around these is questionable.  

[Nearholmer]

It’s all down to the diligence or otherwise of the local council, members and officers. If they do their job properly, get good s106 money from the developers, and use it wisely, and do their best within the constraints of national frameworks to get the developments laid out well, it can all work. 
 

Less said the better on that front wrt Bucks CC and Aylesbury Vale DC. Central Beds are ‘sort of OK but not brilliant’ at it, and MK are well above average, having inherited the skills from MKDC and having oodles of practice. Still short of doctors and teachers to staff the new schools and surgeries, and the existing ones, though!

[lmsforever]

MK is a new city but Aylesbury is not we are being strangled by badly planned new housing and we are not getting a bypass only disconnected bits of road courtesy of HS2 .Went up a road today at  Bierton and lo and behold its completely submerged in new housing.People might call me backward looking but this housing should be mainly for local residents but it is being bought by Londoners who dont give a damn for our town.

[2750Papyrus]

1 hour ago, lmsforever said:

MK is a new city but Aylesbury is not we are being strangled by badly planned new housing and we are not getting a bypass only disconnected bits of road courtesy of HS2 .Went up a road today at  Bierton and lo and behold its completely submerged in new housing.People might call me backward looking but this housing should be mainly for local residents but it is being bought by Londoners who dont give a damn for our town.

It's the same story in the Bedfordshire villages.  Ours used to house about 3500 people but in the last 4 years, over 700 new houses have been approved.  They are not "first time buyer" (affordable) type homes but mostly detached and sold to commuters.  The ECML runs by the edge of the village; when we first moved here, the local service from Hitchin to Peterborough was a 2 coach DMU - it's now regularly a 12 coach formation.

[KingEdwardII]

14 hours ago, 2750Papyrus said:

it's now regularly a 12 coach formation.

I think that this is the general story for anywhere within about 1 hour's journey of London. This is prime commuter territory. The astronomic prices in London are the pressure that forces folk to look ever further afield. 

 

Looked at from a railway perspective, these commuters are the dependable customers of the future. It's why London has such an extensive railway network still.

 

Yours, Mike.

[roythebus1]

Maybe those moving to Aylesbury still think it's served by the Metropolitan Line? And a connection to Brill...

[Trog]

1 hour ago, roythebus1 said:

Maybe those moving to Aylesbury still think it's served by the Metropolitan Line? And a connection to Brill...

 

You surprise me I thought it was the Metropolitan and Great Central Joint and Great Western and Great Central Joint Joint railway that served Aylesbury?

 

(Also the LNWR at High Street for those wanting a more premier service.)

[Nearholmer]

That’s about formal ownership/lease pre-1923. Neither of those bodies provided a train service anywhere SFIU; they leased (I think) infrastructure from their partners, over which their partners provided services. The moot point is, I guess, whether or not the partners were providing services on behalf of the joint bodies.

 

After 1923 the services were provided by Met, GWR and LNER, and after 1933 by LT (LPTB), GWR and LNER.

 

Post 1933, looked at from a London Transport perspective, the Met Line definitely served Aylesbury, and Verney Junction for a few years, and even Brill for a very short period, and was shown as such on underground maps and car cards.

 

I think that even after the LNER, then BR, provided locos beyond Amersham the service was still an LT one, with LT ticketing, until 1961, but I’m not totally sure.

 

1933 car card:

 

* Tickets did bear the joint body inscription though, at least Met&GC ones did.

 

PS: The Met Railway was through to Verney Junction before the Met & GC was formed in 1906 too, by buying the A&B in 1891. Prior to that A&B trains were operated (on contract I think) by the GWR.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Nearholmer

[lmsforever]

When I moved to Aylesbury in 1961there was an hourly Met train to Baker St from platform one hauled by a BR 264 tank which came off at Ricky replaced by an electric loco.if you were lucky you could catch an express to Marylebone  and have the chance to explore a wonderful terminus .It was only a short walk to Baker St and the underground also you could visit Madame Teusords if you could afford it  I think it was 1962 that the diesels started running and provided a fast service and the blind behind the driver was left in the up position. Also you could catch a train to Risborough and join a train from Banbury ,these services caused the reopening of Haddenham .Our dmu,s were an excellent units fast and comfortable. I rode a service to Nottingham and return and was the only passenger it ran via Brackley and after two or so hours you arrived in a dump that was Nottingham .There were three trains each way daily and quite often they would fail in the middle of nowhere ,the fireman would walk across fields to find a phone naturally not many risked them.BR used clapped out locos from Neasden shed we had Black Fives. Royal Scots,a Britania.Every morning a parcels train from Paddington Maidenhead High Wycombe Risboro Aylesbury and then to Bletchley and Northampton ran.Early mornining a newspaper train ran from Paddington to Bletchley  I.used to meet this train when I had to work the newspaper kiosk in Aylesbury {closed to the public}   and make up the paper rounds for the horrible kids who did them then.Once a bogie van being shunted managed to split the points and go up both platform roads needless to say this was hushed up and everyone carried on as normal .New Holland used to ship bailers from the yard and this kept things ticking over for quite a while but eventualy finnished.The goods yard is now a housing estate.Once week dmu would travel to Bletchley for service via Bicester and then onto the line via Verney Jctn .The line from Quainton to Verney was used to store condemned rolling stock ,Verney was and is a lonely place and the Buckingham branch close quite early.All in all we had an interesting rail network around our town and it provided some interesting workings.

[melmerby]

14 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

That’s about formal ownership/lease pre-1923. Neither of those bodies provided a train service anywhere SFIU; they leased (I think) infrastructure from their partners, over which their partners provided services. The moot point is, I guess, whether or not the partners were providing services on behalf of the joint bodies.

 

After 1923 the services were provided by Met, GWR and LNER, and after 1933 by LT (LPTB), GWR and LNER.

 

Post 1933, looked at from a London Transport perspective, the Met Line definitely served Aylesbury, and Verney Junction for a few years, and even Brill for a very short period, and was shown as such on underground maps and car cards.

 

I think that even after the LNER, then BR, provided locos beyond Amersham the service was still an LT one, with LT ticketing, until 1961, but I’m not totally sure.

 

1933 car card:

 

* Tickets did bear the joint body inscription though, at least Met&GC ones did.

 

PS: The Met Railway was through to Verney Junction before the Met & GC was formed in 1906 too, by buying the A&B in 1891. Prior to that A&B trains were operated (on contract I think) by the GWR.

The first railway to the present day Aylesbury station was the Broad Gauge GWR affiliate the Wycombe Railway in 1863, absorbed by the GWR in 1867.

(The LNWR was the first to Aylesbury in 1839 to it's seperate station.)

The  A&B (arrived 1868) had a station of it's own for a short while before running into the GWR station.

The arrival of the A&B caused the GWR to convert the Princes Risborough to Aylesbury line to standard gauge to allow a through service onto the A&B.

 

This quote from Wikipedia:

To avoid mixed gauge track when the standard gauge Aylesbury and Buckingham arrived at the station in 1868, the section to Princes Risborough was converted to standard gauge, and therefore until the rest of the Wycombe Railway was converted in 1870 there was no access to the rest of the GWR system. The GWR provided motive power and trains to both the Wycombe Railway and the A&B, and ran a shuttle service from Princes Risborough to Verney Junction.

 

When the Met arrived from the south in 1892 it also had it's own station, until forming part of the joint station commitee in 1894, at that point the station became GWR/Met jt

 

 

[lmsforever]

I forgot the first station in Aylesbury  High Street  this was on the end of a branch from Cheddington the station had a canopy over the passenger line.The front of the station was quite attractive with a double facade unfortunately when closed did not look good as it was neglected by BR and painted grey. We had a goods train about three times a   week and it carried a good range of freight with long consists of not well maintained wagons. There was a good number of lines in the yardand the towns gas works had a section .Alongside the station  many years ago there was a small yard were rush baskets were made and my wife,s grandfather worked there for many years .  There was only one station after Aylesbury at Long Marston a busy village that had a butchers I used some times  you can still the station house and make out were the line went.  Cheddington is a fairly busy place and the branch platform is still in place and you can see clearly the crossing over the road to Mentmore an interesting village.The big house has had several owners over the years one being a cult that said it practised flying in a room overlooking the garden ,it takes all sorts.  Of course Cheddington came to fame when the coaches from the great train robbery were parked there you could not move for press here and Aylesbury. It was sad when the line was finally closed as this was the first branch line ever constructed in the uk but times change and the town did not take much notice ,a sad day ,Wether it could have been kept is a moot point the main route out of town was via the Met and people found Baker St  better than Euston.  You can see no trace of the station as a road was built through the site but along the road towards a ring road the council has put up two signals which many people must wonder what the heck are they for!  I saw Black Fives, 8f,s ex LMS tank locos and once I saw an ex LNWR freight loco on one occasion I was cycling up Park St and saw a commotion in the yard two wagons had derailed on a point all sorted very quickly . All in all it was an interesting line and I am glad I saw it in action an interesting line that ran through very pleasant countryside with quite a few level crossings.And that is the railways of Aylesbury completed .

---

[Nearholmer]

4 hours ago, melmerby said:

The arrival of the A&B caused the GWR to convert the Princes Risborough to Aylesbury line to standard gauge to allow a through service onto the A&B.

Thanks Melmerby, that answers a question that has long nagged at my mind - I thought the GWR must have had a SG loco or two, and a train trapped somewhere, I’d thought perhaps it was Aylesbury-Verney Jct only.

[melmerby]

58 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Thanks Melmerby, that answers a question that has long nagged at my mind - I thought the GWR must have had a SG loco or two, and a train trapped somewhere, I’d thought perhaps it was Aylesbury-Verney Jct only.

I assume the GWR converted the line to Princes Risborough to enable a connection with the BG trains to London.

[Bernard Lamb]

Expanding on a few recent posts.

The chap at Mentmore was known as The Maharishi. Later there was another group known as The Natural Law Party. I did visit  the house on an open day once. They were trying to fly (levitate) but I think it required some very powerfull medication. 🤩  Don't mock it as they seemed to be making a lot of money.

At Long Marston the much altered station building I believe is named Beeching House. The rail workers cottages on the other side of the road remain and are in good original condition.

Some lengths of bridge rail, presumably from the broad gauge track, were still present a few years ago on the approaches to some of the overbridges near Risborough.

Bernard

[Davexoc]

There was an (in)famous resident of Mentmore that worked for the Beeb, known as DLT. He sold up to fund his court case IIRC...

Is that the same house?

 

There was a house in Broughton Crossing that still had the gates up until a few years ago, may even still be there, but the whole area has been swallowed up by new builds. Always thought the pub there had a great name, 'The Dog House', answers phone, 'Where are you?' Reply, 'In the dog house', literally....

[Bernard Lamb]

9 hours ago, Davexoc said:

There was an (in)famous resident of Mentmore that worked for the Beeb, known as DLT. He sold up to fund his court case IIRC...

Is that the same house?

 

There was a house in Broughton Crossing that still had the gates up until a few years ago, may even still be there, but the whole area has been swallowed up by new builds. Always thought the pub there had a great name, 'The Dog House', answers phone, 'Where are you?' Reply, 'In the dog house', literally....

I can remember when the crossing keepers house was still there as well as the gates.

The pub was Originally The Prince of Wales.

See pubwiki for details and guess who provided the photo.😃

Bernard

[2750Papyrus]

Interesting announcement on BBC local website.  Bus services 72 & 73 from Bedford to Biggleswade are being withdrawn from the end of October, whilst the 905 from Bedford to Cambridge will no longer stop at Camborne.

 

Possibly not a sign of high demand for public transport in the area in advance of the new government's review of East-West rail.

[chris p bacon]

I’d be surprised if the 72 & 73 services were being withdrawn, it’s a popular service and the only one to Bedford from both Biggleswade and Sandy. 
Of course it could be Stagecoach looking for more subsidy as withdrawing the service was the same tactic they used last time claiming costs were unsustainable but at the same time refusing to reveal their figures.