The Stratford Upon Avon & Midland Junction Railway (SMJR) was a small independent railway company which ran a line across the empty, untouched centre of England. It visited the counties of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and a little of Buckinghamshire, only existing as the SMJR from 1909 to 1923 . In 1923 the SMJR became a minor arm of the London Midland and Scottish (LMS), then in 1948 'British Railways'.
The SMJR came into being from the amalgamation of 'The East & West Junction Railway' (E+WJR), 'The Evesham, Redditch and Stratford Railway' (ER+SR), and changing its name to ‘The Stratford-upon-Avon, Towcester and Midland Junction Railway’ (ST+MJR), ‘The Easton Neston Mineral and Towcester, Roade and Olney Junction Railway’ (ENM+TROJR). In 1910 ‘The Northampton & Banbury Junction Railway’ (N+BJR) was amalgamated into the SMJR and as the SMJR the company ran services between Broom Junction and Stratford and Banbury to the west through Towcester to Blisworth and Olney in the east, fashioning itself as ‘The Shakespeare route’.
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The SMJR was formed by the amalgamation of four railways in 1909/10:
On 1 January 1923 the SMJR was taken over by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSR) and became an important asset to them, since it provided a direct route (avoiding Birmingham), between the western line hitherto owned by the Midland Railway and the main line south of Bedford. It was extensively used by excursion traffic between the two world wars. There was also a "race special" once a year to Towcester from London. In 1948 the SMJR became part of British Railways.
Once all the portions of the line came together on January the first 1909 (minus the Northampton & Banbury junction Railway which was taken over the following year, the SMJR consisted of a main line from Blisworth to Broom, with two branches: one from Towcester to Ravenstone Wood Junction, Olney and the other from Cockley Brake Junction. There were connections along the route with:
The line was single track throughout apart from passing loops: the countryside was undulating, and there were frequent changes of gradient and sharp curves, making it difficult to work for train crews. The track itself, until taken over by the LMSR, was mostly secondhand; because of this, the line was dubbed the Slow Mouldy and Jolty Railway by travellers.
The railway owned 13 locomotives which themselves were old, and since they proved incompatible with the new company’s modernisation scheme they had all been scrapped by 1931. The Edge Hill Light Railway, which began working in 1922, and closed in 1946, ran from Burton Dassett sidings, west of Fenny Compton.
The line’s original raison d’etre (that of conveying ironstone to the ironworks of South Wales) was ended when cheap Spanish ore displaced that from the Northamptonshire quarries. This brought about financial problems, and for a time in the 1870s the E&WJR was in the hands of the receiver. By 1911, however, the line was showing a reasonable profit.
Lias limestone was conveyed from the Ettington Lime Works; but from the early 20th century it became important as a through route for freight of all kinds between the West of England and London. One such freight working was the express banana train between Avonmouth Dock and St Pancras.
Passenger services generally on the SMJR were sparse, with often just three or four trains a day. For some months in 1932 experiments were carried out on the SMJR with a Ro-Railer - buses converted to run on rails — although these were not successful and the service was withdrawn in June 1932.
Today the only part of the SMJR still operating is the five miles from Fenny Compton serving the Ministry of Defence depot at Kineton.
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