....There is no way to extend the line westwards to Leighton Buzzard. There's a new housing development in Dunstable itself on the trackbed, the A505 has pinched a few miles and the approach into LB has been heavily built on. It'd be essentially a new build on a different allignment.
V. expensive and it doesn't fill a strategic need....
IIRC, there was never a plan to extend beyond Dunstable, I don't believe NSE had plans for that when they put 'Dunstable' on the NSE destination blinds, and the council's original plan ideas never covered it.
Even if they did want to extend it, they could re-route it to follow the A505 until it reaches the West Coast Mainline just south of Leighton Buzzard.
....The link to the main line at Luton would be difficult. Even if the Luton FCC terminators were extended to Dunstable along a reopened branch line, how wold they get there?
The slow lines are on the east of the fasts and services would have to cross the fasts. Are there paths available on the fasts to allow this? If not, there needs to be a flyover. This'd be expensive for a short branchline with 1 station....
I believe the terminators (that use platform 2) can still access the Up Fast upon departure, when the semi-fast (Bedford-Brighton) trains are delayed by a few minutes. They swap back to the slows at Harpenden Junction. When they terminate in 3 that is the only way out.
In any case it shouldn't be hard to put a junction in for the branch, the fast lines (IIRC) see one or two FCC trains an hour (northbound as far as Leagrave Junction) and three or four EMT services each way.
Infact there is still a signal from the branch at Luton in place, but there was a direct link form the MML to the branch as freight used to use it for a while and on carnival days there used to be a unit that shuttled up the branch (it wasn't kept on the branch as far as I know).
The station car park would have to be sacrificed to re-build Bute St. Station but there is no reason the carpark couldn't be built on top of it. It wasn't that long ago (5-10 years ago) that they planned to rebuild the station area entirely with better links to the bus station and Arndale centre.
....A re-build as light rail or tram would be a single run of a few miles from Luton into Dunstable. There'd be little or no expansion potential at a sensible cost. The system would be small and all of the maintainence infrastructure would have to be built to service a small number of tram/light rail cars.
It'd be prohibitally expensive....
A tram system would also be subject to traffic in the centres, but it could be extended to Houghton Regis, Farley Hill and Caddington, Limbury and Sundon Park, Stopsley, and London Luton Airport (providing an alternative to the shuttle bus from Luton Airport Parkway and VTs service from Milton Keynes, aswell as the local buses from the town centre)
....If the route is used as a busway, then at least the route is used. It has low costs as the maintainence of the buses can be undertaken at existing depots and they can be used on normal roads.
Even though I think rail should be used wherever possible, I think that this is the best that can be achieved for this route. Sad but ecomonics are the key driver....
And when the busway needs maintence or a bus breaks down and buses end up on the roads they were supposed to avoid?....
The busway was the easiest option, not the best one. The council were pledged £78m by government alone for it back in the late 90s/early 2000s.
It is not a question of it is used, I don't believe that it would simply have been left to rot any longer, however, I do believe the Luton Borough Council had no other intentions for it after the failure of the relief road.
Trains could be maintained in a depot that is probably already in existance (Cauldwell Walk or Selhurst), maintenance of the line would be infrequent or overnight/on Sundays when demand is less anyway), journey times would be faster than for a bus and the people of Dunstable would have a direct link to London instead of having to change in the centre of Luton, possibly with a walk from the town hall to the station (only the 31 and X31 route buses went to the station when I was down there).
