 Hello, thank you for joining me. You can see where I am. I'm at Bletchley. I've come here today to ride the Marston Vale line. That's the line that branches off over there off the West Coast mainline and runs across the Marston Vale to Bedford. This, of course, is the West Coast mainline. There's a Pendolino just coming through now, so a busy line all up to Glasgow. But we're going to ride the slow train that stops at every station, as I say, all the way to Bletchley. I've only ever been on it all the way to Bedford. I've only ever been on it twice in my life before, once when I was a child, when they were running class 150s. The 150s were then replaced with the D trains, the ex-district line trains, and I came to have a ride on them a few years ago. And then, unfortunately, Viva Rail went into administration and they had to withdraw the trains, and there hasn't been a service for a year, or just over a year, I think. The services are back, and we're 150s again, so history has repeated itself. The 150s are back. I'm just standing here waiting for the train to arrive. I think it's going to arrive on platform 6, so I'll have to wait down here. I'll see it pulling. But in an initiative to get people to ride the line, they've bought in this £1 fare. So here's my ticket. Well, actually, it's £2. A return is £2. A single is £1. If you have a rail card, it's even cheaper. So I thought, well, it's to make use of this fare and, you know, to give the line an extra number, I've got to come and ride the line. So my plan is wait for the 150 to arrive, and then I'm even going to go all the way through to Bedford. I've got an idea. There's one station I particularly want to get off at, which you'll soon see, and I'll talk about some of the other stations on the route. So let's wait for the 150 to arrive. Class 150 has arrived. We're going to go down and get on it in a moment. While we're up here on the bridge, I just want to show you something. See the extension of the bridge and the new Bletchley High Level, as I think certainly enthusiasts are going to call it, even if it is technically just all Bletchley Station. And over there, there's the Flyover, which has been quite a well-known landmark on the West Coast mainline. It's been disused for many years, but they're finally going to reopen that line through wind, so all the way through to Oxford. So hopefully in an opportunistic future, I'll be making a video. We'll be walking across there. We'll catch a train over the rebuilt Flyover. We'll go and visit the new railway station at Winslow. I've often driven through the town of Winslow. I've always wanted to see the station reopen there, so I'll be pleased to see that. So that's a video for another day. I think there also going to be, there might be a new entrance to the station on that side, which would make sense, because Bletchley Town Centre is over there. Let's go down and have a look. I've still got 10 minutes until the train goes. We'll have a look at the Class 150. So it's its new livery. Fifth Marston Vale Bed for Bletchley. So it only ever works on this line. So it's a nice spring day. I had a flower on the station. So let's have a look. There's the front of our Class 150. Let's go and get on. So what we're going to do, as I said, we're going to ride the line. I'll talk about a few things there are to see at some of the intermediate stations. Let's have a look. See, I see. So we're coming here. There's a very almost metro-style part of the train, but I think if you come on with a bike, that's that bit there. And if you look at the seats here, you can see they've still got their Ex-Northern Moquette. So here we are on the Bed for Bletchley Line on the Ex-Northern Moquette seat. Soon it'll be time to go. So let's enjoy a trip along the Marston Vale. Just past Cordeco Lake. I've been there in the past because there's a miniature railway there. So the nearest station to that would be Boebrick Hill. It would be a bit of a walk to where the metro is, but you know, something you could do one day. If you want to see the miniature railway, have a look at the link on screen now. Can we enter Boebrick Hill? Just arrived at Boebrick Hill. I'm sat on the other side of the train. I wanted to look out this side of the windows. Got a nice traditional station building. And I understand you can get a drink here, like tea or coffee. Some stations have cafes. A few stations even have a pub. Or I understand there is also quite a nice old pub. Wherever we're going to see it from the train, I'd like to go to it, but I haven't got time. But I'll show you why. I want to show you the station as we pull out. We're thinking about pulling out. And then I'm going to get off at another station. If I had all day, I would actually get out of all these stations. It'd be quite fun to do maybe walk from one station to another. Because they really are some quite nice, retraditional, just country stations. On this line, anyway. I'm about to pass the station building. Have a look at this. Lots of fences and new houses have gone. See, it's in a Mock Tudor style. And, oh, it says to let now. There's the old station tavern. So that pubs for me quite good. When I looked on Street View, when I was researching that video, it was a poster. I think I thought it was unusual to see that the station building had been made into a costa business anymore. So to get out there, go to the station tavern, go there and have a drink. I'm going to continue on. Still else we can find. So our train's departed on its way to Bedford and we've got off here at Bridgeman. And we get a better view of the station building when I try to show you out the window and pass through Woven Sands. I have to go to Woven Sands one day though. It's near Woven Safari Park, which has a miniature railway. So that will be featured one day in miniature railway Britain. Although, whether I'd actually come by train, because it's quite a long way. But really, we've got out here to visit this particular station. As you can see, it's probably one of the best preserved on the line. And I understand it's a tea room and a heritage centre. So it seems the ideal station to get out there. The village of Bridgeman, I believe, is up there, up on the Marston Vale itself. The railway station runs along the bottom of the Marston Vale. So this is the station. And you can see it says Bridgeman Heritage Centre and Tea Room. So I'm going to go inside and see what we can find. So now I've seen the other train that's out today disappear off in that direction, back towards Bletchley. Before I continue my journey to Bedford, over there, that's the M1, the second bridge. You can just see a few lorries. This lorry here, that's not on the M1. We're going to go inside the old station because it's a little museum and it's a tea room. So it's just what you want, an old railway station. So this is the old ticket office. I think if we go in here, if you go in, and if you go into here, there's a nice little small artefacts museum that this is the ticket office. So this is where you would have once come and bought your ticket. Obviously I've already got tickets, I don't require one. There's there's bits of track down there. This picture shows one, the old brickworks. This line and this whole area is very well known for brick making. There were lots of brickworks everywhere. And to hear that there's some Sigmund's instruments. And here you can see the Sigmund's log. So Sigmund, his job would have been to have logged all the passing trains here. He sat there logging all of the movements. You can see various pictures. And this is where the where the ticket clerk would have sat and sold tickets. You can see the admins and the tickets. There's our tickets we used to see today. And there's some admins and the tickets. And you'd have put them in this thing, stamped a date on them. So that's quite interesting. Lots of nice pictures to see. And there is a selection of various trains that pass through here. Of course there's the D trains which we know. Steam train, but a 4MT. They did once run a 4MT up and down here. I'd love to have done that. There hasn't been much steam on this railway. Considering it's not particularly busy like it, bigger ones run it all. So you get a few freight going through. Now let's go right up here. Climb away out. Going to have a look in the shop. And then I think it'll be time for some tea and cake. So this is the shop here I think. Oh yeah, look at this. It's a nice little shop. So we've got things like chutneys for sale. All important beer for sale. Secondhand books. And local souvenirs. I think this is the old station askers. So this is the shop. And then what I'm going to do. I'm going to go through there and get myself some tea and cake. There we are in the tea room. I've got a nice cup of tea. And I've also got two nice bits of cake. So I'm going to sit here and enjoy tea and cake at classic railway station. With pictures of trains and signalman's maps to admire how I enjoy my tea and cake. Then I'm going to get the 150 on towards Bedford. That was a very enjoyable tea and cake. And also enjoyed having a look around the museum. I'm back on the other side. I'm waiting for my train to arrive and continue my journey to Bedford. Just found this here. Look, this is a mile post where six and three quarters. So if it was six and a half, there'd be two dots. One dot if it was a quarter. Different railways have different ways of showing their mile posts. But this is what we have. Six and three-quarter miles from Bletchley. I assume anyway. So that's the station building. As I said, it was really nice to go to a tea room. It reminded me a bit of, you may have seen a video I did recently. Where we went to Brickett Wood on the Abbey line. Another branch off the main line, the West Coast main line out of Houston. And we visited the tea room there, another similar tea room. So it's nice to find these traditional tea rooms at these nice little sort of wayside railway stations. If you're coming today, you'd have to buy a ticket from a machine as there's no longer a staff ticket office here. But while they're still doing the £1 ticket, I do recommend doing what I did. I'm going to now catch a train, want to Bedford, and then I'll have a little wander around Bedford and then catch a train back to Bedford. Livington, did enjoy visiting the Heritage Centre at Ridgemont. I was talking to one of the volunteers and he was saying what might happen. I was asking him when they opened the East West line when he got trains from Oxford going right through here, how it will impact on services. They're probably running a bit faster, talking of high speed. Besides us there, you can't see it particularly well, but Millbrook, if you know about driving cars fast and testing them, you've probably heard of Millbrook. That is the Millbrook test track. It's not a motorway. It looks like a motorway from what I can see, but there's no cars on it, so they can test cars at very high speed. If you haven't looked on Google Earth, you'll see it's quite an interesting site. So that's the Millbrook test track. As for driving trains faster on here, the line probably will be upgraded and they will be able to run faster trains. But what will happen? Will this local service continue to run? That's what we're not sure about at this stage. It may well change. Well, it's a shame that it's been on fire in that building. That's like the old station master's house. And it's been on fire. Or perhaps that's the station master's house. But yeah, the building next door, possibly a pub, unfortunately, burnt down. You know, it arrived at Millbrook. So some of these stations may close or move. So effectively, I'm thinking I might have to come out one day and visit some of these stations before we lose them all together. Some of them, they're quite close together. So they might close two of them and build a new station in between the two, which are better served for the communities of people that will use them. I did notice when we were at Ridgemont, the villages up on the hill, there wasn't actually a great deal there. And it's great tea rooms there. So this line probably is going to see quite a lot of changes. And possibly in the future, it will be electrified. We'll have to wait and see. The scenery has changed again. That is the old clay bits. Well, it used to be the clay out of the bridge. We saw a picture at the Heritage Center. There would have been lots of chimneys and lots of brickworks all along here. We now approach the Stuart bridge. On the other side, I can see the overhead wires off the middle of Mainline. So we should assume we actually go under the middle of Mainline and we will approach Bedford Station from the east side. But I'm thinking my plan is, I'm going to get off at Bedford St John just to tick off that station, go for a bit of a walk around Bedford, maybe have a pint near Weberspoons, and then go back to Bedford Main Station and catch a train all the way back to Bedford Station. We are. This is Bedford St John's. We've made it to Bedford, not quite the main Bedford Station, but I'm going to walk through Bedford far more way to there. This isn't the original site of Bedford St John's, as you can see it. So this is just one platform under a bridge. The train continues that way towards the main station at Bedford. Going back that way, see the lines on a curve. The line used to continue along there, and there was another station, the old original Bedford St John's station. I would have pointed it out, but Stuart Brie loads and loads of students got on the train. So the train went from being quite nice and quiet to completely packed. So, you know, it's good to see people are using the line. Now the line is running again. Certainly this top end of the line is very well used and a lot of the students did get off here. So very well used line. That line would have eventually continued on all the way through to Sandy. Maybe one day I'll explore that old line, but when I say one day I mean it could be any time, I don't know when, but it's something I would like to do. So what I'm going to do now is there's a cat up there just crossing the track. I'm going to continue that way, go and make my way into Bedford Town Centre. There we are. We're by the River Great Ooze in Bedford. There's a swan swimming past. I'm going to walk along here, beside the river, over that bridge there. See the older part, Bedford, you see the church and got the modern buildings along here. I'm going to go and find the Weatherspoons, have a drink, and then walk back to the station and catch the 150 back to Bridgeley. So after a pint in Weatherspoons, I'm back at the main Bedford station. A couple of Thameslink units waiting to head south. Thameslink units don't go north beyond here, so that way it's looking south towards London. And then our train's going to come in on this bay platform. The line we travelled on, that actually reached Bedford first before this one. The middle and main line was a bit of a newcomer. If you look at the map, places like St Albans, Harpenden, etc., all of the railways that are now closed, or at least in St Albans, in case the Abbey line is still open, those railways were there first, and then the middle and main line, as I say, was a latecomer. I'm going to now wait for our class 150 to arrive to take us back to Bedford, actually. 4, 1, 8. Thank you. I'm going to go to Lake again, that's what I said this morning. There is a minute to railway, so it's worth going to see. Obviously check their running days. When we get back to Bletchley, I've got quite a tight connection, so I'm probably not going to have much time to have a look at the train. So I thought I'd better finish the video now. I've got about a four-minute connection, and if I miss that, get home a lot later. We're just about to go over one more thing to show you. It's the Grand Union Canal. And then we're soon coming into Penning Stratford Station. So I hope you enjoyed this video. Thank you very much for watching. Please do feel free to like, subscribe, and comment. If you want to come and ride this line, obviously the line's always here. If you want the £1 fares, it's some point in May 2024 that they're going to stop. So fairly early in May. So do come before then. But anyway, thank you very much for watching. Please do feel free to like, subscribe, and comment. Goodbye.