Quainton Road railway station

Quainton Road railway station was opened in 1868 in undeveloped countryside near Quainton, Buckinghamshire, 44 miles (71 km) from London. Built by the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway, it was the result of pressure from the 3rd Duke of Buckingham to route the railway near his home at Wotton House and to open a railway station at the nearest point to it. Serving a relatively unpopulated area, Quainton Road was a crude railway station, described as "extremely primitive".

Following the opening of the station, the Duke of Buckingham built a short horse-drawn tramway to assist with the transport of goods between his estates at Wotton and a terminus adjacent to the existing Quainton Road station. Extended soon afterwards to provide a passenger service to the town of Brill, the tramway was converted to locomotive operation, becoming known as the Brill Tramway. All goods to and from the Brill Tramway passed through Quainton Road station, making it relatively heavily used despite its geographical isolation, and traffic increased further when construction began on Ferdinand de Rothschild's mansion of Waddesdon Manor. It was proposed to extend the Brill Tramway to Oxford, which would have made Quainton Road a major junction station, but the plans were abandoned. Instead, the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway and the Brill Tramway were absorbed by London's Metropolitan Railway (MR), who already operated the line from Aylesbury to London. The MR rebuilt Quainton Road station and re-sited it to a more convenient location, allowing direct running of services between the Brill Tramway and the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway. When the Great Central Railway (GCR) from the north of England opened, Quainton Road became a significant junction at which trains from four directions met, and by far the busiest of the MR's rural stations.

In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway was taken into public ownership to become the Metropolitan Line of the London Underground, and despite its distance from London Quainton Road became a part of the London Transport system. The management of London Transport aimed to move away from freight operations, and saw no way in which the rural parts of the MR system could be made into viable passenger routes. In 1935 the Brill Tramway was closed altogether. From 1936 London Underground services were withdrawn, leaving the GCR as the only operator still using the station, although London Underground services were restored for a short period in the 1940s. In 1958 passenger services on most of the GCR were withdrawn. Trains continued to serve Quainton Road for a short time after that, but in 1963 passenger services were withdrawn and in 1966 goods services were withdrawn and the station was closed.

In 1969 the Quainton Road Society was formed, with the aim of preserving the station. In 1971 the Quainton Road Society absorbed the London Railway Preservation Society, taking over its collection of historic railway equipment. The station was fully restored and reopened as a museum, the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre. In addition to the original station buildings, the museum has also acquired the former Oxford Rewley Road railway station and a London Transport building from Wembley Park, both of which have been reassembled on the site. Although no scheduled trains pass through Quainton Road, the station remains connected to the railway network. Freight trains still use the line through the station, and passenger trains still call at the station for special events at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre.

Origins

On 15 June 1839 entrepreneur and former Member of Parliament for Buckingham Sir Harry Verney, 2nd Baronet, opened the Aylesbury Railway.^[1] Built under the direction of Robert Stephenson,^[2] it connected the London and Birmingham Railway's Cheddington railway station on the West Coast Main Line to Aylesbury High Street railway station in eastern Aylesbury, the first railway station in the Aylesbury Vale.^[3] On 1 October 1863 the Wycombe Railway opened a branch line from Princes Risborough railway station to Aylesbury railway station on the western side of Aylesbury, leaving Aylesbury as the terminus of two small and unconnected branch lines.^[3]

Meanwhile, to the north of Aylesbury the Buckinghamshire Railway was being built by Sir Harry Verney.^[4] The scheme consisted of a line running roughly southwest to northeast from Oxford to Bletchley, and a second line running southeast from Brackley via Buckingham, to join the Oxford–Bletchley line roughly halfway along its length.^[5] The first section opened on 1 May 1850, and the whole of the line opened on 20 May 1851.^[5] The Buckinghamshire Railway intended to extend the line southwards to connect to their station at Aylesbury, but this extension was not built.^[1]

Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (10 September 1823 – 26 March 1889),^[3] the only son of Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, was in serious financial difficulties by the middle of the 19th century.^[6] The 2nd Duke had spent heavily on artworks, womanising, and attempting to influence elections,^[6] and by 1847 he was nicknamed "the Greatest Debtor in the World".^[7] Over 40,000 acres (16,000 ha) of the family's 55,000-acre (22,000 ha) estates and their London home at Buckingham House were sold to meet debts, and the family seat of Stowe House was seized by bailiffs as security and its contents sold.^[6] The only property remaining in the control of the Grenville family was the family's relatively small ancestral home of Wotton House and its associated lands around Wotton Underwood in Buckinghamshire.^[8] Deeply in debt, the Grenvilles began to look for ways to maximise profits from their remaining farmland around Wotton, and to seek business opportunities in the emerging fields of heavy industry and engineering.^[3] Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (titled Marquess of Chandos following the death of his grandfather Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos in 1839) was appointed chairman of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) on 27 May 1857.^[3] After the death of his father on 29 July 1861 he became the 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos,^[6] and resigned from the chairmanship of the LNWR, returning to Wotton House to manage the family's remaining estates.^[3]

Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway

On 6 August 1860 the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway (A&B), with the 3rd Duke (then still Marquess of Chandos) as chairman and Sir Harry Verney as deputy chairman, was incorporated by Act of Parliament with the object of connecting the Buckinghamshire Railway (by now operated by the LNWR) to Aylesbury.^[5] The 2nd Duke used his influence to ensure the new route would run via Quainton, near his remaining estates around Wotton, instead of the intended more direct route via Pitchcott.^[9][10] Beset by financial difficulties, the line took over eight years to build, eventually opening on 23 September 1868.^[5] The new line was connected to the Wycombe Railway's Aylesbury station, and joined the existing Buckinghamshire Railway lines at the point where the Oxford–Bletchley line and the line to Buckingham already met.^[5] A new junction station was built at the point where the lines joined. With no nearby town after which to name the new station, it was named Verney Junction railway station after Sir Harry who owned the land on which it was built.^[11] Aylesbury now had railway lines running to the east, north and southwest, but no line southeast towards London and the Channel ports.

Quainton Road station was built on a curve in the line at the nearest point to the Duke's estates at Wotton.^[12] Six miles (10 km) northwest of Aylesbury,^[13] it was southwest of the small village of Quainton and immediately northwest of the road connecting Quainton to Akeman Street.^{[12][note 1]} The railway towards Aylesbury crossed the road via a level crossing immediately southeast of the station.^[12] The Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway had spent most of their limited budget on the construction of the line itself.^[15] Details of the design of the original Quainton Road station are lost, but it is likely that the station had a single timber-covered earth platform and minimal buildings;^[15][16] it was described in 1890 as being extremely primitive.^[17]

Wotton Tramway

With a railway now running near the border of the Wotton House estate at Quainton Road, the 3rd Duke decided to open a small-scale agricultural railway to connect the estate to the railway.^[18] The line was intended purely for the transport of construction materials and agricultural produce, and it was not intended to carry passengers.^[19] The line was to run roughly southwest from Quainton Road to a new railway station near Wotton Underwood. Just west of the station at Wotton the line split. One section would run west to Wood Siding near Brill. A short stub called Church Siding would run northwest into the village of Wotton Underwood itself, terminating near the parish church, and a 1 mile 57 chain (1 mile 1,254 yards; 2.8 km) siding would run north to a coal siding near Kingswood.^[20]

Construction work began on the line on 8 September 1870.^[10] The line was built as cheaply as possible, using the cheapest available materials and winding around hills wherever feasible to avoid expensive earthworks.^[20] The stations were crude earth banks 6 inches (150 mm) high, held in place by wooden planks.^[20] As the Duke intended that the line be worked only by horse-drawn carriages, it was built with longitudinal sleepers to reduce the risk of horses tripping.^[21]

On 1 April 1871 the section between Quainton Road and Wotton was formally opened by the Duke of Buckingham in a brief ceremony.^{[22][note 2]} At the time of its opening the line was unnamed, although it was referred to as "The Quainton Tramway" in internal correspondence.^{[23][note 3]} The extension from Wotton to Wood Siding was complete by 17 June 1871; the opening date of the northern branch to Kingswood is not recorded, but it was not yet fully open in February 1873.^[19] The London and North Western Railway immediately began to operate a dedicated service from Quainton Road, with three vans per week of milk collected from the Wotton estate shipped to their London terminus at Broad Street.^[26] Passengers were not carried, other than estate employees and people accompanying livestock.^[26]

The tramway did not link to the Aylesbury and Buckingham railway, but had its own station at Quainton Road at a right angle to the A&B's line.^[5] A 13-foot (4.0 m) diameter turntable at the end of the tramway linked to a spur from the A&B's line.^[5][21] This spur ran behind a goods shed, joining the A&B's line to the northwest of the road.^[27] The Tramway had no buildings of its own at Quainton Road, using the A&B's facilities when necessary.^[28] As the tramway ran on the east side of the road, opposite the station, this spur line had its own level crossing to reach the main line.^[12] In 1871 permission was granted to build a direct connection between the two lines, but it was not built.^[27]

Expansion of the Wotton Tramway

In late 1871 the residents of Brill, the former seat of the Mercian kings and the only significant town near Wotton House,^[29] petitioned the Duke to extend the route to Brill and to open a passenger service on the line.^[19] In January 1872 a scheduled passenger timetable was published for the first time, and the line was officially named the "Wotton Tramway".^[23] (Nevertheless, it was commonly known as the "Brill Tramway" from its conversion to passenger use until its closure.^[30]) The new terminus of Brill railway station opened in March 1872.^[31] With horses unable to cope with the loads being carried, the Wotton Tramway was upgraded for locomotive use. The lightly laid track with longitudinal sleepers limited the locomotive weight to a maximum of nine tons,^[32] lighter than almost all locomotives then available, and it was thus not possible to use standard locomotives.^[33] Two traction engines converted for railway use were bought from Aveling and Porter at a cost of £398 (about £26,400 as of 2012) each.^[33][34] The locomotives were chosen on grounds of weight and reliability, and had a top speed on the level of only 8 miles per hour (13 km/h),^[33] taking 95–98 minutes to travel the six miles (10 km) between Brill and Quainton Road, an average speed of 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h).^[35]

The line was heavily used for the outward shipment of bricks from the brickworks around Brill,^[36] and of cattle and milk from the dairy farms on the Wotton estate. By 1875 the line was carrying around 40,000 gallons (180,000 l; 48,000 US gal) of milk each year.^[37] The inbound delivery of linseed cake to the dairy farms and of coal to the area's buildings were also important uses of the line.^[38] The line also began to carry large quantities of manure from London to the area's farms, carrying 3,200 tons (3,300 t) in 1872.^[39] As the only physical link between the Tramway and the national railway network, almost all of this traffic passed through Quainton Road station.^[40]

By the mid-1870s the slow speed of the Aveling and Porter locomotives and their unreliability and inability to handle heavy loads were recognised as major problems for the Tramway.^[36] In 1874 Ferdinand de Rothschild bought a 2,700-acre (1,100 ha) site near the Tramway's Waddesdon station to use as a site for his planned country mansion of Waddesdon Manor.^[41] The Tramway's management recognised that the construction works would lead to a significant increase in the haulage of heavy goods, and that the Aveling and Porter engines would be unable to cope with the increased loads.^[42] The newly-established engineering firm of W. G. Bagnall wrote to the Duke offering to hire a locomotive to him for trials.^[42] The offer was accepted, and on 18 December 1876 the locomotive was delivered.^[42] The tests were generally successful and an order was placed to buy a locomotive from Bagnall for £640 (about £44,700 as of 2012) which was delivered on 28 December 1877.^[34][42] With services on the Brill–Quainton Road route now drawn by the more advanced Bagnall locomotive (the Kingswood branch generally remained worked by horses, and occasionally by the Aveling and Porter engines), traffic levels soon rose.^[42] The crucial figure for milk traffic rose from 40,000 gallons carried in 1875 to 58,000 gallons (260,000 l; 70,000 US gal) in 1879,^[37] and in 1877 the Tramway carried a total of 20,994 tons (21,331 t) of goods.^[43] In early 1877 the Tramway was shown on Bradshaw maps for the first time, and from May 1882 Bradshaw also listed the Tramway's timetable.^[44]

Although the introduction of the Bagnall locomotives and the traffic generated by the works at Waddesdon Manor had boosted the route's fortunes, it remained in serious financial difficulty. The only connection with the national railway network was by way of the turntable at Quainton Road. Although the 3rd Duke of Buckingham was owner of the Wotton Tramway and Chairman of the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway, the management of the A&B regarded the Tramway as a nuisance, and in the 1870s pursued a policy of charging disproportionately high fees for through traffic between the Tramway and the main line at Quainton Road, with the intention of forcing the Tramway out of business.^[45] The A&B's trains at Quainton Road would deliberately miss connections with the Tramway, causing the milk shipped to Quainton Road to become unsellable.^[46] The Wotton Tramway sought legal advice and was informed that the Duke would be likely to win a legal action against the A&B. However, the A&B was in such a precarious financial position that any successful legal action against them would likely have forced the line through Quainton Road to close, severing the Tramway's connection with the national network altogether.^[47] Many of the passengers using the Tramway changed trains at Quainton Road to continue their journey by way of the A&B line; in 1885, 5,192 passengers changed trains between the A&B and the Tramway at Quainton Road.^[40] The Tramway's management suggested that the A&B subsidise the Tramway to the sum of £25 (about £2,000 as of 2012) per month to allow passenger services to continue, but the A&B agreed to pay only £5 (about £400 as of 2012) per month.^[34][40] By the mid-1880s the Tramway was finding it difficult to cover the operating expenses of either goods or passenger operations.^[48]

Metropolitan Railway takeover of the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway

In 1837 Euston railway station opened, the first railway station connecting London with the industrial heartlands of the West Midlands and Lancashire.^[49] Railways were banned by a Parliamentary commission from operating in London itself, and thus the station was built on what was then the northern boundary of the city.^[50] Other main line termini north of London soon followed at Paddington (1838), Bishopsgate (1840), Fenchurch Street (1841), King's Cross (1852) and St Pancras (1868). All were built outside the built-up area of the city, making them inconvenient to reach.^{[50][note 5]}

Charles Pearson (1793–1862) had proposed the idea of an underground railway connecting the City of London with the relatively distant London main line rail termini in around 1840.^[51] Construction began in 1860.^[53] On 9 January 1863 the line opened as the Metropolitan Railway (MR), the world's first underground passenger railway.^[54] The MR was successful and grew steadily, extending its own services and acquiring other local railways in the areas north and west of London. In 1872 Edward Watkin (1819–1901) was appointed as its Chairman.^[55] A director of many railway companies, he had a vision of unifying a string of railway companies to create a single line running from Manchester via London to an intended Channel Tunnel and on to France.^[56] In 1873 Watkin entered negotiations to take control of the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway and the section of the former Buckinghamshire Railway running north from Verney Junction to Buckingham.^[57] He planned to extend the MR north from London to Aylesbury and extend the Tramway southwest to Oxford, and thus create a through route from London to Oxford.^[57] Rail services between Oxford and London at this time were poor, and although still an extremely roundabout route, had the scheme been completed it would have formed the shortest route from London to Oxford, Aylesbury, Buckingham and Stratford upon Avon.^[58] The Duke of Buckingham was enthusiastic, and authorisation for the scheme was sought from Parliament. Parliament did not share the enthusiasm of Watkin and the Duke, and in 1875 the Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire Union Railway Bill was rejected.^[58] Watkin did, however, receive consent in 1881 to extend the MR to Aylesbury.^[58]

Wotton Tramway Oxford extension scheme

With the MR extension to Aylesbury approved, in March 1883 the Duke of Buckingham announced his own scheme to extend the Wotton Tramway to Oxford.^[58] The turntable at Quainton Road would be removed, and replaced with a junction to the south of the existing turntable to allow through running of trains.^[59] The existing stretch from Quainton Road to Brill would be straightened and improved to main line standards, and the little-used stations at Waddesdon Road and Wood Siding would be closed. From Brill, the line would pass in a 1,650-yard (1,510 m) tunnel through Muswell Hill to the south of Brill, and on via Boarstall before crossing from Buckinghamshire into Oxfordshire at Stanton St. John. From Stanton St. John the line would next stop on the outskirts of Oxford at Headington, before terminating at a station to be built in the back garden of 12 High Street, St Clement's, near Magdalen Bridge.^[58]

At 23 miles (37 km) the line would have been by far the shortest route between Oxford and Aylesbury, compared with 28 miles (45 km) via the Great Western Railway (GWR), which had absorbed the Wycombe Railway, and 34 miles (55 km) via the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway and the LNWR.^[58] The Act of Parliament authorising the scheme received Royal Assent on 20 August 1883, and the new Oxford, Aylesbury and Metropolitan Junction Railway Company, including the Duke of Buckingham, Ferdinand de Rothschild and Harry Verney among its directors, was created.^[60] The scheme caught the attention of the expansionist Metropolitan Railway, who paid for the survey to be conducted.^[61] Despite the scheme's powerful backers, the expensive Muswell Hill tunnel deterred investors and the company found it difficult to raise capital.^[62] Ferdinand de Rothschild promised to lend money for the scheme in return for guarantees that the rebuilt line would include a passenger station at Westcott, and that the Duke would press the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway into opening a station at the nearest point to Waddesdon Manor on their line.^[63] Waddesdon Manor railway station was duly opened on 1 January 1897.^[63]

Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad

The new company was unable to raise sufficient investment to begin construction of the Oxford extension, and had only been given a five year window by Parliament in which to build it.^[64] On 7 August 1888, less than two weeks before the authorisation was due to expire, the directors of the Oxford, Aylesbury and Metropolitan Junction Railway Company received Royal Assent for a revised and much cheaper version of the scheme. To be called the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad (O&AT), the new scheme envisaged the extension being built to the same light specifications as the existing Tramway.^[64]

On 26 March 1889 the 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos died,^{[note 6]} aged 65.^{[65][note 7]} By this time the construction of the MR extension from London to Aylesbury was well underway, and on 1 July 1891 the MR formally absorbed the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway.^[64] Sir Harry Verney died on 12 February 1894,^[68] and on 31 March 1894 the MR took over the operation of services on the A&B from the GWR. On 1 July 1894 the MR extension to Aylesbury was completed, giving the MR a unified route from London to Verney Junction.^[64] The MR embarked on a programme of upgrading and rebuilding the stations along the newly acquired line.^[64]

Construction of the route from Brill to Oxford had not yet begun. Further Acts of Parliament were granted in 1892 and 1894 varying the proposed route slightly and allowing for its electrification,^[69] but no building work was carried out other than some preliminary surveying.^[70] On 1 April 1894, with the proposed extension to Oxford still intended, the O&AT exercised a clause of the 1888 Act and took over the Wotton Tramway. Work began on upgrading the line in preparation for the extension.^[24] The track on the line from Quainton Road to Brill was relaid with improved rails resting on standard transverse sleepers, replacing the original flimsy rails and longitudinal sleepers.^[24] At around this time two Manning Wardle locomotives were brought into use on the line.^{[24][71][note 8]}

Re-siting

The rebuilding of the Brill Tramway greatly improved service speeds, reducing journey times between Quainton Road and Brill to between 35 and 43 minutes.^[72] The population of the area had remained low; in 1901 Brill had a population of only 1,206.^[73] Passenger traffic remained a relatively insignificant part of the Tramway's business, and in 1898 passenger receipts were only £24 per month (about £2,000 as of 2012).^[34][72]

Quainton Road station had seen little change since its construction by the A&B in 1868, and in 1890 was described by The Times as "one of the most primitive-looking stations in the British Isles".^[17] While the line to Brill was being upgraded, the MR were rebuilding and re-siting Quainton Road station as part of their improvement programme, freeing space for a direct link between the former Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway and the O&AT to be built.^[74] The new station was re-sited to the southeast of the road, on the same side as the turntable connection with the tramway. ^[12] The new Quainton Road station had two platforms on the former A&B line, and a third platform for Brill trains.^[16] In 1896 the level crossings around the station were replaced by a road bridge over the railway. ^[75] A curve between the former Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway and the Brill Tramway opened on 1 January 1897, allowing through running of trains between the two lines, without the need to turn the engine and carriages individually on the turntable, for the first time.^[74] The Metropolitan Railway made a concerted effort to generate passenger traffic on the line.^[76] From 1910 to 1914 Pullman services operated between the MR's London terminus at Aldgate and Verney Junction station, calling at Quainton Road, and a luxurious hotel was built in the new village of Verney Junction.^{[77][note 9]}

Metropolitan Railway takeover of Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad services

By 1899 the Metropolitan Railway and the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad Company were cooperating closely. Although the existing line had been upgraded in preparation for the Oxford extension and had been authorised as a railway in 1894, construction of the extension itself had yet to begin.^[79] On 27 November the MR arranged to lease the Tramway from the O&AT, for an annual fee of £600 (about £50,000 as of 2012) with an option to buy the line outright.^[34][80] From 1 December 1899, the MR took over all operations on the Tramway.^[80] The O&AT's single passenger coach, a relic of Wotton Tramway days, was removed from its wheels and used as a platelayer's hut at Brill station.^[81] An elderly Brown, Marshalls and Co passenger coach was transferred to the line to replace it, and a section of each platform was raised to accommodate the higher doors of this coach using earth and old railway sleepers.^{[82][note 10]}

Metropolitan Railway D Class locomotives, introduced by the MR to improve services on the former Tramway line,^[80] damaged the track, and in 1910 the track between Quainton Road and Brill was relaid to MR standards using old track which had been removed from the inner London MR route but was still considered adequate for light use on a rural branch line.^[82][83] Following this track upgrading, the speed limit on the line was increased to 25 miles per hour (40 km/h).^[14] The Metropolitan Railway was unhappy with the performance and safety record of the D Class locomotives, and sold them to other railways between 1916 and 1922, replacing them with Metropolitan Railway A Class locomotives.^[84]

Great Central Railway

In 1893 another of Edward Watkin's railways, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, had been authorised to build a new 92-mile (148 km) line from its existing station at Annesley in Nottinghamshire south to Quainton Road.^[14][85] Watkin had intended to run services from Manchester and Sheffield via Quainton Road and along the Metropolitan Railway to the MR's station at Baker Street.^[14] Following Watkin's retirement in 1894, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway obtained permission for a separate station near Baker Street at Marylebone, and the line was renamed the Great Central Railway (GCR).^[14] The new line joined the existing MR just north of Quainton Road, and opened to passengers on 15 March 1899.^[14]

Although it served a lightly populated area, the opening of the GCR made Quainton Road an important junction station at which four railway lines met.^[86] The number of passengers using the station rose sharply.^[87] It had many passengers in comparison to other stations in the area.^[88] In 1932, the last year of private operation, the station saw 10,598 passenger journeys, earning a total of £601 (about £30,900 as of 2012) in passenger receipts.^[34][88]

The 10,598 passenger journeys in 1932 made Quainton Road by far the busiest of the Metropolitan Railway's rural passenger stations north of Aylesbury. In comparison, the isolated Verney Junction railway station saw only 943 passenger journeys in the same year, and the five other stations on the Brill Tramway had a combined passenger total of 7,761.^{[88][note 11]}

Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway

Following Watkin's retirement relations between the Great Central Railway and the Metropolitan Railway deteriorated badly. The GCR route to London ran over MR lines from Quainton Road to London, and to reduce reliance on the hostile MR, GCR General Manager William Pollitt decided to create a link with the Great Western Railway to create a second route into London which bypassed all MR property.^[89] In 1899 the Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway began construction of a new line, commonly known as the Alternative Route, to link the GWR's existing station at Princes Risborough to the new Great Central line. The line ran from Princes Risborough north to meet the Great Central at Grendon Underwood, about three miles (5 km) north of Quainton Road, thus bypassing Quainton Road altogether.^[14][90] Although formally an independent company, in practice the new line was operated as a part of the Great Central Railway.^[91] A substantial part of the GCR's traffic to and from London was diverted onto the Alternative Route, reducing the significance of Quainton Road as an interchange and damaging the profitability of the MR's railway operations.^{[92][note 12]}

London Transport

On 1 July 1933 the Metropolitan Railway, along with London's other underground railways aside from the short Waterloo & City Railway, was taken into public ownership as part of the newly formed London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB).^[93] Thus, despite being 44 miles (71 km) from London,^[94] Quainton Road formally became part of the London Underground network.^{[95] [note 13]} By this time, the routes from Quainton Road to Verney Junction and Brill were in severe decline. Competition from the newer lines and from improving road haulage had drawn away much of the Tramway's custom in particular, and Brill trains would often run without a single passenger.^[95]

Frank Pick, Managing Director of the Underground Group from 1928 and the Chief Executive of the LPTB, aimed to move the network away from freight services, and to concentrate on the electrification and improvement of the core routes in London.^[97] He saw the lines beyond Aylesbury via Quainton Road to Brill and Verney Junction as having little future as financially viable passenger routes.^[98] On 1 June 1935 the London Passenger Transport Board gave the required six months' notice to the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad Company that it intended to terminate operations on the Brill Tramway altogether.^[95][99]

Closure

The last scheduled passenger service on the Brill Tramway left Quainton Road in the afternoon of 30 November 1935. Hundreds of people gathered,^[100] and a number of members of the Oxford University Railway Society travelled from Oxford in an effort to buy the last ticket.^[97][101] Accompanied by firecrackers and fog signals, the train ran the length of the line to Brill, where the passengers posed for a photograph.^[101] Late that evening, a two-coach staff train pulled out of Brill, accompanied by a band bearing a white flag and playing Auld Lang Syne.^[95] The train stopped at each station along the route, picking up the staff, documents and valuables from each.^[95] At 11.45 pm the train arrived at Quainton Road, greeted by hundreds of locals and railway enthusiasts. At the stroke of midnight, the rails connecting the Tramway to the main line were ceremonially severed.^[102]

Quainton Road station remained open, but with the closure of the Brill Tramway it was no longer a significant junction station. A connection between the Great Central Railway and the former Buckinghamshire Railway at Calvert was opened in 1942,^[103][104] leaving the original A&B route to Verney Junction with no purpose other than as a diversionary route.^[104] It was closed to passengers on 6 July 1936.^[105] London Transport passenger services beyond Aylesbury were withdrawn, leaving the former GCR (part of the London and North Eastern Railway after 1923) as the only railway operating passenger services to Quainton Road.^[106]

London Transport reduced the former A&B route between Quainton Road and Verney Junction to a single track in 1939–40.^[107] LT continued to operate freight services until 6 September 1947, when the original Quainton Road–Verney Junction route was closed altogether,^{[note 14]} leaving the former GCR route from Aylesbury via Rugby as the only service still operating through Quainton Road.^[105] London Transport services were briefly restored in 1943 with the extension of the Metropolitan Line's London–Aylesbury service to Quainton Road, but this service was once more withdrawn in 1948.^[106]

Quainton Road station closed to passengers on 4 March 1963 and to goods on 4 July 1966. On 3 September 1966 the former GCR line from Aylesbury to Rugby was abandoned, leaving only the stretch from Aylesbury to Calvert, running through the now-closed Quainton Road, remaining open for use by freight trains.^[108] This remaining stretch of line was reduced to a single track shortly afterwards.^[109] The signal box at Quainton Road was abandoned on 13 August 1967,^[110] and the points connecting to the goods yard were disconnected.^[107]

Restoration

While other closed stations on the former Metropolitan Railway lines north of Aylesbury were generally demolished or sold,^[103] in 1969 the Quainton Railway Society was formed to operate a working museum at the station.^[111] On 24 April 1971 the society formally absorbed the London Railway Preservation Society, taking custody of its collection of historic railway equipment.^{[112][note 15]} The station was maintained in working order and used as a bookshop and ticket office,^[114] and the sidings—still intact, although disconnected from the railway line in 1967^[86]—were used for locomotive restoration work.^[111]

The Quainton Railway Society (which operates the station as the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre) restored the main station building to its 1900 appearance.^[115] A smaller building on the former Brill platform, once a shelter for passengers waiting for Brill and Down Line trains, was used first as a store then as a shop for a number of years before its current use to house an exhibit on the history of the Brill Tramway. A former London Transport building from Wembley Park was dismantled and re-erected at Quainton Road to serve as a maintenance shed.^[116] In 1988, the station briefly came back into passenger use, with the introduction of special Christmas shopping services between Aylesbury and Bletchley railway station. These services ran on Saturdays only, and stopped at Quainton Road.^[111]

Oxford Rewley Road railway station, the Oxford terminus of Harry Verney's Buckinghamshire Railway and of the Oxford to Cambridge Line, had closed to passengers on 1 October 1951 with all services to Oxford from then on diverted into the former GWR station at Oxford General (the current Oxford railway station). In co-operation with the Science Museum Oxford Rewley Road station was dismantled in 1999, the main station building and part of the platform canopy were moved to Quainton Road for preservation with the opportunity taken to house improved visitor facilities and the main shop and office of the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre thus maintaining it as a working building.^[117] A number of former Ministry of Supply food warehouses in what is now the extended Down Yard of the station have been converted for various uses by the Society including storage and exhibition of rolling stock.

Although the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre's steam trains run on the sidings which were disconnected from the network in 1967, the station still has a working railway line passing through it which is also used for occasional special passenger trains from Aylesbury in connection with events at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre. The regular freight services are mainly landfill trains from waste transfer depots in Greater London to the former brick pits at Calvert.^[118]

As one of the best-preserved period railway stations in England, Quainton Road is regularly used as a filming location for period drama, and programmes such as The Jewel in the Crown, the Doctor Who episode Black Orchid and Midsomer Murders have been filmed there.^[86] As of 2010^[update] the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre are negotiating for a reconnection of the link between their sidings and the line through the station to allow their locomotives to run to Aylesbury when the line is not in use by freight trains, and to rebuild part of the Brill Tramway between Quainton Road and Waddesdon Road.^[119][120]

See also

• Great Central Main Line
• Infrastructure of the Brill Tramway

Notes and references

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links