The London and Birmingham Railway, now part of the "West Coast Main Line", was officially opened from Euston as far as on 9 April 1838, where a temporary station was built. The line was fully opened in September 1838, and Bletchley station opened some time between 2 November 1838 and 20 June 1839. The station was known as Bletchley & Fenny Stratford between 1841 and 1846 and after the opening of the Marston Vale line was referred to in timetables as Bletchley Junction from 1851 to 1870. Originally a major intercity station, that role passed to Milton Keynes Central in 1982 when the latter was built, long after the east–west route had been downgraded, taking Bletchley's importance as a junction with it. The eastward route opened in 1846. The westward route opened in 1850. This east–west route subsequently became the Oxford – "Varsity Line".
Accidents and incidents
On 14 October 1939, an express passenger train was in a collision with another train. Five people were killed and more than 30 were injured.
Layout and facilities
There are six platforms in use, numbered 1 to 6 from west to east. Platforms 1 and 2 primarily serve the West Coast Main Line fast lines used by Avanti West Coast expresses that do not stop at the station and consequently normally see little or no use unless other platforms are unavailable. Platforms 3 and 4 serve the WCML slow lines and are used by London Northwestern Railway services between Euston and Birmingham New Street, along with Southern's Milton Keynes Central trains. Platforms 5 and 6 are located on the eastern side and are the only ones that give access to the Marston Vale line to Bedford. Bedford trains normally start and terminate at platform 6, but can use platform 5 if required. There are carriage sidings to the north of the station, whilst the high level flyover carrying the former Varsity Line towards Oxford crosses the main lines to the south. The main buildings and station entrance are located on the west side of the complex, off Sherwood Drive. There are ticket barriers controlling access to the platforms.
East West route
As well as being on the national north–south West Coast Main Line, Bletchley is also on the east–west former Cambridge–Oxford Varsity line, though as of 2018 only the section between Bletchley and Bedford and the section between Oxford and are open for passenger services., the route beyond Bletchley to the west through Winslow to Bicester is closed, but work has begun to rebuild and reopen this section. There is a funded project to build or rebuild the entire route between and.
Bletchley, in common with other stations on this line, is covered by the Marston Vale Community Rail Partnership, which aims to promote the line by encouraging local users to take an active interest in it.
is a major project to establish a strategic railway connecting East Anglia with Central, Southern and Western England. In particular, it plans to build a line linking and via, Milton Keynes and, largely using the trackbed of the former Varsity Line. The project includes a spur to. The Bletchley Flyover by-passes Bletchley station, leading east towards Bedford or to join the WCML north of the current station. It was built in 1959 as part of the 1955 British Rail Modernisation Plan. At the time it was expected to carry as many as 80 trains a day; however it is not in use currently, though it remains in place. There is a [|funded, scheduled, plan] to re-open this route to passenger traffic via Bicester to Oxford by 2025 and an unfunded plan to re-open the entire route between Oxford and Cambridge. In the view of Milton Keynes Council, a key element of the plan is to build high level platforms at Bletchley so that passengers may transfer between the lines. In April and May 2020, the sections of the flyover crossing the WCML were removed and replaced. From 5 July 2020, in a project expected to last three months, work began on replacement of the sections crossing Buckingham Road. In total, 14 of the flyover's 37 spans will need to be replaced.
Proposed entrance from Saxon Street
As part of a project to regenerate Bletchley as a whole, Milton Keynes Council has proposed the creation of a new eastern pedestrian access to the station by extending the existing platform overbridge across the tracks to reach Saxon Street. The proposed eastern entrance is to open out into a new station square and a transport interchange where an at-grade pedestrian crossing across Saxon Street would give access to the town centre and bus station. In the longer term it is planned to construct an underground concourse to link the eastern and western station entrances.
Development to 2025
Following approval on 29 November 2011 of the western section of East West Rail between Oxford and Bedford via Bletchley, the route was expected to open in 2019. The plan provides for new high level platforms to be built on the Bletchley Flyover as the line has no direct route through the existing station without reversing. On 7 July 2014, the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership announced that the Government had allocated £64.6 million funding for various projects that includes a £1.5 million contribution towards the cost of this work. However, as of 2018, work on the high-level platforms or the Saxon Street entrance had yet to begin. In July 2017, Network Rail began a public consultation on the details of its proposals for the Bicester–Bedford section of East West Rail. The consultation documents provide detailed drawings for the high-level platforms but do not include any details about the station itself.
In mid September 2012, the Transport Minister Norman Baker announced in a 'written answer' that the Government had approved London Midland's request to reduce the opening hours of the ticket office to close at 21:00 on Mondays and 20:00 on Tuesdays to Fridays. Defending the Government's decision to reduce the opening hours at Bletchley and at, local MPs Iain Stewart and Mark Lancaster said that most passengers use ticket machines to buy or retrieve their tickets. Speaking for the oppositionCooperative and Labour Party, prospective parliamentary candidateAndrew Pakes called it the "thin end of the wedge", that would put into question the opening hours of the station toilets and waiting room.
The station is on Sherwood Drive in Old Bletchley, near the B4034. The nearest post-code is MK3 6DZ. In the chainage notation traditionally used on the railway, its location on the West Coast Main Line is from Euston; to Oxford on the former Varsity line the distance is ; and to Bedford it is.
