Northampton // Daventry

Our Concepts

Our concept for a new railway line between Northampton and Daventry, allowing the extension of Euston or New Street services.

We have put together two different proposals for a Northampton – Daventry route, the key differentiator between the routes being whether they enter Northampton station from the north or south, which influences the operational practicality of providing through services to onward locations.

Benefits 🙂

Both concepts provide the opportunity for a ‘Park and Ride’ station serving Northampton, located close to existing M1 junctions. In addition to the key service locations of Northampton, Daventry and a ‘Park and Ride’ location, the routes provide opportunity to service smaller settlements en-route.
From an operational and climate change policy agenda it would be vastly preferable for any such route to be electrified from day one. A more operationally complex option requiring specific rolling stock would be OLE/Battery hybrid vehicles.

via Bugbrooke 1️⃣

There are a variety of potential services on offer here. A stopping service could operate between Northampton Central and Daventry Central, calling at all stations, while the existing Birmingham New Street – Northampton regional service could extend to Daventry Central, calling at Northampton Parkway and Weedon Queen Street only.

This option has potential to perform extremely well for the primary Daventry – Northampton and P&R – Northampton flows, but would require further examination as to its performance for secondary flows to Birmingham/London for Daventry passengers compared to the current option of railheading at Long Buckby.

via New Duston 2️⃣

This configuration would readily allow existing Euston via MKC services which originate from Northampton to be extended to a Northampton P&R location and Daventry. If those services call at Bletchley it would facilitate interchange onto East West Rail for access to the knowledge economies of Oxford/Cambridge.

Ideally, in addition to this national service we would like to see a local service calling at a number of smaller settlements en-route as indicated. This local service and stations could be a secondary phase of delivery provided that passive provision was made for them in the initial design.