News
This page contains details of stories that are relevant to the rail travelling community in the Milton Keynes area.
Top Stories
Milton Keynes gets New Platform
30th June 2008
On a tour of the MKC station re-development work, members of MK Rail Users were able to see at first hand the superb work being undertaken to give MK the foundations for a vastly improved rail travel experience. With all the work on schedule to be completed at the end of the year, the first real change visitors will experience will be the opening of the platform 6 and the new northbound fast line at the end of June.
Passengers will not however see any signs for platform 6. Temporarily it will take the identity of Platform 5 as the current northbound fast platform will be closed for refurbishment. Platform 6 will become the ‘real’ platform 6 when all the work is completed.
Despite widespread criticism of the overrunning engineering work at Rugby, the MKC project team, on the other hand, has delivered each stage on time and without additional inconvenience to passengers. Enthusiastic and larger than life London Midland ‘site supremo’, Jim Holden, is justifiably proud of the achievements of all the agencies involved in ‘his’ project.
"Thank You" to Staff from London Midland as Bletchley Train Depot Closes
30th May 2008
Bletchley train depot staff have been given a big ‘thank you’ by London Midland managing director Steve Banaghan on the site’s last day as a full maintenance site.
From December, London Midland is phasing in a fleet of 37 state of the art 350/2 Desiro trains, which are maintained by Siemens at Northampton. These will eventually replace the 321s currently serviced at Bletchley. Most of the Bletchley engineering staff will be seconded to the Siemens site, while the cleaning staff will move to London Midland’s cleaning team.
The depot land and buildings will revert to owner Network Rail when the lease ends later this year. The depot was opened 42 years ago and is widely respected throughout the industry. Its staff won the HSBC Rail Awards Engineering Excellence title last year after making the 321s it maintained about six times more reliable than average for the unit. London Midland managing director Steve Banaghan said: “The engineers at Bletchley are amongst the best in the industry and were vital to London Midland’s excellent performance in the first six months of our franchise. It’s good to know the new fleet will be in such good hands with them and Siemens in Northampton. “I’d like to say a big thank you to both them and the cleaning staff and wish them all well for the future care of the London Midland fleet.” In December, London Midland is phasing in 37 four-car Class 350/2 Siemens Desiros to run mainly on West Coast Mainline routes, and phasing out its Class 321 trains.
West Coast Signalling Work Accelerated to Cut Delays
28th May 2008
Network Rail is to fast-track signalling renewals on the West Coast Main Line in an attempt to reduce disruption to trains caused by aged cabling which is prone to faults.
Nearly 14 miles of old signalling power cable is to be replaced during the next 10 weeks in an accelerated programme of renewals. As some of the cable is coming up to 40 years old, its renewal had always formed part of the West Coast upgrade, but a number of recent signalling power failures in the Bletchley area have been traced to this cabling and so a fast-track programme, focussing on the most susceptible cable, has been devised.
In total almost £3m will be spent at six locations along the route on replacing 60 miles of this 650v cable, which supplies power to the signalling system and is essential for delivering a reliable train service.
The scheme will be completed before the end of the year as part of the ongoing West Coast project. Peter Strachan, route director, said: "We have acted speedily on our analysis of signalling power cable problems in this area and we are now implementing an accelerated programme to put in new and reliable replacements. In a very short period of time, passengers and freight users will reap the benefits of this investment through more reliable journeys across the route."
Chris Gibb, Virgin Trains chief operating officer, said: "While this [signalling cable faults] has caused our customers considerable inconvenience, we are pleased that Network Rail has grabbed hold of the issue quickly and look forward to a significant improvement in performance."
London Midland issue a weekly bulletin, the latest version being available here
Older News Stories can be found here