LNWR have a contract with the DfT saying they must run a service today, so the DfT would need to approve the modification of the service specification. EWR's rebuild of the Marston Vale is a lot further down the road than the initial opening of Bletchley-Bicester, so you'd be closing the MV for about 5 years minimum.
Providing the DfT agree, LNWR could bustitute it long-term until the contract can be renegotiated/cancelled.
True, but this is a line that has been long term bustituted for years during the 230 problems and level crossing failures. Mind you, it isn't electoraly significant so the dft could say yes.
Did someone mention Barlaston & Wedgwood?
Also stations that don't really serve anything. The Marston Vale, whilst not exactly Thameslink, is still a well-used line.
Barlaston is a village with a population of about 3000, and Wedgwood is sited close to the Wedgwood Factory complex and visitor centre, with housing nearby. I am not necessarily advocating re-opening these 2 stations, but it is incorrect to state they "don't really serve anything.", a statement that is applicable to several of the stations on the Bedford-Bletchley line.
But the context is also important here. The MV is a self-contained branch line for people travelling either to London or the end points of the line. Barlaston and Wedgwood are on a line where a slow train has a massive penalty to passenger traffic on the London-Manchester route. You're also talking about bussing passengers from 2 stations just up the line, rather than the MV where the road access to the stations is indirect and remote from the settlements.
Fenny Stratford - ~10,000 people within 2 km
But the context is important. Nobody would be suggesting a permanent bus replacement service between Gatwick Airport and Brighton, for instance. The Marston Vale was frequently bustituted when the 230s were bedding in, and also frequently bustituted when the Level Crossings were failing very often. If bustituting was a long-term viable plan, wouldn't LNWR have just chucked in the towel at that point and just pulled the 230s? The fact they persisted in getting trains running again suggests buses were not seen as a long-term option.
And Bletchley / Milton Keynes presumably will want to look for more room for people at some point; the built-up area's gone up from 180,000 in 2001 to 255,000 last year, with plans to get up to 400,000 by 2050. Even with that population it wouldn't be as dense as Dartford, Sheffield and Woking are now, but it would still make sense to build large parts of the new housing where there's already transport links. (Looking on a map the area immediately north of Wolverton also seems to be quite empty - can that be developed a lot further?)
MK is famously not dense at all, and arguably would be better developed by densification than greenfield development, but that's politically impossible.
Look a little closer! North of Wolverton is the floodplain of the River Great Ouse, and believe me it's all needed. I've stood on the Iron Trunk aquaduct and not been able to see any dry land in the valley at all. Of course, this hasn't stopped people proposing to infill between Wolverton and Newport Pagnell with another town-sized development, including an extra Motorway junction.
I did say it'd never happen.
A Pacer would be faster than a bus.
My experience is mostly with 143s to be fair but they still enjoy most of the advantages of trains over buses (speed, low of likelihood of being left stranded with no rights, and relative comfort)
Is there anything in the heritage sector that could be drafted in short term to keep things running while a long term solution is delivered. For most heritage railways apart from Santa specials, which tend to steam hauled and not what I had in mind, its the quiet season, so a short term arrangement for 2-3 months.
What about a 2 car 755?
PRM Pacer 144012 is stored by Network Rail, isn't it? But that is the microest fleet, of 1.
I believe that one is stored at Worksop but I may be wrong. It probably won't be in the best condition for service if it still is around.
Ridgmont station is right next door to a giant Amazon warehouse, which probably contributes to the number of users of the station. In terms of usage, the latest ORR figures show that it is not right at the bottom end in usage terms, with 10,600 entries and exits from April 2021 to March 2022, making it the fifth ranked station for usage on the line.
No idea, but the figures show that 61,308 of the entries/exits are using season tickets. There's no indication in the figures of a child/adult split that I can see.
Again, no knowledge - is Tilbrook the industrial park close by? Season tickets make up 9,252 of the total.