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The Great Western Railway in Warwickshire
To navigate within the history of the Great Western Railway
in Warwickshire click the following links.
Cut Offs and Direct Lines
The branch status of Stratford-upon-Avon was a cause of much
dissatisfaction amongst the towns residents and businesses. To rectify
this, an independent the Birmingham, North Warwickshire &
Stratford-upon-Avon Railway (BNW&SR) was promoted and this line was
authorised on 25th August 1894. This route had been supported, and was to be
financed, by the Great Central Railway (GCR), who saw it as providing access to
Birmingham via its running rights on the East & West Junction Railway,
which joined the proposed line at Stratford and crossed the GCR London
extension near Woodford. However by 1898, the GCR were having difficulties with
their London extension, in particular relationships with the Metropolitan
Railway, with whom their line connected, were strained and instead they forged
an alliance with the Great Western Railway.
Since the BNW&SR would be in completion with existing
Great Western Railway routes, the GCR withdrew their support and their money
from this scheme. The BNW&SR scheme was almost rescued as an independent
concern by a proposed extension, which would link it to the Midland & South
Western Junction Railway (MSWJR) at Andoversford. This would provide a new
through route from Birmingham to Southampton, however the required
parliamentary Act was rejected, mainly over doubts as the financial ability of
the MSWJR to fund this scheme, but coupled with a promise from the Great
Western Railway to link Honeybourne with Cheltenham if the scheme was rejected.
The Great Western Railway obtained the Royal Assent for its Honeybourne line on
1st August 1899, but despite the promise, other major construction projects had
priority and construction of the Honeybourne Line was only started in 1902
following a threat by a Mr Andrews of Toddington to present a Private Bill to
parliament to enable him to construct the railway himself.
To pacify the residents of Stratford-upon-Avon, the Great
Western Railway had opened the North Loop at Hatton on 1st July 1897 to
facilitate a direct Birmingham service, but the BNW&SR still continued to
campaign for a more direct line between Birmingham and Stratford-upon-Avon.
Eventually they decided to compromise with the Great Western Railway and on 9th
August 1899 obtained the necessary parliamentary powers to abandon their
independent route into Birmingham and instead planned to join the Great Western
Railway at a junction at Tyseley. Despite this modification, finance for the
line remained unavailable and the delay resulted in the powers being
transferred to the Great Western Railway in July 1900.
After opposing this route for years the Great Western
Railway, who had never really forgiven the Midland Railway for stealing the
Birmingham & Gloucester Railway and Bristol & Gloucester Railway from
under their nose, finally realised that this was the opportunity to create a
direct route; not just between Birmingham and Cheltenham via the Honeybourne
line, but via their old running powers over the Bristol & Gloucester
Railway, on to Bristol. This route would be 40 miles shorter than their
existing route via Didcot and only 10 miles longer than the Midland
Railways route. Accordingly the BNW&SR scheme was amended again, now
it would join the Alcester branch just to the west of Bearley (reducing the new
construction length to approximately 18 miles) and this change together with
the North to West Curve at Bearley and a connection to the old station at
Henley was approved by Parliament on 26th July 1901. Purchase of the necessary
land took two years to complete and construction of the North Warwickshire Line
commenced on 5th September 1903 and opened for goods traffic on 9th December
1907 and for passengers on 1st July 1908 (details of the line are described in
the contemporary accounts see The North Warwickshire Line).
The Great Western Railway of 1900 deserved the reputation
that its initials stood for Great Way Round. With the exception of the London
to Bristol route, its other main lines had grown as amalgams of many shorter
lines. This was particularly true of the London to Birmingham route which ran
via Didcot and Oxford. Although the accelerated expresses were an improvement
it was difficult to compete with the LNWR main line to Birmingham when the LNWR
route was significantly shorter. Help however came from an unlikely source in
the shape of the Great Central Railway (GCR), who were supporting the new
London & South Wales Railway in 1895, which if built would compete for the
valuable coal traffic from South Wales. The situation changed when the Great
Western Railway obtained parliamentary powers to build a railway from Acton to
High Wycombe in 1897.
Since this was the last route available through the
Chiltern Hills that would not need expensive earthworks and tunnelling through
the chalk, the GCR decided instead to forge an alliance with the Great Western
Railway for an alternative route to the capital and agreed to withdraw their
support for the new London & South Wales Railway. In return 20th March 1899
the GCR commenced working goods and coal trains to London over Great Western
Railway metals by way of Aylesbury, Princes Risborough, High Wycombe and
Maidenhead and on 1st August 1899 the Great Western & Great Central
Railways Joint Committee was established by an Act of Parliament to construct a
new 76 mile main line between Northolt and the GCR north of its junction with
the Metropolitan Railway at Quainton Road.
The Great Western Railway had originally intended to
construct the southern section of new joint main line by itself and then
upgrade the Princes Risborough to Oxford line to provide a more direct route to
Birmingham, but the need to extend the joint line further north opened up the
possibility of an additional 18 mile cut off from Ashendon, through Bicester to
Aynho, avoiding Oxford completely. This would shorten the London to Birmingham
route from 129.3 miles to 111 miles (two miles shorter than the LNWR route) and
allowed the introduction of 2 hour expresses. This Bicester cut off was
completed and opened for goods traffic on 4th April 1910 and for passengers on
1st July 1910. The new joint line and cut off had been designed for speed, with
gentle gradients and curves, but the northern section, in Warwickshire, was the
old Birmingham & Oxford Junction Railway with the stiff ascent up Hatton
Bank. Hauled by Saint Class 4-6-0 No.2902 Lady of the Lake, the first of the
regular 2 hour expresses to Birmingham left Paddington in July 1910. At
Paddington Station a passenger threw a horse shoe onto the locomotives
footplate for luck and it was later mounted permanently in the cab.
Robert Ferris
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