Weird Service At Woburn Sands

It used to be called Hogsty End; (that is hog sty as in pig sty!). No, really it was; it says so on the village sign. 

It was one of several "Ends" associated with the manor of Wavendon. The tale is that the owner of a school was finding it difficult to recruit customers because of the less than flattering name. He came up with Woburn after the "Big House" nearby and "Sands" reflecting its sandy soil.

To the north of the village, the highlight is the railway station on the line between Bletchley and Bedford; a line that is soon to be part of the revived route between Oxford and Cambridge. 

Even when trains ran all the way, Woburn Sands only had a stopping service as here in 1905.

Before the explosion of road traffic, the station in 1908 was quaint.

Below is the picture today, from roughly the same position, showing "progress".

The signal box is long gone; the barriers are automatic and the station building is home to a Costa Lot caff! The station is now unstaffed.

The centre of the village with shops and community facilities is a little under one mile away to the south. Here you will find The Swan, pub and bus time point, a Tesco Local and a Co-op plus other emporia.

But nearby lies a geographical oddity, best observed via Google Earth.

Top left is the aforementioned Swan, then moving south you come to two mini roundabouts. Bottom right on the junction is another pub, The Fir Tree Inn.

The Swan is in Milton Keynes whilst The Fir Tree Inn ...

... is in Central Bedfordshire.  You can follow the border on the map above - it is the long dash and dot black line.

This be border territory, pardner! 

Most of Woburn Sands is in the unitary authority of Milton Keynes. But once you cross that border, you are in the dragon infested rural area of Central Bedfordshire, also a unitary.

Which is probably why the village has such an awful bus service. 

Here a the bus map extract for 2024.

Readers may be interested to see part of the timetable for the 134 ...

... and part of the timetable for the 47.

The 134 works both ways and makes sense, The table that includes the 47 verges on the unfathomable.

In fact from Dunstable (table immediately above) the village has a 47, 47A and 49. In the other direction (further above) much the same, of course operating on different days.

So, although Woburn Sands is part of Milton Keynes, there would appear to be no buses at all run by a Milton Keynes operator with just the Monday to Friday 134 journeys tendered by Central Beds.

In 2023 it was even worse, just one journey numbered 450 ...

... for which fbb can only find an awfully misleading "spider" map, created on by a drunken spider with no sense of direction! 

Here is the 450 timetable.

Go back a little further to 2019 and Woburn Sands is full of buses. There is the 47 to which is added the 17 and 18 routes plus a 301. 

In 2017, the routes were the same without the 301 which, fbb thinks, was some sort of works service. 

Back in 2017 the 301 was a 300 ...

... which went on past Woburn Sands from Magna Park, where Amazon and other warehouses were planted and sprouts more and more warehouses.

Unfortunately, fbb cannot unravel a timetable for the 17/18 combo; but it was hardly frequent and hardly direct to the central MK shopping excitement.

But, at least the service did get Woburn Sands folk to the Centre and to the local hub at Kingston.

So why did the 17/18 vanish? As with most local authorities, Milton Keynes was short of cash and tendered services (e.g. 17/18) were an easy target. But there was a trendy but unpopular new alternative which fbb will come to soon - eventually.

In the meantime on January 6th 2025 Arriva started a brand new proper service called "Loop" that looked a little bit like the 17/18 ...

... because in Woburn Sands at least the route is exactly like the 17/18 of old.

In passing, note the trendy and obvious branding on the bus  for "Loop".

MK development continues on   Wednesday .

 Next "Take me to your Leader" blog : Tues 14 Jan