The typical off-peak service is one train per hour in each direction between Bletchley and Bedford which runs on weekdays and Saturdays only using Class 150DMUs. There is no Sunday service.[3]
Opened in 1846 by the Bedford Railway,[1] Fenny Stratford station is just over 1 mile (1.6 km) from Bletchley. The station buildings are in a half-timberedGothic 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.[4] West of the station is Watling Street, which was raised by some 6 feet 8 inches (2.03 m) 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 Oxford 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.[5]
The signal box and station in 1991
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 Fenny Stratford was reduced to an unstaffed halt in 1968, freight facilities having been withdrawn the previous year. As of March 2018[update], 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 Cambridge to Bletchley. Six people in the bus, including the driver, were killed instantly, and four others were seriously injured. The train, however, was undamaged.[5]
Marston Vale line
Fenny Stratford station, in common with others on the Marston Vale Line, is covered by the Marston Vale Community Rail Partnership,[6] which aims to increase use of the line by involving local people and the train companies.
As of January 2016[update], 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 Bedford St Johns).
The station is on Watling Street near its junction with Aylesbury Street. The nearest post-code is MK2 2XE.[7] In the chainage notation traditionally used on the railway, it is 1 mile 1 chain (1.01 mi; 1.63 km) from Bletchley station on the line to Bedford.[8]
^Clinker, C.R. (1978). Clinker's Register of Closed Passenger Stations and Goods Depots in England, Scotland and Wales 1830-1977. Bristol: Avon-AngliA Publications & Services. p. 160. ISBN0-905466-19-5.
26,292
2,668
