This was originally published on South Heath News Buzz and is by Stephen Green.
Rumours are that a new station is to be built in the village of Steeple Claydon, where the high-speed (HS2) railway line crosses the East West Rail line and this prospect has delighted extreme sport enthusiasts.
While the East West trains are expected to stop at the station to allow High Speed trains to pass, HS2 will merely slow down a little to permit passengers wishing to leave the train to leap onto the platform.
Analysts have suggested that as much as twenty minutes could be saved on High Speed journeys beyond Birmingham were HS2 were to follow the same procedure at Toton, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and Manchester Airport.
It is thought that the new station may even encourage the building of a new accident and emergency wing at Buckingham Community Hospital.
Local councillor Bob Sledde told us that he felt that HS2 would bring a raft of new business opportunities and tourism to the area. “The Japanese love Takeshi’s Castle”, he told us, “the French, Italians, Austrians and Germans love to slide down frozen mountains with bits of aluminium on their feet, it’ll be like that only without snow, trees or prize money, we’re expecting a load of ‘em”.
Local florist Carrie Meholme thought it could only be good for business, “I might set up a stall on the platform, extreme sports and flowers sort of go together don’t they?”, it was more of a statement than a question as Carrie rubbed her hands gleefully, so we left it at that.