Quainton Road railway station

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[edit] The Past

Quainton Road railway station at Quainton in Buckinghamshire, England was a through station on the impoverished Aylesbury & Buckingham Railway (A&BR), a branch line running from Aylesbury station, connecting with the GWR, to Verney Junction, connecting with the LNWR cross-country route between Oxford and Cambridge. It was also the northern terminus of the Wootton (later Brill) Tramway. Originally opened in 1871, the tramway was one of the first 'light railways' opened under new legislation brought in to support local lines. Later subsumed onto the Metropolitan Railway's northern extensions and purchase of the A&BR, there were plans to extend the few miles from Brill to Oxford.

As a result of the replacement of the original level crossing by the current road bridge, the original station at Quainton Road closed on November 29, 1896, along with the separate Brill Tramway station; a new, combined station (re-located from the "Country" to the "London" side of Station Road) was opened by the Metropolitan Railway the next day; after 1899, the station was served by both the infrequent Met service between Aylesbury and Verney Junction and the through mainline service from the Great Central Main Line, joining the route of the A&BR approximately half a mile north of Quainton Road station at Quainton Road Junction.

The line to Brill was closed on November 30, 1935, after the formation of London Transport; the line from Quainton Road Junction to Verney Junction succumbed a year later, on July 4, 1936, with services between Aylesbury and Quainton Road being withdrawn the same day. Services between Aylesbury and Quainton Road were restored after May 1945, but were withdrawn in May 1948.

[edit] The Present

Quainton Road station, beautifully maintained, still remains as the centrepiece of the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre. There are no regular train services, although special services operate from Aylesbury to link with events at the Heritage Centre; these services run via the single line and call at the station's up platform, thus providing step-free access to the centre. The main station building is on the Up (London-bound) side of the National Rail (NR) line with a smaller (and possibly now unique) wooden building of distinctive style on the platform between the currently-vacant NR Down line trackbed and the platform from which the Brill service ran. At the North-west corner of the site is the somewhat-larger transplanted station building and part of the trainshed from Oxford (Rewley Road) station, the original terminus of the Oxford-Cambridge cross-country route in Oxford.

The original line to Verney Junction has been closed and lifted, but the old Great Central main line remains, albeit singled, as far as the point where it crossed the Oxford and Cambridge cross country line. Here Calvert Curve, one of the country's wartime emergency connections, curves to the east, joining the cross-country route at Claydon L&NE Junction, where the formation remains in use for several hundred feet as a shunting neck.

In September 2006 Quainton Road was the destination of a special excursion through "Metro-land" to mark the centenary of the birth of the poet John Betjeman, who had done much to keep alive the spirit of the old Metropolitan Railway.

[edit] The Future

Regular services may yet return to the line from Aylesbury, as a consultants' report on the development of the Vale of Aylesbury prepared for Buckinghamshire County Council [1] has suggested offering passenger train services from the town to Bletchley and Bedford. Railway services on at least part of the line from Aylesbury will be restored as part of Chiltern Railways' construction of Aylesbury North Parkway station at the crossing of the A41 road, to serve the Berryfields Major Development Area housing development.