Trains Through Bletchley and Milton Keynes

The stations at Bletchley and Milton Keynes are 2 miles apart on the busy West Coast Main Line, approximately 50 miles north of London Euston. The railway first came to Bletchley in the 1830s, while the city of Milton Keynes was not conceived of until the 1960s; its Central station did not open until 1982. Before then, the area’s rail focus was the old town of Bletchley on the southern fringe of what became Milton Keynes. In addition to the town enjoying north–south rail services on the WCML, it was well served by services to Oxford, Buckingham and Banbury to the west and Bedford and Cambridge to the east. Much of the east–west route has gone with just the 16-mile branch to Bedford in use today. Nevertheless, Bletchley still hosts a depot and stabling sidings, chiefly for passenger units nowadays.The area’s rail lines demonstrate how busy the WCML is here, with trains passing almost every minute of the day. Despite the inevitable downturn following the Covid-19 pandemic, around 5 million passengers still use Milton Keynes’ Central station each year. With both local and express passenger trains regularly passing on this four-track rail highway, it is a remarkable timetable achievement to accommodate any slower moving freight trains.John Jackson examines the traffic in the area in detail through a wealth of original images and informative captions.