Bletchley Flyover


The Bletchley Flyover is a reinforced concrete railway viaduct that carried the former Varsity line over the West Coast Main Line in Bletchley, England. It was retained when the line closed and,, is being restored for use in East West Rail.

Construction

The structure is composed of 37 concrete spans, resting on concrete piers. It is long. Most of the spans are beam-shaped; two are double-length arches. Electrification pads were provided when the flyover was first built, despite there being no plans to electrify the line.

History

In 1959, the Bletchley Flyover was opened to carry the Varsity line over the West Coast Main Line as part of the British Rail Modernisation Plan. The plan proposed as a freight link from the East Coast ports to South Wales, capable of handling up to 2,400 wagons of coal class traffic and empties daily. However, following the rejection of the Swanbourne sidings plan by Gerry Fiennes, the line saw little use, with most freight traffic taking other routes.
In his 1967 book I tried to run a Railway, Fiennes described the little-used flyover as
The Varsity line closed to passengers on 1 January 1968; it remained open to goods traffic until October 1993, when the bridge was :wikt:mothball#Verb|mothballed.
The flyover was returned to use in 2006 along with a mile of track west of Bletchley to a loop at the Newton Longville Brickworks landfill site.

2020 renovation

As part of the East West Rail project that will reopen the Varsity line route, work to replace 14 of the spans began in April 2020. This will allow two elevated platforms to be added to Bletchley station.