Birmingham and Oxford Junction Railway

The Oxford and Rugby Railway was conceived to enable the GWR to connect the southern areas it served into the northwards network.

The Great Western Railway too found the L&BR a difficult trading partner, and gave the GJR scheme its support.

[5][6] The GJR observed that the Oxford and Rugby Railway scheme was successful in Parliament, and they altered their own proposal to join the O&RR line at Knightcote, north of Fenny Compton,[7] shortening the necessary construction.

[8][1] The GWR and the other parties interested in the line decided to proceed anyway, and the scheme became known as the Birmingham and Oxford Junction Railway.

[12] At this the LNWR faction attempted to subvert the whole affair, at first by acquiring large numbers of B&OJR shares, buying them at a premium.

At length in January 1848 the matter was found in the GWR's favour in the Court of Chancery, and the LNWR finally acquiesced.

The furore was well publicised, and it moved the House of Lords to order the Railway Commissioners to consider the gauge question.

This issue was now debated inconclusively, but on 31 August 1848 the amalgamation bill was passed and mixed gauge was authorised.

[14][15] The GWR line was required to make a narrow (standard) gauge connection with the LNWR on the south side of Birmingham.

The LNWR would not allow the GWR to make the mandatory connection into that line, fearing that the GWR would make advantageous use of the Stour Valley Line, and insisted on completion of the original connection to Curzon Street, although that was now useless.

Nevertheless as matters proceeded the LNWR realised this must involve a flat crossing of their Birmingham (New Street) extension line, and they objected to the GWR connection entering their property, although they had demanded it.

The GWR meanwhile constructed the necessary viaduct up to the property boundary; in fact work on it was still progressing when the line into Snow Hill opened.

[note 2] MacDermot commented: And so the derelict Duddeston Viaduct or most of it still stands, a melancholy monument to the ill-conditioned spite of a great Railway Company against a victorious rival in the old fighting days.

was passed authorising the absorption of the B&OJR and the Birmingham Extension Railway, and the laying of mixed gauge track on it.

[18] The Board of Trade were cowed by an angry response from the LNWR demanding that the useless third rail should be provided, but the GWR held out.

Work started on construction of the B&OJR part of the line in 1847, the contractors Peto and Betts being employed.

The line was opened to the public throughout from Oxford to Birmingham on 1 October 1852, as a mixed gauge double track.

The Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway crossed the GWR main line obliquely at Fenny Compton, running alongside it for some distance, but there was no connection.

Although almost all of the SoA&MJR has closed, a short stub has been retained to serve MoD Kineton, a Defence Munitions base, using the 1960 connection.

[27] The Great Central Railway built its London Extension[note 3] and it opened a connection from Woodford Halse in 1900.

During World War II this was planned to be part of a freight diversionary route avoiding London, and a connection was laid in from the Bicester direction into the GWR Oxford line.

Semmens shows eleven daily express services between Paddington and Wolverhampton in 1922, including three by the "old route" via Oxford.

[30] In 1931 a large hump marshalling yard was built at Banbury; it was with government financial assistance under the Development (Loan Guarantees and Grants) Act 1929 (20 & 21 Geo.

[31] In the first years of the twentieth century the GWR had quadrupled the line between Birmingham Moor Street and Olton.

[32] The original 1854 Leamington Spa station was cramped and unsatisfactory, and in 1938 it was reconstructed in Art Deco style.

Christiansen recorded in 1981 that Those who knew the striking, white Leamington Spa station at the time of its creation in 1938, with its walnut veneered waiting rooms, windows edged with stainless steel, and the long wide and widely separated up and down platforms outside, will find it virtually untouched today.

[35] In 1987 Snow Hill station and the connection to Moor Street was reopened, and Leamington and Stratford-upon-Avon services were diverted back to the route.

Infrastructure improvements enabled enhanced journey times and frequencies, and the line became an equal competitor with the Euston services.

The opening of Birmingham International station in 1976 led to a demand for passenger train calls on cross country routes.