Wood Siding railway station
Encyclopedia
Wood Siding railway station was a small halt in Bernwood Forest
, Buckinghamshire
, England. It was opened in 1871 as a terminus of a short horse-drawn
tramway built to assist the transport of goods from and around the Duke of Buckingham
's extensive estates in Buckinghamshire and to connect the Duke's estates to the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway
at Quainton Road
.
A lobbying campaign by residents of the town of Brill
led to the tramway being converted for passenger use and extended a short distance beyond Wood Siding to Brill railway station
in 1872, becoming known as the Brill Tramway
. Cheaply built and ungraded
, and using poor quality locomotive
s, services on the line were very slow, initially limited to a speed of 5 miles per hour (2.2 m/s). In the 1890s it was planned to extend the tramway to Oxford
, but the scheme was abandoned. Instead, the operation of the line was taken over by the Metropolitan Railway
in 1899. Between 1908 and 1910 the station was completely rebuilt on a bridge over the newly built Chiltern Main Line
of the Great Western Railway
, which passed directly beneath the station.
In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway was taken into public ownership and became the Metropolitan Line
of London Transport
. As a result, Wood Siding became a station on the London Underground
network, despite being over 45 miles (72.4 km) from the City of London
. London Transport's new management aimed to move away from goods services to concentrate on passenger services. As the line served a very lightly populated rural area, the new management believed it very unlikely that it could ever be made viable. Wood Siding was closed, along with the rest of the line, from 30 November 1935. Although all infrastructure associated with the station was removed in 1936, the remains of the bridge which supported the station were not demolished and are still in place.
On 23 September 1868 the small Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway
(A&BR) opened, linking the Great Western Railway
's station at Aylesbury
to the London and North Western Railway
's Oxford to Bletchley line
at Verney Junction
. On 1 September 1894 London's Metropolitan Railway
(MR) reached Aylesbury, and shortly afterwards connected to the A&BR line, with local MR services running to Verney Junction from 1 April 1894. Through trains from the MR's London terminus at Baker Street
commenced on 1 January 1897.
The Duke of Buckingham had long had an interest in railways, and had served as Chairman of the London and North Western Railway from 1852 to 1861. In the early 1870s he decided to build a light railway
to carry freight from his estates in Buckinghamshire to the A&BR's line at Quainton Road
. Because the proposed line ran on land owned by the Duke of Buckingham and by the Winwood Charity Trust, who consented to its construction, the line did not need Parliamentary approval and construction could begin immediately.
The first stage of the line, known as the Wotton Tramway
, was a 4 miles (6.4 km) line from Quainton Road via Wotton
to a coal siding at Kingswood
, and opened on 1 April 1871. Intended for use by horse trams
, the line was built with longitudinal sleepers
to avoid horses tripping on the sleepers. In November 1871 the tramway was extended to Wood Siding, in a surviving fragment of Bernwood Forest
1+1/2 mi from the town of Brill
and 1500 yards (1,371.6 m) from the nearest settlement at Dorton
.
Lobbying from residents and businesses in Brill for the introduction of passenger services on the line led to a 1840 yards (1,682.5 m) further extension from Wood Siding to Brill railway station
, at the foot of Brill Hill of a mile (1.2 km) from the hilltop town of Brill itself, in the summer of 1872. Two mixed train
s ran each day in each direction, and the line was renamed the Brill Tramway. The Duke bought two Aveling and Porter
traction engine
s modified to work as locomotives for the line, each with a top speed of 8 miles per hour (3.6 m/s), although a speed limit of 5 miles per hour (2.2 m/s) was enforced.
The Duke died in 1889, and in 1894 the trustee
s of his estate
set up the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad Company (O&ATC) with the intention of extending the line from Brill to Oxford
. Rail services from London to Oxford were very poor at this time; despite being an extremely roundabout route, had the connection from Quainton Road to Oxford been built it would have been the shortest route between Oxford and the City of London. The Metropolitan Railway leased the Brill Tramway from 1 December 1899, and from then on the MR (the Metropolitan Line
of the London Underground
from July 1933) operated all services on the line. Throughout the operation of the Brill Tramway the track and stations remained in the ownership of the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad Company; the MR had an option to purchase the line outright, but it was never taken up.
over Kingswood Lane. Intended primarily for goods use, Wood Siding initially had no facilities for passengers, and the platform was simply a raised earth bank.
Despite the lack of passenger facilities, Wood Siding was the starting point for the first passenger service to operate on the line. On 26 August 1871 an excursion service ran from Wood Siding to London hauled by the Great Western Railway
(GWR). It carried around 150 people, for a total of 105 passenger fares (with each child counted as half an adult), and was drawn by horses between Wood Siding and Quainton Road and by locomotive from Quainton Road to Aylesbury where the carriages were attached to the 7.30 am GWR service via Princes Risborough
to London, arriving at 10.00 am. The experiment was not a success. Sharp overhanging branches along the route posed a danger to passengers and had to be cut back in the week before the excursion. The day itself was extremely rainy, and ticket sales were lower than expected. The return train from London to Quainton Road was delayed in Slough
, and the excursion eventually arrived back at Wood Siding at 2.00 am.
In 1894 the crude stations on the Brill Tramway were rebuilt in anticipation of the extension to Oxford. While the other stations on the line were provided with buildings containing a booking office, waiting rooms and toilets, Wood Siding station was equipped with a small corrugated iron waiting room "with shelf and drawer" for passengers. A low passenger platform was also built. As well as the passenger platform, a short siding led to a raised wooden platform, alongside the through line to Brill, which served both as a buffer stop
for the siding, and as a loading platform for milk. The station was staffed by a single porter
, responsible for opening the gates of a nearby level crossing and for loading and unloading freight (mainly milk); a small, unheated hut was provided for his use. While the original Aveling & Porter locomotives were slow and noisy and could be heard by the porter long before their arrival, the more advanced locomotives introduced by the Metropolitan Railway were quieter and quicker; a ladder was installed against a large oak
for the porter to watch for oncoming trains.
After the 1899 transfer of services to the Metropolitan Railway, the MR introduced a single Brown Marshall
passenger carriage on the line; unlike other stations on the line, the platform height at Wood Siding was not raised at this time to accommodate the new carriage. From 1872 to 1894 the station was served by two passenger trains per day in each direction, and from 1895 to 1899 the number was increased to three per day. Following the 1899 transfer of services to the Metropolitan Railway, the station was served by four trains per day until closure in 1935.
Limited by poor quality locomotives and ungraded
, cheaply laid track which followed the contours of the hills, and stopping at four intermediate stations between Wood Siding and Quainton Road to pick up and set down goods, passengers and livestock, trains ran very slowly. In 1887 trains took between 15 and 20 minutes to travel approximately one mile from Wood Siding to Brill, and a little over 1 hour 20 minutes from Wood Siding to the junction station
with the main line at Quainton Road. Improvements to the line carried out at the time of the transfer to the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad, and the use of the MR's better quality rolling stock, reduced the journey time from Wood Siding to Quainton Road to about 30 minutes.
In 1910 the new Bicester cut-off line of the Great Western Railway
(GWR) Chiltern Main Line
was routed directly through Wood Siding, although no interchange station was built. The GWR was to run in a cutting beneath the existing station; Wood Siding station and its siding were rebuilt at the GWR's expense between 1908 and 1910 to stand on a wide bridge above the GWR's line.
With trains travelling only marginally quicker than walking pace, and serving a lightly populated area, the stations at Wood Siding and Brill saw relatively little passenger use, and Wood Siding was removed from the passenger timetable by 1931, although trains continued to stop on request. In 1932, the last year of private operation, Brill and Wood Siding stations saw only 3,272 passenger journeys and raised only £191 (about £ as of ) in passenger receipts.
(LPTB). Thus, despite it being over 45 miles (72.4 km) and over two hours travel from the City of London
, Wood Siding became a London Underground
station. As a cost cutting measure Wood Siding became unstaffed and the porter's hut was sold as a garden shed; from then on, the train crew would work the crossing gate. Although it was now officially a part of the London Underground network, Wood Siding—in common with all Metropolitan Line stations north of Aylesbury—was never shown on the tube map
.
Frank Pick
, Managing Director of the Underground Group
from 1928 and the Chief Executive of the LPTB, aimed to move the network away from freight services and saw the lines beyond Aylesbury via Quainton Road to Brill and Verney Junction as having little future as financially viable passenger routes, concluding that over £2000 (about £ as of ) would be saved by closing the Brill Tramway. As a consequence, the LPTB decided to abandon all passenger services beyond Aylesbury. The Brill Tramway was closed on 1 December 1935, with the last trains running on 30 November. While services on the Brill Tramway were withdrawn completely following the transfer to public ownership, the LPTB considered the Verney Junction branch as having a use as a freight line and as a diversionary route
. The LPTB continued to maintain the line and operate freight services until 6 September 1947.
and Brill, which were sold separately, the auction raised £112 10s (about £ as of ) in total. While Wood Siding station was demolished shortly after closure, the abutment
s of the bridge which carried the station and sidings remain intact.
With the stations at Wood Siding and Brill closed, and the Great Western Railway's Brill and Ludgershall railway station
inconveniently sited, the GWR opened a new station on the Chiltern Main Line nearby at Dorton Halt
on 21 June 1937. Both Dorton Halt and Brill and Ludgersall stations were closed under the Beeching Axe
on 7 January 1963, although the line remains in use by trains between Princes Risborough and Bicester North
. There are no longer any open railway stations in the vicinity of Brill and Wood Siding.
Bernwood Forest
Bernwood was one of several forests of the ancient kingdom of England and was a Royal hunting forest. It is thought to have been set aside as Royal hunting land when the Anglo-Saxon kings had a palace at Brill in the 10th century and was a particularly favoured place of Edward the Confessor, who...
, Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
, England. It was opened in 1871 as a terminus of a short horse-drawn
Horsecar
A horsecar or horse-drawn tram is an animal-powered streetcar or tram.These early forms of public transport developed out of industrial haulage routes that had long been in existence, and from the omnibus routes that first ran on public streets in the 1820s, using the newly improved iron or steel...
tramway built to assist the transport of goods from and around the Duke of Buckingham
Richard Temple-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos GCSI, PC , styled Earl Temple until 1839 and Marquess of Chandos from 1839 to 1861, was a British soldier, politician and administrator of the 19th century...
's extensive estates in Buckinghamshire and to connect the Duke's estates to the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway
Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway
The Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway was an English railway located in Buckinghamshire, England operating between Aylesbury and Verney Junction.-History:...
at Quainton Road
Quainton Road railway station
Quainton Road railway station was opened in 1868 in undeveloped countryside near Quainton, Buckinghamshire, from London. Built by the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway, it was the result of pressure from the 3rd Duke of Buckingham to route the railway near his home at Wotton House and to open a...
.
A lobbying campaign by residents of the town of Brill
Brill
Brill is a village and civil parish in Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England, close to the boundary with Oxfordshire. It is about north-west of Long Crendon and south-east of Bicester...
led to the tramway being converted for passenger use and extended a short distance beyond Wood Siding to Brill railway station
Brill railway station
Brill railway station was the terminus of a small railway line in Buckinghamshire, England, known as the Brill Tramway. Built and owned by the Duke of Buckingham, it was later operated by London's Metropolitan Railway, and in 1933 briefly became one of the two north-western termini of the London...
in 1872, becoming known as the Brill Tramway
Brill Tramway
The Brill Tramway, also known as the Quainton Tramway, Wotton Tramway, Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad and Metropolitan Railway Brill Branch, was a six-mile rail line in the Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, England...
. Cheaply built and ungraded
Land grading
Grading in civil engineering and construction is the work of ensuring a level base, or one with a specified slope, for a construction work such as a foundation, the base course for a road or a railway, or landscape and garden improvements, or surface drainage...
, and using poor quality locomotive
Locomotive
A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...
s, services on the line were very slow, initially limited to a speed of 5 miles per hour (2.2 m/s). In the 1890s it was planned to extend the tramway to Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, but the scheme was abandoned. Instead, the operation of the line was taken over by the Metropolitan Railway
Metropolitan railway
Metropolitan Railway can refer to:* Metropolitan line, part of the London Underground* Metropolitan Railway, the first underground railway to be built in London...
in 1899. Between 1908 and 1910 the station was completely rebuilt on a bridge over the newly built Chiltern Main Line
Chiltern Main Line
The Chiltern Main Line is an inter-urban, regional and commuter railway, part of the British railway system. It links London and Birmingham on a 112-mile route via the towns of High Wycombe, Banbury, and Leamington Spa...
of the Great Western Railway
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...
, which passed directly beneath the station.
In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway was taken into public ownership and became the Metropolitan Line
Metropolitan Line
The Metropolitan line is part of the London Underground. It is coloured in Transport for London's Corporate Magenta on the Tube map and in other branding. It was the first underground railway in the world, opening as the Metropolitan Railway on 10 January 1863...
of London Transport
London Passenger Transport Board
The London Passenger Transport Board was the organisation responsible for public transport in London, UK, and its environs from 1933 to 1948...
. As a result, Wood Siding became a station on the London Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
network, despite being over 45 miles (72.4 km) from the City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
. London Transport's new management aimed to move away from goods services to concentrate on passenger services. As the line served a very lightly populated rural area, the new management believed it very unlikely that it could ever be made viable. Wood Siding was closed, along with the rest of the line, from 30 November 1935. Although all infrastructure associated with the station was removed in 1936, the remains of the bridge which supported the station were not demolished and are still in place.
Brill Tramway
Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway
The Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway was an English railway located in Buckinghamshire, England operating between Aylesbury and Verney Junction.-History:...
(A&BR) opened, linking the Great Western Railway
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...
's station at Aylesbury
Aylesbury railway station
Aylesbury railway station is a railway station in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England and is a major stop on the London to Aylesbury Line from Marylebone station via Amersham. It is 37.75 miles from Aylesbury Station to Marylebone Station...
to the London and North Western Railway
London and North Western Railway
The London and North Western Railway was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. It was created by the merger of three companies – the Grand Junction Railway, the London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway...
's Oxford to Bletchley line
Varsity Line
The Varsity Line is an informal name for the railway route that formerly linked the English university cities of Oxford and Cambridge, operated successively by the London and North Western Railway, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, and British Railways...
at Verney Junction
Verney Junction railway station
Verney Junction was a railway station at a junction serving four directions between 1868 and 1968 and from where excursions as far as Ramsgate could be booked...
. On 1 September 1894 London's Metropolitan Railway
Metropolitan railway
Metropolitan Railway can refer to:* Metropolitan line, part of the London Underground* Metropolitan Railway, the first underground railway to be built in London...
(MR) reached Aylesbury, and shortly afterwards connected to the A&BR line, with local MR services running to Verney Junction from 1 April 1894. Through trains from the MR's London terminus at Baker Street
Baker Street tube station
Baker Street tube station is a station on the London Underground at the junction of Baker Street and the Marylebone Road. The station lies in Travelcard Zone 1 and is served by five different lines...
commenced on 1 January 1897.
The Duke of Buckingham had long had an interest in railways, and had served as Chairman of the London and North Western Railway from 1852 to 1861. In the early 1870s he decided to build a light railway
Light railway
Light railway refers to a railway built at lower costs and to lower standards than typical "heavy rail". This usually means the railway uses lighter weight track, and is more steeply graded and tightly curved to avoid civil engineering costs...
to carry freight from his estates in Buckinghamshire to the A&BR's line at Quainton Road
Quainton Road railway station
Quainton Road railway station was opened in 1868 in undeveloped countryside near Quainton, Buckinghamshire, from London. Built by the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway, it was the result of pressure from the 3rd Duke of Buckingham to route the railway near his home at Wotton House and to open a...
. Because the proposed line ran on land owned by the Duke of Buckingham and by the Winwood Charity Trust, who consented to its construction, the line did not need Parliamentary approval and construction could begin immediately.
The first stage of the line, known as the Wotton Tramway
Brill Tramway
The Brill Tramway, also known as the Quainton Tramway, Wotton Tramway, Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad and Metropolitan Railway Brill Branch, was a six-mile rail line in the Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, England...
, was a 4 miles (6.4 km) line from Quainton Road via Wotton
Wotton railway station
Wotton railway station was a small station in Buckinghamshire, England, built by the Duke of Buckinghamshire in 1871. Part of a private horse-drawn tramway designed to carry freight from and around his lands in Buckinghamshire, Wotton station was intended to serve the Duke's home at Wotton House...
to a coal siding at Kingswood
Kingswood, Buckinghamshire
Kingswood is a hamlet of 30 dwellings on the South side of the A41 from Waddesdon to Bicester and between the villages of Ludgershall and Grendon Underwood in Buckinghamshire, England. Kingswood is also a civil parish within Aylesbury Vale district. Parish matters are currently administered via a...
, and opened on 1 April 1871. Intended for use by horse trams
Horsecar
A horsecar or horse-drawn tram is an animal-powered streetcar or tram.These early forms of public transport developed out of industrial haulage routes that had long been in existence, and from the omnibus routes that first ran on public streets in the 1820s, using the newly improved iron or steel...
, the line was built with longitudinal sleepers
Baulk road
Baulk road is the name given to a type of railway track or 'rail road' that is formed using rails carried on continuous timber bearings, as opposed to the more familiar 'cross-sleeper' track that uses closely spaced sleepers or ties to give intermittent support to taller rails...
to avoid horses tripping on the sleepers. In November 1871 the tramway was extended to Wood Siding, in a surviving fragment of Bernwood Forest
Bernwood Forest
Bernwood was one of several forests of the ancient kingdom of England and was a Royal hunting forest. It is thought to have been set aside as Royal hunting land when the Anglo-Saxon kings had a palace at Brill in the 10th century and was a particularly favoured place of Edward the Confessor, who...
1+1/2 mi from the town of Brill
Brill
Brill is a village and civil parish in Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England, close to the boundary with Oxfordshire. It is about north-west of Long Crendon and south-east of Bicester...
and 1500 yards (1,371.6 m) from the nearest settlement at Dorton
Dorton
Dorton is a village and civil parish in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire. It is in the western part of the county, about north of the Oxfordshire market town of Thame.-Manor:...
.
Lobbying from residents and businesses in Brill for the introduction of passenger services on the line led to a 1840 yards (1,682.5 m) further extension from Wood Siding to Brill railway station
Brill railway station
Brill railway station was the terminus of a small railway line in Buckinghamshire, England, known as the Brill Tramway. Built and owned by the Duke of Buckingham, it was later operated by London's Metropolitan Railway, and in 1933 briefly became one of the two north-western termini of the London...
, at the foot of Brill Hill of a mile (1.2 km) from the hilltop town of Brill itself, in the summer of 1872. Two mixed train
Mixed train
A mixed train is a train that hauls both passenger and freight cars or wagons. In the early days of railways they were quite common, but by the 20th century they were largely confined to branch lines with little traffic. As the trains provided passengers with very slow service, mixed trains have...
s ran each day in each direction, and the line was renamed the Brill Tramway. The Duke bought two Aveling and Porter
Aveling and Porter
Aveling and Porter was a British agricultural engine and steam roller manufacturer. Thomas Aveling and Richard Thomas Porter entered into partnership in 1862, developed a steam engine three years later in 1865 and produced more steam rollers than all the other British manufacturers combined.-The...
traction engine
Traction engine
A traction engine is a self-propelled steam engine used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin tractus, meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any traction engine is to draw a load behind it...
s modified to work as locomotives for the line, each with a top speed of 8 miles per hour (3.6 m/s), although a speed limit of 5 miles per hour (2.2 m/s) was enforced.
The Duke died in 1889, and in 1894 the trustee
Trustee
Trustee is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, can refer to any person who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the benefit of another...
s of his estate
Estate (law)
An estate is the net worth of a person at any point in time. It is the sum of a person's assets - legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind - less all liabilities at that time. The issue is of special legal significance on a question of bankruptcy and death of the person...
set up the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad Company (O&ATC) with the intention of extending the line from Brill to Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
. Rail services from London to Oxford were very poor at this time; despite being an extremely roundabout route, had the connection from Quainton Road to Oxford been built it would have been the shortest route between Oxford and the City of London. The Metropolitan Railway leased the Brill Tramway from 1 December 1899, and from then on the MR (the Metropolitan Line
Metropolitan Line
The Metropolitan line is part of the London Underground. It is coloured in Transport for London's Corporate Magenta on the Tube map and in other branding. It was the first underground railway in the world, opening as the Metropolitan Railway on 10 January 1863...
of the London Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
from July 1933) operated all services on the line. Throughout the operation of the Brill Tramway the track and stations remained in the ownership of the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad Company; the MR had an option to purchase the line outright, but it was never taken up.
Services and facilities
The station was positioned on the southern edge of Rushbeds Wood, a surviving part of the Bernwood Forest. It was on the western side of the level crossingLevel crossing
A level crossing occurs where a railway line is intersected by a road or path onone level, without recourse to a bridge or tunnel. It is a type of at-grade intersection. The term also applies when a light rail line with separate right-of-way or reserved track crosses a road in the same fashion...
over Kingswood Lane. Intended primarily for goods use, Wood Siding initially had no facilities for passengers, and the platform was simply a raised earth bank.
Despite the lack of passenger facilities, Wood Siding was the starting point for the first passenger service to operate on the line. On 26 August 1871 an excursion service ran from Wood Siding to London hauled by the Great Western Railway
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...
(GWR). It carried around 150 people, for a total of 105 passenger fares (with each child counted as half an adult), and was drawn by horses between Wood Siding and Quainton Road and by locomotive from Quainton Road to Aylesbury where the carriages were attached to the 7.30 am GWR service via Princes Risborough
Princes Risborough railway station
Princes Risborough station is a railway station on the Chiltern Main Line that serves the town of Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire, England...
to London, arriving at 10.00 am. The experiment was not a success. Sharp overhanging branches along the route posed a danger to passengers and had to be cut back in the week before the excursion. The day itself was extremely rainy, and ticket sales were lower than expected. The return train from London to Quainton Road was delayed in Slough
Slough
Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...
, and the excursion eventually arrived back at Wood Siding at 2.00 am.
In 1894 the crude stations on the Brill Tramway were rebuilt in anticipation of the extension to Oxford. While the other stations on the line were provided with buildings containing a booking office, waiting rooms and toilets, Wood Siding station was equipped with a small corrugated iron waiting room "with shelf and drawer" for passengers. A low passenger platform was also built. As well as the passenger platform, a short siding led to a raised wooden platform, alongside the through line to Brill, which served both as a buffer stop
Buffer stop
A buffer stop or bumper is a device to prevent railway vehicles from going past the end of a physical section of track.The design of the buffer stop is dependent in part upon the kind of couplings that the railway uses, since the coupling gear is the first part of the vehicle that the buffer stop...
for the siding, and as a loading platform for milk. The station was staffed by a single porter
Porter (railroad)
A porter is a railway employee assigned to assist passengers aboard a passenger train or to handle their baggage; it may be used particularly to refer to employees assigned to assisting passengers in the sleeping cars....
, responsible for opening the gates of a nearby level crossing and for loading and unloading freight (mainly milk); a small, unheated hut was provided for his use. While the original Aveling & Porter locomotives were slow and noisy and could be heard by the porter long before their arrival, the more advanced locomotives introduced by the Metropolitan Railway were quieter and quicker; a ladder was installed against a large oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
for the porter to watch for oncoming trains.
After the 1899 transfer of services to the Metropolitan Railway, the MR introduced a single Brown Marshall
Brown, Marshalls and Co. Ltd.
Brown, Marshalls and Co. Ltd. were a company that built railway carriages, based in Saltley, Birmingham, in the UK. They were formed in 1840. In 1866 they built the original coaches for the Talyllyn Railway, which are still in use, and in 1873 built two bogie coaches for the Ffestiniog Railway....
passenger carriage on the line; unlike other stations on the line, the platform height at Wood Siding was not raised at this time to accommodate the new carriage. From 1872 to 1894 the station was served by two passenger trains per day in each direction, and from 1895 to 1899 the number was increased to three per day. Following the 1899 transfer of services to the Metropolitan Railway, the station was served by four trains per day until closure in 1935.
Limited by poor quality locomotives and ungraded
Land grading
Grading in civil engineering and construction is the work of ensuring a level base, or one with a specified slope, for a construction work such as a foundation, the base course for a road or a railway, or landscape and garden improvements, or surface drainage...
, cheaply laid track which followed the contours of the hills, and stopping at four intermediate stations between Wood Siding and Quainton Road to pick up and set down goods, passengers and livestock, trains ran very slowly. In 1887 trains took between 15 and 20 minutes to travel approximately one mile from Wood Siding to Brill, and a little over 1 hour 20 minutes from Wood Siding to the junction station
Junction station
Junction station usually refers to a railway station situated or close to a junction where lines to several destinations diverge. The usual minimum is three incoming lines...
with the main line at Quainton Road. Improvements to the line carried out at the time of the transfer to the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad, and the use of the MR's better quality rolling stock, reduced the journey time from Wood Siding to Quainton Road to about 30 minutes.
In 1910 the new Bicester cut-off line of the Great Western Railway
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...
(GWR) Chiltern Main Line
Chiltern Main Line
The Chiltern Main Line is an inter-urban, regional and commuter railway, part of the British railway system. It links London and Birmingham on a 112-mile route via the towns of High Wycombe, Banbury, and Leamington Spa...
was routed directly through Wood Siding, although no interchange station was built. The GWR was to run in a cutting beneath the existing station; Wood Siding station and its siding were rebuilt at the GWR's expense between 1908 and 1910 to stand on a wide bridge above the GWR's line.
With trains travelling only marginally quicker than walking pace, and serving a lightly populated area, the stations at Wood Siding and Brill saw relatively little passenger use, and Wood Siding was removed from the passenger timetable by 1931, although trains continued to stop on request. In 1932, the last year of private operation, Brill and Wood Siding stations saw only 3,272 passenger journeys and raised only £191 (about £ as of ) in passenger receipts.
Withdrawal of services
On 1 July 1933 the Metropolitan Railway, along with London's other underground railways aside from the small Waterloo & City Railway, was taken into public ownership as part of the newly formed London Passenger Transport BoardLondon Passenger Transport Board
The London Passenger Transport Board was the organisation responsible for public transport in London, UK, and its environs from 1933 to 1948...
(LPTB). Thus, despite it being over 45 miles (72.4 km) and over two hours travel from the City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
, Wood Siding became a London Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
station. As a cost cutting measure Wood Siding became unstaffed and the porter's hut was sold as a garden shed; from then on, the train crew would work the crossing gate. Although it was now officially a part of the London Underground network, Wood Siding—in common with all Metropolitan Line stations north of Aylesbury—was never shown on the tube map
Tube map
The Tube map is a schematic transit map representing the lines and stations of London's rapid transit railway systems, namely the London Underground , the Docklands Light Railway and London Overground....
.
Frank Pick
Frank Pick
Frank Pick LLB Hon. RIBA was a British transport administrator. After qualifying as a solicitor in 1902, he worked at the North Eastern Railway, before moving to the Underground Electric Railways Company of London in 1906...
, Managing Director of the Underground Group
Underground Electric Railways Company of London
The Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited , known operationally as The Underground for much of its existence, was established in 1902. It was the holding company for the three deep-level "tube"A "tube" railway is an underground railway constructed in a circular tunnel by the use...
from 1928 and the Chief Executive of the LPTB, aimed to move the network away from freight services and saw the lines beyond Aylesbury via Quainton Road to Brill and Verney Junction as having little future as financially viable passenger routes, concluding that over £2000 (about £ as of ) would be saved by closing the Brill Tramway. As a consequence, the LPTB decided to abandon all passenger services beyond Aylesbury. The Brill Tramway was closed on 1 December 1935, with the last trains running on 30 November. While services on the Brill Tramway were withdrawn completely following the transfer to public ownership, the LPTB considered the Verney Junction branch as having a use as a freight line and as a diversionary route
Detour
Detour may refer to:* Detour, a temporary routing to avoid an obstruction-Entertainment:Literature* Detour , a 1939 novel* Detour , an entertainment and fashion magazine published by the Detour Media GroupFilm and television...
. The LPTB continued to maintain the line and operate freight services until 6 September 1947.
Closure
Upon the withdrawal of London Transport services the lease expired and the railway and stations reverted to the control of the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad Company. With no funds and no rolling stock of its own the O&ATC was unable to operate the line. On 2 April 1936 the entire infrastructure of the line was sold piecemeal at auction; excluding track, the buildings and structures at Wood Siding fetched a total of £9 2s 6d (about £ as of ). Aside from the station houses at WestcottWestcott railway station
Westcott railway station was a small station built to serve the village of Westcott, Buckinghamshire and nearby buildings attached to Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild's estate at Waddesdon Manor...
and Brill, which were sold separately, the auction raised £112 10s (about £ as of ) in total. While Wood Siding station was demolished shortly after closure, the abutment
Abutment
An abutment is, generally, the point where two structures or objects meet. This word comes from the verb abut, which means adjoin or having common boundary. An abutment is an engineering term that describes a structure located at the ends of a bridge, where the bridge slab adjoins the approaching...
s of the bridge which carried the station and sidings remain intact.
With the stations at Wood Siding and Brill closed, and the Great Western Railway's Brill and Ludgershall railway station
Brill and Ludgershall railway station
Brill and Ludgershall railway station was a railway station serving the villages of Brill and Ludgershall in Buckinghamshire. It was on what is now known as the Chiltern Main Line.- History :...
inconveniently sited, the GWR opened a new station on the Chiltern Main Line nearby at Dorton Halt
Dorton Halt railway station
Dorton Halt railway station was a railway station serving the village of Dorton in Buckinghamshire and . It was on what is now known as the Chiltern Main Line...
on 21 June 1937. Both Dorton Halt and Brill and Ludgersall stations were closed under the Beeching Axe
Beeching Axe
The Beeching Axe or the Beeching Cuts are informal names for the British Government's attempt in the 1960s to reduce the cost of running British Railways, the nationalised railway system in the United Kingdom. The name is that of the main author of The Reshaping of British Railways, Dr Richard...
on 7 January 1963, although the line remains in use by trains between Princes Risborough and Bicester North
Bicester North railway station
Bicester North is a station on the Chiltern Main Line, one of two stations serving Bicester. Services operated by Chiltern Railways run south to and north to , and .Bicester North is the larger of Bicester's two stations...
. There are no longer any open railway stations in the vicinity of Brill and Wood Siding.