Fenny Stratford railway station

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.

This station is one of five serving Milton Keynes. The others are Wolverton, Milton Keynes Central, Bletchley and Bow Brickhill.

Services
The station is served by London Midland Bletchley — Bedford local services. Services are run with Class 153 single car diesel multiple unit and 2-car class 150 unit.

History
Opened in 1846 by the Bedford Railway, Fenny Stratford station is just over 1 mi from Bletchley station. 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 Grade II listed. West of the station is Watling Street which was raised by some 6 ft to allow the railway to pass beneath; immediately west of the bridge are points connecting with a branch leading onto the freight-only Oxford line 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 Fenny Stratford was reduced to an unstaffed halt in 1968, freight facilities having been withdrawn the previous year.

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 signal box that was taken out of service in 2004. There was an accident here on 7 December 1925 at 8.43 pm when a bus crashed through the closed crossing gates 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.

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