Better Buses At Bow Brickhill

Where?

Click on the maps for an enlargement

Nobody had thought of the New City of Milton Keynes (still not a City!) in the early 1960s. The main settlement of Fenny Stratford, a staging post on the A5 ex Roman Road, Watling Street had been eclipsed by upstart Bletchley. There is Bow Brickhill on the B road between Fenny Stratford and Woburn Sands.

Even now Bow Brickhill village is outside the splurge of the new city.

But it is still part of Milton Keynes.

But as a comminuty "on the edge" and on the way to nowhere, it suffered the fate of many fringe MK bus services.

Here is the stuation in 2019 ...

We have our cursive route 17 and 18 which we met on Monday last at Woburn Sands, a version of which is shown below.

But by 2024 nothing.

Caldecotte and Walton Park are bereft of buses as well. Latterly the 11, 11A, 12 and 12A were tendered routes not run by Arriva but sporting an attractive (?) mix of vehicles!

It is probably not surprising that the routes did not survive the cut-backs!

Journey planners suggested that you catch an 8/8A to Downs Wood and walk to Bow brickhill. There is a footpath signed from Downs Wood ... 

... but totally hidden at Bow Brickhill. Even at Downs Wood you would have to know about it as it is some way from the comforting purple line of the 8/8A. There is no lighting on the path which looks as if it might be a bit squidgy!

So the villagers of Bow Brickhill were rejoicing with dancing in the streets from January 6th 2025 as their bus service returned in the form of "Loop".

It is worth just pausmg to wonder whether Bow Brickhill deserves "Loop". 

The main road through the village (Woburn Sands Road) has mainly newer housing dating from the 1930s right through tonthe present day. Some properies are delightfully old.

There is also The Wheatsheaf ...

... c/w with its recently unserved but named bus stop.

But the main part of the old settlement leads down from the Church on the hill ...

... and retains much of its character even today.

Just to the south of the church and at the top of the hill is a gorgeous area of woodland, well worth a wander ...

... and now you can get there, well, to the bottom of the hill ...

... by a much improved replacement bus service.

Generally, there is (there always was!) enough housing there to support some sort of bus service, but whether the luxury of "Loop" is asking too much is surely the big question.

So here is what Bow Brickhill, Woburn Sands and the rest of "Loop" has today.

An hourly service both ways round (once it gets going) ...

... with last circling trips at 1820 (MF) and 1620 (S) on the orange "Loop" and 1830 (MF) and 1630 (S) in the blue "Loop".

Here are the full timetables ...

... should you wish to click and enlarge them.

There is no Sunday service.

On  Friday  we go to Furzton and look at MK Connect that was available (and still is) in the localities where previous services had been withdrawn.

 Next Thrup Knee Bit blog : Thurs 16 Jan 

Take Me To Your Leader (mini blog)

 An Honourable Failure

Oliver Bulleid was born in New Zealand but was of English descent. His name seem somewhat un-English? And should it be pronounced Bull-leed or Bill-lied, the latter being "normal" in many european languages.

In many ways he was a pioneer or railway engineering with his most productive time being with the Southern Railway and, for a short while, the nationalised Southern Region of British Railways.

His Q1 loco looked weird ...

... but was weird for a purpose. It was to save metal in response to wartime shortages.

It was his "Leader" class that copped the lot as far a weirdness is concerned. His aim was to produce something that looked like a diesel or electric loco and  could be easily driven from both ends.

Only one loco was ever completed, numbered 36001 in the BR scheme. The build was not complete until after nationalisation. Three further locos were on the rather short production line, but the project was cancelled and they were never completed, Here is all that ever existed of 36003.

And this was a never-to-be used boiler.

But that ungainly lump might help us to understand something of the construction. The Leader was, effectively, a conventional steam engine in a metal box!

In a side view schematic, we can see the boiler shape in dotted lines.

To its left would be the tubes and cylinders which drove the wheels (two six-wheeled bogies) with a complicated and not very reliable chain linkage. 

Note the small door. In this hell hole, the fireman would stoke the boilers because, on its right ...

... you can see the diagonal slope of the bottom of the coal bunker and below and to the right of that was the water tank.

There are few pictures of the real thing from above, so a snap of a model will show the obvious coal bunker ...

... and, to its right, the water tank filler stuff. At the opposite end, where you might expect a funnel, there is just a hole in the roof from which the smoke would exude.

Perversely almost all of the pictures on-line show the loco going "backwards" compared with the line drawing, i.e. with the "funnel" at the back. But this painting will help ...

... offset the photos showing the reverse orientation.

You do wonder how our railways might have looked if Bulleid's Leader had become a design leader for British Railways.

The OO gauge model has now appeared from the house of KR. 

Of course KR did not make them, that was done in China ...

... and, oddly, KR Models is based in Edmonton, Canada!

An Honourable Success?

The KR Leader is now on sale and, accurately, looks as boring a model as a cuboid tin can can be.

Although the real life project was quickly abandoned, KR have excelled themselves in "what might have been" liveries.

Did the loco ever run in any of these styles. Most on-line pictures show a very mucky all-over grey with just the number 36001 offering some relief from the one colour paint job.

Oddly KR does not offer one in "very tatty and filthy oily grey"!

Here are the five liveries now available (some versions sold out!)

All over grey with red & black lining

And a closer look.

All over grey, no lining, original BR logo

BR lined black with original logo

BR lined green with later logo

BR blue with full yellow ends

In case you were thinking of getting one for your layout, prices are:-

£185 - basic

£215 - DCC control technology

£285 - DCC plus sound

 Next MK blog : Wednesday 15 Jan 

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