Verney Junction Railway Station

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Verney Junction
View of the train station (1983)
View of the train station (1983)
Data
Location in the network Crossing station
Platform tracks 3
opening September 23, 1868
Conveyance 1st January 1968
location
county Buckinghamshire
Part of the country England
Country United Kingdom
Coordinates 51 ° 56 '26 "  N , 0 ° 55' 48"  W Coordinates: 51 ° 56 '26 "  N , 0 ° 55' 48"  W.
Height ( SO ) 87  m ASL
Railway lines
List of train stations in the United Kingdom
i16

The Verney Junction train station is a former railway station in the English county of Buckinghamshire . It is located near the hamlet of the same name on the Varsity Line between Oxford and Bletchley . The station opened in 1868 when the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway (A&BR) opened a line from Aylesbury to here. The A&BR went on in 1891 in the Metropolitan Railway , a predecessor of the London Underground . By 1936, Verney Junction was the furthest from Londondistant subway station. Passenger traffic on the route to Banbury was discontinued in 1964, and four years later on the Varsity Line. The latter is scheduled to reopen in 2019, but Verney Junction will not be operational again due to its location far from larger settlements.

history

Railroad tracks in the Verney Junction area, on a Railway Clearing House diagram (1911)

opening

1850 took Buckinghamshire Railway , the railway line from Bletchley to Banbury in operation. A year later the branch line to Oxford followed . The Bletchley – Oxford connection developed into the Varsity Line . But almost two decades passed before a train station opened at the junction. On September 23, 1868, the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway (A&BR) took the single-track route between Aylesbury and the junction on the Varsity Line into operation. The A&BR built the very simply designed Verney Junction station between the villages of Steeple Claydon and Winslow. This displeased the London and North Western Railway (LNWR), which had leased the Buckingham Railway before it was completed and which finally took it over in 1878.

A&BR plans to extend their route north to Buckingham were never implemented. Verney Junction remained a secluded train station, with only a few cottages nearby for the Claydon House tenants . Claydon House resident Sir Harry Verney was a member of the A&BR board of directors and a significant shareholder. Since there was no settlement that could give the station its name, it was named in honor of Sir Harry.

Early years

A&BR began to advertise their train services to and from Banbury, Oxford and Bletchley in newspaper advertisements. But the LNWR tried to isolate the A&BR by encouraging potential passengers to use their own longer route to Aylesbury, which ran via Bletchley and Cheddington . The A&BR turned to the Great Western Railway (GWR), with which they operated Aylesbury station, and agreed a close cooperation. The GWR then carried out rail operations on the A&BR route for more than twenty years, turning down an offer to buy in 1874.

Due to the location of Verney Junction station, the volume of traffic was initially "almost non-existent". But the Metropolitan Railway , controlled by Sir Edward Watkin , believed it was still an opportunity for growth, which is why they took over the A&BR on July 1, 1891. The newly acquired line was to meet in the nearby Quainton Road station on the London feeder of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR), also controlled by Watkin, later the Great Central Main Line . In anticipation of this connection, the A&BR line was expanded to double track by 1897 and the Metropolitan Railway extended its own line from Chalfont Road to Aylesbury by 1892 .

Rural metro station

View of the train station (2005)

The Metropolitan Railway began offering non-stop trains between Baker Street in London and Verney Junction. However, this had little effect on the still relatively low passenger numbers. On April 2, 1906, a joint venture founded by the Metropolitan Railway and the Great Central Railway (GCR), the Metropolitan and Great Central Joint Railway , took over the operation of all Metropolitan trains north of Harrow . In 1910, the Metropolitan Railway began using Pullman cars to attract first-class passengers on the Great Central Railway. Two Pullman cars called Mayflower and Galatea ran from London to Chesham or Verney Junction.

On July 1, 1933, the Metropolitan Railway was combined with the other London transport companies in the public service company London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB). This initially continued to run the trips to Verney Junction, with freight and passenger wagons being repainted. Just a little over two years later, the LPTB decided to end tourist traffic on all routes north-west of Aylesbury. On the section between Quainton Road and Verney Junction passenger trains ran for the last time on July 6, 1936, the second track was removed in 1940. Freight trains ran until September 7, 1947, after which the line was closed.

Decline and closure

The two world wars brought temporary increases in freight traffic from Verney Junction to London, with significant amounts of goods being handled on the sidings. After the commissioning of a connecting curve between the lines of the LNWR and the GBR on September 14, 1940 near Calvert (around 5 kilometers west of Verney Junction), the station quickly lost its importance. Freight trains from Oxford and Bletchley could now reach London via the Great Central Main Line without having to turn around in Verney Junction.

At the end of 1940 Verney Junction was in fact "cut off from its purpose" and was of little importance as a rarely used interchange station for passenger trains in rural areas. British Railways gave up freight traffic here completely in 1964 and closed the line to Buckingham that same year. With the cessation of all passenger traffic on the Varsity Line, the station was closed on January 1, 1968.

Present and Future

The former route of the Metropolitan Railway from Quainton Road to the connection with the Varsity Line no longer exists. A single-track freight line from Bletchley to Bicester remained , which was operated until 1993 and then abandoned. The track is impassable and overgrown; modern signs warn pedestrians of oncoming trains. From the station itself, the station master's house has been preserved and is still inhabited, while the counter hall is used as a private garage. The platform edges are in a shabby condition.

By 2019, the Varsity Line between Bicester and Bletchley is to be rebuilt to allow through trains from Oxford to Milton Keynes and Bedford (and later to Cambridge ). The Verney Junction train station should remain closed as it does not develop any significant settlement.

literature

  • R. Davies, MD Grant: Forgotten Railways: Chilterns and Cotswolds . David St John Thomas, Newton Abbott 1984, ISBN 0-946537-07-0 .
  • John R. Day, John Reed: The Story of London's Underground . Capital Transport, St Leonard-on-Sea 2008, ISBN 978-1-85414-316-7 .
  • George Dow: Dominion of Watkin, 1864-1899 . Ian Allan, Shepperton 1962, ISBN 0-7110-1469-8 .
  • George Dow: Fay sets the pace, 1900-1923 . Ian Allan, Shepperton 1965, ISBN 0-7110-0263-0 .
  • Vic Mitchell, Keith Smith: Aylesbury to Rugby including the Brill Tramway (Midland Main Lines) . Middleton Press, Midhurst 206, ISBN 978-1-904474-91-3 .
  • Bill Simpson: Banbury to Verney Junction Branch . Lamplight Publications, Banbury 1994, ISBN 978-1-899246-00-7 .
  • Leslie Oppitz: Lost Railways of the Chilterns . Countryside Books, Newbury 2000, ISBN 978-1-85306-643-6 .

Web links

Commons : Verney Junction Railway Station  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Simpson: Banbury to Verney Junction Branch. P. 133.
  2. ^ Day, Reed: The Story of London's Underground. P. 32.
  3. ^ Dow: Fay sets the pace, 1900-1923. P. 191.
  4. ^ Davies, Grant: Forgotten Railways: Chilterns and Cotswolds. Pp. 84-85.
  5. ^ Oppitz: Lost Railways of the Chilterns. P. 30.
  6. ^ A b Davies, Grant: Forgotten Railways: Chilterns and Cotswolds. P. 85.
  7. ^ Dow: Dominion of Watkin, 1864-1899. P. 246.
  8. ^ Simpson: Banbury to Verney Junction Branch. P. 135.
  9. ^ Davies, Grant: Forgotten Railways: Chilterns and Cotswolds. Pp. 88-89.
  10. ^ Oppitz: Lost Railways of the Chilterns. P. 37.
  11. ^ Oppitz: Lost Railways of the Chilterns. P. 149.
  12. ^ Winslow Road. Disused stations site index, February 12, 2014, accessed January 9, 2017 .
  13. ^ Davies, Grant: Forgotten Railways: Chilterns and Cotswolds. P. 89.
  14. ^ Simpson: Banbury to Verney Junction Branch. P. 136.
  15. ^ Mitchell, Smith: Aylesbury to Rugby including the Brill Tramway. P. 55.
  16. ^ Oppitz: Lost Railways of the Chilterns. P. 39.