The Great Western Railway in Warwickshire

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Railway Construction and Gauge Conversion

The first railway of the future Great Western Railway system in Warwickshire was the Stratford to Moreton tramway, which had opened on 5th September 1826 and had been subsequently extended by the opening on 11th February 1836 of a branch from Longdon Road to Shipston-on-Stour. It had been authorised as a horsedrawn tramway and a Parliamentary Act would be required to allow the use of locomotives. This tramway crossed the route of the Oxford Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway (OWW) at Moreton and therefore in 1847, this company decided to lease it as a branch. The OWW main line opened on 4th June1853 and six years later, on 11th July 1859, the OWW opened its own Stratford branch from Honeybourne to Sanctuary Lane in Stratford-upon-Avon. This resulted in the Longdon Road to Stratford section of the tramway becoming superfluous, but although the track was lifted for scrap in 1918, this section of the tramway was only officially abandoned on 4th August 1926 (see 'gwrlr812'). In the 1880’s the remainder of the tramway was reconstructed by the Great Western Railway and following two Parliamentary Acts in 1882 and 1884, became a proper railway able to use locomotives or other mechanical power.

The nominally independent Oxford & Rugby Railway was absorbed by the Great Western Railway on 14th May 1846 and a single track broad gauge line was built to Banbury and opened on 2nd September 1850. The line was continued to the proposed junction with the Birmingham & Oxford Junction Railway at Knightcote (2 miles north of Fenny Compton), but of the remaining route to Rugby, only a quarter of a mile embankment north east from Knightcote was ever constructed. In 1848, the Birmingham & Oxford Junction Railway was also absorbed by the Great Western Railway, but only after an expensive legal battle to stop the LNWR taking control. On 1st October 1852, Great Western Railway trains were running from Oxford through Banbury and Leamington to what became known as Snow Hill Station in Birmingham. The track between Banbury and Birmingham was built as double track and mixed gauge in accordance with parliamentary requirements. At the same time the line between Oxford and Banbury was also reconstructed as a double mixed gauge line.

The authorised route of the Birmingham & Oxford Junction Railway was to the old GJR terminus at Curzon Street and although this connection was no longer required, a brick arched viaduct was constructed for the line. Today, sections of the unused Duddeston viaduct still straddle Bordesley as a reminder of the changing allegiances and rivalries between the original Railway Companies (see 'gwrbg671'). At this point the main line is actually the Birmingham Extension Railway, which was authorised to construct the short section between a junction at Adderley Street (now Bordesley Station) on the Birmingham & Oxford Junction Railway and a new joint station with the Birmingham, Wolverhampton & Dudley Railway at Livery Street in the centre of Birmingham. Prior to February 1858, this station was referred to as Livery Street or Great Charles Street, but from that date the station was officially known as Snow Hill. In 1859 a journey from Birmingham to London on the Great Western Railway took 2 hours and 50 minutes, 10 minutes quicker than the rival LNWR service. The original Snow Hill station was a temporary affair with wooden structures, but this was rebuilt in 1871 and the original station roof was reused at Didcot as a carriage shed (see 'gwrbsh69'). The line to the south of the station ran through a deep open cutting before reaching a tunnel. This cutting was roofed over in 1874 to provide valuable retail space and a grand shopping arcade following the line of the tunnel was erected in 1876.

On 14th November 1854, the Birmingham, Wolverhampton & Dudley Railway had reached Priestfield. This was the junction with the OWW, over which the Great Western Railway had running rights to Wolverhampton. Two months before, on 1st September 1854 the Birmingham & Shrewsbury and Chester & Shrewsbury Railways amalgamated with the Great Western Railway and this had brought 80 miles of narrow gauge track from Wolverhampton to Chester, via Shrewsbury. The final link from Paddington to the Mersey was provided, when the Chester and Birkenhead Railway came into the joint ownership of the Great Western Railway in 1860. Soon the third rail was extended south of Oxford to Paddington and on 1st October 1861 standard gauge trains commenced running through Birmingham to the Mersey.

The Great Western Railway main line to Birmingham and the North sprouted several branches along its length. The first branch in Warwickshire was the Stratford-upon-Avon Railway from Hatton which opened as a mixed gauge single line on 10th October 1860. The section between Bearley and Stratford closely followed the Stratford Canal which was sold to the Great Western Railway in 1856. The Stratford-upon-Avon Railway was nominally independent but all trains were owned and operated by the Great Western Railway. By this time the OWW had grown to become the West Midland Railway and relationships with the Great Western Railway had improved. Significantly on 24th July 1861, the single line Stratford branches of the two companies were linked together forming a through line with trains running from Worcester to Leamington. The Stratford-upon-Avon Railway eventually amalgamated with the Great Western Railway on 20th August 1883.

Finally on 1st August 1863, the rift with the OWW was healed when the Great Western Railway amalgamated with the West Midland Railway and the addition of a further 280 miles of narrow gauge track made conversion from broad gauge inevitable. Thus on 1st April 1869, the 80 miles of mixed gauge line between Oxford and Wolverhampton and also the 10 mile Stratford branch was the first large section of Great Western Railway track to be converted to the standard gauge. Over the next twenty years all the remaining Great Western Railway broad gauge track was converted, with the last lengths in Cornwall eventually changed on 23rd May 1892.

On 4th September 1876, the Alcester Railway, a secondary branch to Alcester from Bearley on the Stratford-upon-Avon Railway was opened and on 22nd July 1878 it was jointly vested in the Great Western Railway and Stratford-upon-Avon Railway. The final Warwickshire branch was the Henley-in-Arden Railway, which had languished when funds ran out in 1866. After several unsuccessful attempts this 3 mile branch to Henley-in-Arden from Rowington was eventually revived and completed as the Henley-in-Arden & Great Western Junction Railway on 6th June 1894 (see 'gwrrj264a' & gwrha655).

Robert Ferris