Mike makes his way along the trackbed of the former

Midland Railway route between Northampton and Bedford. He is walking on the ballast through the Brackmills Industrial Estate toward Bedford. As late as 2009 Network Rail still had responsibility for this section of the route designating it as 'Out of Use (temporary)' in September of that year. The route is largely intact and there has been a number of reports and investigations into its reopening. If the whole route between Northampton and Bedford was not to open some sort of rapid transit link between Northampton and the busy Brackmills estate would go some way to easing the town's chronic transport congestion.