Milton Keynes Central railway station

Milton Keynes Central is a railway station that serves Central Milton Keynes and the surrounding area of Milton Keynes, England. The station is located on the West Coast Main Line about 50 mi northwest of London. The station is served by Virgin Trains intercity services, and by West Midlands Trains and Southern regional services.

This station is one of the six stations serving the Milton Keynes urban area. Milton Keynes Central, which opened on 17 May 1982, is by far the busiest and most important of these, as well as being the largest in terms of platforms in use, having overtaken Bletchley when platforms 2A and 6 became operational.

Platforms and layout


Milton Keynes Central has a total of seven platforms. Platforms 1 and 3 are the south and northbound slow platforms, while 4 and 6 are the south and northbound fast platforms. Platforms 2 and 5 are reversible, being slow and fast respectively. Platform 2 is used mainly by terminating services from London Euston or East Croydon, whilst platforms 1 and 3 are used by West Midlands Trains services between Euston and Northampton, Birmingham New Street or Crewe. Platforms 4, 5 and 6 are used for Virgin inter-city express services between London and the West Midlands, north Wales, the north-west or Scotland.

Platform 2A is a five-car south-facing bay platform originally intended for the extension of Marston Vale Line services from Bedford into Milton Keynes Central: this proposal no longer appears in plans for East West Rail, being replaced by a planned service to/from Oxford or Aylesbury (see below). Meanwhile, platform 2A is used only by exception when additional platform capacity is needed, such as when there is a service delay. To the north of the station the six lines reduce to four (two slow and two fast) and there is a mile of five-track running to the south before this also reduces back to four.

The station is generally accessible: there are no unavoidable steps and there are lifts from the concourse to each platform. As with all mainline railway stations, passengers with mobility limitations may need to pre-book assistance to get from the platform to the train. Ticket gates are in operation.

Local facilities and interchange
The station building has a shop and café. There are other shops and restaurants on the south side of the station square. There are a number of hotels on Midsummer Boulevard (which begins opposite the station and leads up into the central business district).

The station forecourt is the terminus or key intermediate destination for many bus services; almost all local and district bus services stop there. These services are operated mostly by Arriva Shires & Essex as well as some routes by Stagecoach East and a number of independent operators. Numerous bus services each hour traverse Midsummer Boulevard, connecting the station to the shopping centre, the theatre and Xscape. There is a public toilet in this area.

Stagecoach East operate four major long-distance coach routes from here. Their route 99 express service runs to Luton Airport via Luton railway station, providing a direct link between the West Coast Main Line and the Midland Main Line. Route X5 route between Oxford and Cambridge stops here, as do their X4 and X7 interurban bus routes to Northampton, Leicester and Peterborough. Arriva Shires & Essex also operate route X60 to Aylesbury, which terminates at the station. However, National Express services run from the Milton Keynes Coachway, about 4.5 mi away, served from this station by the 300 bus or the X5.

The Milton Keynes redway system, a comprehensive network of cycle/pedestrian shared use paths, connects to the station and its cycle parking facilities.

Also in the station forecourt, there is a taxi rank (to the left) and a pick-up space for private hire cars (to the right), plus limited (very) short term parking. There is a multi-storey car-park to the north of the station. Parking in the surrounding streets is heavily restricted to discourage commuter parking.

The station square itself is a favourite site for skateboarding and freestyle BMX and as a result the granite facings of the planting surrounds have suffered from the continuous bumping and grinding. This has lessened somewhat since the opening of a dedicated skateboarding park (Sk8 MK) close to the former central bus station.

West Midlands Trains (London Northwestern)
Milton Keynes Central is a principal start and terminus for West Midlands Trains' services to/from London Euston, and a major stop on others terminating/initiating at Northampton, Crewe or Birmingham New Street. During off-peak daytime hours, West Midlands Trains operate five departures per hour to Euston, two trains per hour to Birmingham New Street (via Northampton), one train per hour to Crewe, and one train per hour that terminates at Northampton. There are additional West Midlands Trains services during the rush hour. GB National Rail Timetable December 2015 – May 2016, Table 66 On this route, the Company trades as "London Northwestern".

Virgin Trains
Virgin Trains stop many of their inter-city services here, with three calls an hour in each direction off-peak on weekdays. Southbound services are to London Euston, northbound services are to Glasgow/Edinburgh via Birmingham New Street, to Manchester Piccadilly and to Chester (with certain trains extending to Bangor and Holyhead for ferry connections to Dun Laoghaire or to Dublin Port). Additional services operate in the morning peak and evening peaks to and from Liverpool Lime Street, Preston, Glasgow Central (via Trent Valley Line), Wolverhampton and other destinations.

Southern
Southern's West London Route provides an hourly service via the West London Line and Brighton Main Line to East Croydon (via Clapham Junction), avoiding central London. Onward connections to Gatwick Airport and Brighton are available from Clapham Junction.

East West Rail
From 2025, services are planned to operate (over a rebuilt East West Rail line) to Oxford via Bletchley, calling at Winslow and Bicester Village. This work will reopen Claydon Junction and thus the route to London Marylebone via Aylesbury and High Wycombe. A desire to extend services to Cambridge and beyond remains unfulfilled because it depends on a new alignment eastwards from Bedford to Cambridge:, this work is funded only 'to develop a strategic outline business case'..

Grand Central
In June 2018, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) approved an application by Great North Western Railway for 5 direct services per day from Blackpool North to London Euston calling at: Poulton-le-Fylde, Kirkham & Wesham, Preston, Nuneaton and Milton Keynes Central. The service is planned for September 2019. However, in June 2019, the Group announced that the service would begin in Spring 2020 and would be operated by sister company, Grand Central. On the same day the company revealed its timetable for its new Blackpool North to London Euston.

Location
The station is at the western end of Central Milton Keynes, near the junction of the A5 with the A509. The nearest post-code is MK9 1BB. In the chainage notation traditionally used on the railway, its location on the line is 49 mi from Euston.

In film
The station and its plaza were used in the movie Superman IV: The Quest for Peace as a substitute for the United Nations building. Other scenes were shot in the Central Milton Keynes area.

Images
