Ridgmont railway station

Ridgmont railway station is a small unstaffed railway station that serves the villages of Ridgmont in Bedfordshire (about 1 mile (2 km) away on the other side of the M1 Motorway at Junction 13), Brogborough and Husborne Crawley. It also serves the large Amazon.com warehouse next door.

Ridgmont
Location
PlaceRidgmont
Local authorityCentral Bedfordshire
Coordinates52.026°N 0.595°W / 52.026; -0.595
Grid referenceSP965373
Operations
Station codeRID
Managed byLondon Northwestern Railway
Number of platforms2
DfT categoryF2
Live arrivals/departures, station information and onward connections
from National Rail Enquiries
Annual rail passenger usage*
2014/15 35,428
2015/16 37,200
2016/17 34,388
2017/18 36,450
2018/19 31,532
National Rail – UK railway stations
* Annual estimated passenger usage based on sales of tickets in stated financial year(s) which end or originate at Ridgmont from Office of Rail and Road statistics. Methodology may vary year on year.

It is on the Bletchley — Bedford Marston Vale Line.

Trains

The station is served by London Northwestern Railway Bletchley — Bedford local services. Services are operated using Class 230/1 multiple units. Although not geographically the midpoint of the line, many train services 'cross' at Ridgmont station. There is no Sunday passenger service timetabled although the line remains open with signalers on duty at the Marston Vale Signalling Centre at Ridgmont.

Ridgmont Station has also been used as a watering point for steam-hauled special trains heading north from London.

Future

It is planned that the Marston Vale line will be upgraded as part of the East West Rail programme, to permit 100 mph (160 km/h) running. The Oxford-Bedford services are planned to stop here.[1]

Former station house

The former station house, built in 1846 in the Cottage Orné architectural style, underwent a total refurbishment in 2014 managed by the Bedfordshire Rural Communities Charity (BRCC) with funding from the Railway Heritage Trust. A tea room, gift shop, disabled access and toilets, additional car parking, three small 'start-up' offices and a meeting room have been provided. The former Victorian booking office has been restored as a small heritage centre.[2]

Scenes from the feature film 'One Day' were filmed at the station.

General information

Ridgmont is in sight of Junction 13 of the M1 motorway and the station is adjacent to a number of distribution centres.

It was at Ridgmont that a new Marston Vale signalling control centre was built as part of the Bedford — Bletchley route modernisation in 2004. This centre replaced all the signal boxes and block posts (some contained within station buildings including Ridgmont) on the route.

View of Ridgmont Railway Station from the A507 bypass

Services

An hourly service operates in each direction, Mondays to Saturdays.[3]

Preceding station   National Rail   Following station
London Northwestern Railway
Marston Vale Line
Mondays-Saturdays only
  Future Services  
Line open
East West Rail
Line open

Community Rail Partnership

Ridgmont station, in common with others on the Marston Vale Line, is covered by the Marston Vale Community Rail Partnership,[4] which aims to increase use of the line by involving local people.

gollark: I think my phone still has an outdated unofficial Oreo version with, I am sure, 1258916519765 unpatched vulnerabilities (more than potatOS!)
gollark: There's GNU/Linux distros for phones, like PostmarketOS, but because of the utter mess that is bootloaders and drivers on ARM they only work for a few devices.
gollark: I mean, Google isn't forced to, users sort of are.
gollark: It's not a trade-off which anyone is actually *forced* to make.
gollark: Which they *could* have done in a sane, open-source way, like GNU/Linux is somehow able to.

References
  1. What train services will run on East West Rail (Western Section)? East West Rail Consortium, 2015. Retrieved 31/03/18
  2. Restored Ridgmont Station Now Open! Friends of Fenny Stratford (undated)
  3. Table 64 National Rail timetable, May 2016
  4. Marston Vale Community Rail Partnership
  • Train times and station information for Ridgmont railway station from National Rail
  • Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1114037)". National Heritage List for England.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.