Aylesbury Vale Parkway 13 February 2010

After over six months since I last travelled new tracks, I finally got a spare day to complete one of the two remaining bits of the UK's railway (until the East London Line opens in a few months when I get a new place to go!). The background is that when the Great Central Railway was closed north of Aylesbury in around 1966, a single track section from there to a junction with the Bicester to Bletchley line was preserved for freight use. NB This was once part of the Oxford to Cambridge railway - of which the Oxford to Bicester and Bletchley to Bedford sections remain open - and there are plans to reopen the lot. However in this case a short stretch of the line has been renewed for passenger use to a new station to the north of Aylesbury to serve developments in the area, Aylesbury Vale Parkway. I covered Marylebone to Aylesbury some years ago but this new section reopened in 2008. Not much to say about the trip really! Both trips were via the same 2 coach class 168 Turbostar DMU. The new station was of Network Rail's new standard design - the same as the one I see at Mitcham Eastfields during life as a trainee driver. The next trip to Ebbw Vale Parkway (though I gather an application has been made to extend this reopened line to Ebbw Vale Town) should be slightly more epic. And then there is the East London Line, which will put my home on the tube map at last even though it's not the tube any more!