East West rail, Bletchley to oxford line

[Davexoc]

7 hours ago, D826 said:

The Cheddington branch was used to stable redundant 16 ton minerals in the late 60's - (at the back of where Broughton is, and either side of the level crossing by what was the Prince of Wales pub). 

 

That would be The Dog House these days.

Brings a whole new meaning to the reply, "I'm in the dog house"....

[D826]

Between being The Prince of Wales and 'The Dog House', it was more aptly named 'The Crossing'.  When I was a nipper, the level crossing gates with the central red target were still there. 

 

The Aylesbury Branch at Cheddington was also used to stable the overnight mail, for forensic investigations, following the great train robbery.  

 

How I wish I took pictures of the 08 and 25 which used to be stabled in the loading dock on the up line at the north end of Aylesbury station, the Van's which used to be in the sidings by the multi storey, the HEAs in the goods yard, and the oil trains serving the Shell depot by the oxford Road Bridge.  

 

Best regards

 

Matt W

Edited April 3, 2020 by D826
Bloody auto correct, Aylesbury could be rough, but I was a nipper, not a bloody sniper!

[rodent279]

7 minutes ago, D826 said:

Between being The Prince of Wales and 'The Dog House', it was more aptly named 'The Crossing'.  When I was a nipper, the level crossing gates with the central red target were still there. 

 

The Aylesbury Branch at Cheddington was also used to stable the overnight mail, for forensic investigations, following the great train robbery.  

 

How I wish I took pictures of the 08 and 25 which used to be stabled in the loading dock on the up line at the north end of Aylesbury station, the Van's which used to be in the sidings by the multi storey, the HEAs in the goods yard, and the oil trains serving the Shell depot by the oxford Road Bridge.  

 

Best regards

 

Matt W

Ah, who wasn't a sniper in their youth?

[rodent279]

Did the Cheddington-Aylesbury branch ever have a resident diesel shunter? Were the services ever diesel worked?

[caradoc]

5 hours ago, D826 said:

Between being The Prince of Wales and 'The Dog House', it was more aptly named 'The Crossing'.  When I was a nipper, the level crossing gates with the central red target were still there. 

 

The Aylesbury Branch at Cheddington was also used to stable the overnight mail, for forensic investigations, following the great train robbery.  

 

How I wish I took pictures of the 08 and 25 which used to be stabled in the loading dock on the up line at the north end of Aylesbury station, the Van's which used to be in the sidings by the multi storey, the HEAs in the goods yard, and the oil trains serving the Shell depot by the oxford Road Bridge.  

 

Best regards

 

Matt W

 

In the 70s I occasionally cycled from Oxford to Aylesbury on a Sunday, mainly because a lot of Marylebone DMUs were stabled there (sad or what !), but I also recall locos, and a lot of SPVs - Was there a particular traffic they were used for, for some reason the Readers' Digest comes to mind ?

 

[Pannier Tank]

5 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Did the Cheddington-Aylesbury branch ever have a resident diesel shunter? Were the services ever diesel worked?

 

I think that's  going to be a double "No"

[1E BoY]

47 minutes ago, caradoc said:

 

In the 70s I occasionally cycled from Oxford to Aylesbury on a Sunday, mainly because a lot of Marylebone DMUs were stabled there (sad or what !), but I also recall locos, and a lot of SPVs - Was there a particular traffic they were used for, for some reason the Readers' Digest comes to mind ?

 

There were two stations in Aylesbury. The first was served by a branch from Cheddington and was latterly known as Aylesbury High Street. Geoff Williams built a superb EM gauge layout of it which was features in several magazines and also one of the free BRM DVD's. It now lies underneath a retail park and link road, although the pub which was by the level crossing appears to be the only remaining clue to where it once ran. The site was derelict for years.

 

The current station operated by Chiltern Railways was served by the GWR, Metropolitan Railway and Great Central.

 

Hazell, Watson & Viney were large printers in Aylesbury and printed Readers Digest and Radio Times at one time. This would have generated large amounts of "newspaper traffic" as it was called at the time. The plant closed around 1991.

[Andy Kirkham]

58 minutes ago, caradoc said:

 

In the 70s I occasionally cycled from Oxford to Aylesbury on a Sunday, mainly because a lot of Marylebone DMUs were stabled there (sad or what !), but I also recall locos, and a lot of SPVs - Was there a particular traffic they were used for, for some reason the Readers' Digest comes to mind ?

 

 

 

Someone posted a comment to this picture, stating that the traffic was indeed Reader's Digest

 

[melmerby]

The First station in Aylesbury was the LNWR in 1839.

In 1863 the Wycombe Railway built a broad gauge line from Princes Risborough to the site of the current station.

Next was the Aylesbury & Buckingham Railway's standard gauge line to the LNWR at Verney Junction in 1868, as a result the GWR who had taken over the Wycombe railway converted it to standard gauge and the two were joined.

Later in 1891/2 the Metropolitan came on the scene and built outwards to Aylesbury, taking over the A&B in the process.

The GC then arrived in 1905 and this part of the MET network became joint MET/GC. The station area was Joint with the GWR.

There have been three stations close to each other on this section of line - Wycombe 1863, A&B (1868) & MET (1892), all eventually using the original Wycombe Railway site.

[lmsforever]

Thats a smashing pic of Aylesbury  looking in the background you can see the houses of Southcourt when thats all that you could see.Nowadays  its all built up  now its car parking on the right hand side plus the town has grown towards the station.Thanks for the pic.

[D826]

3 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

 

 

Someone posted a comment to this picture, stating that the traffic was indeed Reader's Digest

 

Ah Andy, the old Bay platform- pretty much all services up to London departed from there in the 70s and 80s.  Love it thanks for posting.  Anyone got any pictures of the old timber goods shed and access to the oil siding - north of the footbridge to Southcourt ?

[D826]

Crikey Andy Kirkham, just looked at your Flickr photos - Hymeks, Westerns, Siphon Gs, and the mixed freight......brilliant sir.  

 

Regards

 

Matt Wood

[1E BoY]

4 hours ago, D826 said:

Ah Andy, the old Bay platform- pretty much all services up to London departed from there in the 70s and 80s.  Love it thanks for posting.  Anyone got any pictures of the old timber goods shed and access to the oil siding - north of the footbridge to Southcourt ?

 

One from 1978. Any use?

[Davexoc]

7 hours ago, 1E BoY said:

There were two stations in Aylesbury. The first was served by a branch from Cheddington and was latterly known as Aylesbury High Street. Geoff Williams built a superb EM gauge layout of it which was features in several magazines and also one of the free BRM DVD's. It now lies underneath a retail park and link road, although the pub which was by the level crossing appears to be the only remaining clue to where it once ran. The site was derelict for years.

 

Another clue here along Stocklake, the road that runs behind HMP

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.8199369,-0.7989715,3a,75y,280.75h,88.79t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sQnXvVnbEzisrO0Npl8K2sg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

 

The site of the station is partly under B&Q I believe..

[1E BoY]

4 hours ago, D826 said:

Ah Andy, the old Bay platform- pretty much all services up to London departed from there in the 70s and 80s.  Love it thanks for posting.  Anyone got any pictures of the old timber goods shed and access to the oil siding - north of the footbridge to Southcourt ?

 

I seem to have surveyed the whole station at the time. Here is a second view.

[D826]

2 hours ago, 1E BoY said:

 

One from 1978. Any use?

Love that.  The view from the footbridge on my way to the Floyd from 79 to 85.  Beautiful.  Thank you.  (You can even see the oil terminal near Oxford Road Bridge).  Smashing.  Last time I ever took my Dad out for the day was for Met centenary celebrations in 1992 whe Nunney Castle and King Eddy 1 were top and tailing to Quainton.   Still remember Dad smiling at that beautiful Western exhaust beat, and the whistle of one of em crowing over Aylesbury to our house in Broughton when they departed to Risborough that evening.

 

Please see the book 'Red Panniers' for more tales of my Dad, Ray Wood, foreman at Neasden Steam shed.

 

All the best and stay well.  RM web is bloody marvellous.

 

Matt Wood 

 

 

Edited April 3, 2020 by D826

[The Stationmaster]

On 03/04/2020 at 15:26, melmerby said:

The First station in Aylesbury was the LNWR in 1839.

In 1863 the Wycombe Railway built a broad gauge line from Princes Risborough to the site of the current station.

Next was the Aylesbury & Buckingham Railway's standard gauge line to the LNWR at Verney Junction in 1868, as a result the GWR who had taken over the Wycombe railway converted it to standard gauge and the two were joined.

Later in 1891/2 the Metropolitan came on the scene and built outwards to Aylesbury, taking over the A&B in the process.

The GC then arrived in 1905 and this part of the MET network became joint MET/GC. The station area was Joint with the GWR.

There have been three stations close to each other on this section of line - Wycombe 1863, A&B (1868) & MET (1892), all eventually using the original Wycombe Railway site.

According to GWR records the Wycombe Railway was amalgamated with the GWR in February 1867 and in any case the GWR had leased the line from the outset such lease being authorised by the original Wycombe Railway Act of 1846,.  The line was not converted to narrow gauge (throughout from Maidenhead to Kennington Jcn, Oxford) until the final week of August 1870.  The main route of the Wycombe Railway seems to have never had any mixed gauge mileage although the branch between Princes Risborough and Aylesbury had been converted to narrow gauge in October 1868 ('to avoid mixing the gauge at Aylesbury' - on the opening of the A&B).  The junction with the Metropolitan's line at Aylesbury opened on 1 January 1894 according to GWR records.

 

So quite how the line between Aylesbury and Risborough was worked between October 1869 and September 1870 is an interesting question - did the GWR bring in narrow gauge stock and an engine before the kine was convertred?

 

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by The Stationmaster
correct date (year) typo)

[Nearholmer]

The GWR worked the A&B 'on contract' or by hire of stock, so there must have been a mini-fleet of SG stock based at Aylesbury ........ which sort of sounds OK for a few locos and coaches, but must have involved a pain in the back at Risborough for goods, unless it was all re-routed via Verney Junction, standard gauge all the way.

 

Just found this, from a memoir written by the A&B’s original promoter, who tells how he got all the local worthies involved, and how the LNWR repudiated an agreement to work the line, then says:

 

“The Great Western Company were then applied to, and an arrangement was made with them to find locomotive power, a first, second, and third class carriage, with guard's van, driver, stokers, and guard; our company to supply oil for lighting, with station masters and porters. I forget the exact amount, but I think it was 1s, 1½d per mile, about 13s 6d per trip, for three trips, a day”

 

He also moans about the GWR routing goods via Oxford to Risborough on the BG, and the LNWR taking people and goods all the way round via Bletchley to their own Aylesbury station, instead of along the A&B from Verne’s Junction, so probably goods on the A&B was very meagre.

 

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by Nearholmer

[The Stationmaster]

Thanks for that 'Nearholmer' - I had wondered why the GWR were being so accommodating of the A&B when it had the LNWR on the other end and they were regarded as mortal enemies by Paddington.  Looks very much as if the GWR grasped a chance to work the A&B as a means of keeping the LNWR at bay without making too much song & dance about it (for once) while the LNWR might well have been a bit wary of any A&B ambitions implied by its title.   An interesting area for examination one day perhaps?

 

Certainly the GWR director's minute mentioned by MacDermott is most odd when it states ''to avoid the mixing of the gauge at Aylesbury' considering the extent to which the company was prepared to go elsewhere in order to create mixed gauge locations.  However it was by then well on course converting its network to the narrow, Stephensonian, gauge so in the at sense there is a logic there because the GWR was rapidly becoming a narrow gauge railway.  By the end of 1869 and for the first time the GWR had more purely narrow gauge mileage than purely broad gauge and its mixed gauge mileage was also reducing.  Within six years, by the year end of 1875, the company had reduced its purely broad gauge mileage to a miniscule 8miles 16 chains.  But then it amalgamated with the B&E and SDR, and gained a whole lot more BG mileage.

Edited April 4, 2020 by The Stationmaster

[Nearholmer]

The A&B was an odd fish, truly locally promoted after several grand schemes to serve the route had withered, but it’s first chairman happened also to be the chairman of the LNWR, The Duke of Buckingham. He is said to have subscribed £50k on the spot, provided he could head the board, so it was his ‘pet railway’ really. The whole of the Buckinghamshire Railway, which became the LNWR Banbury and Oxford branches was his idea too.

 

One gets the impression that he liked the A&B for purely local reasons, while the officers of the LNWR saw it as a dratted nuisance. The agreement by the LNWR to work the line seems to have started as a verbal one, probably officers sighing and acquiescing to the chairman, but was confirmed in writing, and while the Duke was away being the governor of madras for a couple of years, the officers of the LNWR reneged on it!

 

The deputy chair of the A&B was Sir Harry Verney, of Clayton house. Once the plague has gone, I recommend you visit Claydon House - get there earlyish and have scrambled eggs on toast in the tea room - a real treat!

 

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by Nearholmer

[lmsforever]

21 hours ago, 1E BoY said:

 

One from 1978. Any use?

 

[lmsforever]

The above photo is a reminder that in late 1960 ,s I worked for GPO telephones in a yard just before the Oxford Rd bridge good times enjoyable work.

[The Stationmaster]

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The A&B was an odd fish, truly locally promoted after several grand schemes to serve the route had withered, but it’s first chairman happened also to be the chairman of the LNWR, The Duke of Buckingham. He is said to have subscribed £50k on the spot, provided he could head the board, so it was his ‘pet railway’ really. The whole of the Buckinghamshire Railway, which became the LNWR Banbury and Oxford branches was his idea too.

 

One gets the impression that he liked the A&B for purely local reasons, while the officers of the LNWR saw it as a dratted nuisance. The agreement by the LNWR to work the line seems to have started as a verbal one, probably officers sighing and acquiescing to the chairman, but was confirmed in writing, and while the Duke was away being the governor of madras for a couple of years, the officers of the LNWR reneged on it!

 

The deputy chair of the A&B was Sir Harry Verney, of Clayton house. Once the plague has gone, I recommend you visit Claydon House - get there earlyish and have scrambled eggs on toast in the tea room - a real treat!

 

 

Claydon House sounds like a good idea - we haven't been there for more decades than I care to am able to remember

[melmerby]

6 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

  The junction with the Metropolitan's line at Aylesbury opened on 1 January 1894 according to GWR records.

 

That sounds plausible as the MET opened a station just next to the GWR line in 1892 but were using the GWR station soon after (presumably once the junction had been made)

Col Cobb's Atlas has three stations at various times, the A&B when it opened for a short while, the Met when it opened for a short while and the Wycombe/GWR station where they all ended up.

 

12 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Claydon House sounds like a good idea - we haven't been there for more decades than I care to am able to remember

Not much in it from what I can remember but a nice building none the less.

[Nearholmer]

Depends what you mean by ‘not much’; it certainly wouldn’t all fit in my house!

 

In recent years, they’ve made a great deal of the fact that Florence Nightingale spent a lot of time there (IIRC she was Sir Harry’s wife’s sister). 
 

TBH, my main interest is that it is a really pleasant place to stop for a late breakfast when out on my bike!