London Northwestern Railway has announced that a full timetable is to return to the Marston Vale Line next week.
Recently, passengers on the line have not had a full timetable to use. Since December 2022, the line was closed due to VivaRail, the company behind the Class 230 trains that ran on the line, entering administration.
Fast forward to November 2023, and London Northwestern Railway had hired in Class 150s from Northern, and these began a partial timetable with four services each day in each direction.
However, from Tuesday 19th February, a full hourly train service will operate, and to encourage passengers to return to the route.
London Northwestern Railway says that a single journey between any two stations will cost just £1 (50p for children), which represents a discount of up to 90%.
Jonny Wiseman, LNR customer experience director, said: “The return of the full timetable to the Marston Vale Line is fantastic news and marks the end of a frustrating period for our customers.
“Our focus now is on encouraging passengers to make full use of their local train service, which is why we have reduced the cost of a trip on the line to £1 for the next three months.
“We recognise that due to logistical challenges it has taken longer than we had hoped to bring back the full timetable but we are thrilled we can now reinstate services and we look forward to welcoming passengers back on board.”
Stephen Sleight, from the Marston Vale Community Rail Partnership, said: “I am delighted a full train service is resuming on the line, which is a lifeline for communities and means an enormous amount to local people who rely on it for education, work and leisure.
“It is also a key connecting route for those making longer journeys beyond Bedford and Bletchley. The new ticket offer is fantastic news for passengers, particularly at the start of half term. We have a number of exciting plans to celebrate the relaunch of the line, including a new promotional film to be released in time for Easter.”
Responses
Great to see the service return but worth noting that GWR and TfW managed to continue with their 230s when Vivarail went into administration.
Will be great to see the Bletchley-Bicester/Oxford link come back soon as part of East-West Rail. Hopefully we’ll get Aylesbury-MK too, and upgrades on the Marston Vale, but Cambridge will be a while…
I believe that if it had been any other (busier) line, it could have been kept running throughout. Although the company maintaining the rolling stock went bust, the workers didn’t suddenly vanish, nor did the workshops. I am sure a deal could easily have been done by the train operating company to use those resources until an alternative could be arranged.
That ship sailed some 60 years ago. I appreciate the sentiment but it’s a little unfair to decry the service as not full when it hasn’t run that way in a lifetime.
Advertised as a full service but can’t exactly get to Cambridge direct anymore or Oxford. That ship has long since sailed. That ship needs to sail again. That ship should never have stopped sailing.
Good luck with the improvement to the service and I hope it works.
Not the train operators fault if they are reliant on another organisation to maintain it’s fleet and then the company is unfortunate enough, for whatever reason, to fold.
Unfortunately with retraining of crews involved and sourcing replacement trains there was bound to be quite a bit of delay.
Let’s hope that the passengers return.