It was privately built in 1871 by the 3rd Duke of Buckingham as a horse tram line to help transport goods between his lands around Wotton House and the national rail network.

[6] After the death of his father on 29 July 1861 he became 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos,[10] and resigned from chairmanship of the LNWR, returning to Wotton House to manage the family's estates.

[6] His efforts to pay debts incurred by his father earned praise from Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli,[15] and in 1875 he was appointed Governor of Madras, serving until 1880.

[9] On 20 October 1871 Jones wrote to the Duke that "The traffic is now becoming so heavy that I would, most respectfully, venture to ask your Grace to consider the subject as to whether an Engine would not be the least expensive and most efficient power to work it.

[49] By March 1872 Jones recorded that "The party to whom the pond near the Quainton Station belongs is making complaints about our having water and I expect he will be using force to prevent our getting any".

On 6 February 1872, Jones timed one as taking 41 minutes to travel roughly 2 miles (3.2 km) from Quainton Road to Wotton hauling 42 tons (43 t).

[56] With modern locomotives on the Brill–Quainton Road route (the Kingswood branch generally remained worked by horses, and occasionally by the Aveling and Porter engines), traffic rose.

[60] The locomotives occasionally ran over stray sheep,[61] and on 12 September 1888 sparks from one of the Aveling and Porter engines blew back into one of the train's cattle wagons, igniting the straw bedding and badly burning two cows.

[70] Rothschild's contractors built a line, known as the Winchendon Branch, which turned off the Tramway between Waddesdon and Westcott stations and ran south to the foot of Lodge Hill.

[70] Poore's Brickworks was well established, and Jones believed there was potential profit in the Duke of Buckingham's capitalising on his access to a railway line by becoming directly involved in brickmaking.

[72] Trials with Brill clay in 1883 proved positive, and in April 1885 Jones sought estimates for machinery and labour necessary to produce 10 million bricks a year.

[23] This is almost certainly incorrect; no mention of the sidings is made in the Duke of Buckingham's correspondence before 1887 and no reference to the Brill Brick and Tile Works exists in any source earlier than 1895.

"[51] The introduction of the Bagnall locomotives and the traffic generated by the works at Waddesdon Manor had boosted the route's fortunes, but it remained in serious financial difficulty.

The A&BR was in such a precarious financial position that any successful legal action against them would likely have forced the line through Quainton Road to close, severing the Tramway's connection with the national network altogether.

From Stanton St. John the line would stop on the outskirts of Oxford at Headington, terminating at a station to be built in the back garden of 12 High Street, St Clement's, near Magdalen Bridge.

[95] The proposal included a separate set of rails to be provided where the old and new routes ran together, to allow the existing Wotton Tramway to continue to operate independently if it saw fit, but given the Duke's involvement in the new scheme it is unlikely he intended to use this option.

c. ccx), received royal assent on 20 August 1883, and the new Oxford, Aylesbury and Metropolitan Junction Railway Company was created, including the Duke of Buckingham, Ferdinand de Rothschild and Harry Verney among its directors.

[99] Despite cash from Rothschild, the company could not raise sufficient investment to begin construction of the Oxford extension, and had only been given a five-year window by Parliament in which to build it.

[13][114] Meanwhile, the MR were rebuilding and resiting Quainton Road station, freeing space for a direct link between the former Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway and the O&AT to be built.

[116] The MR considered the Manning Wardle locomotives unreliable and from early 1903 they were replaced by a pair of Metropolitan Railway D Class engines;[116] they were sold in 1911.

[121] In 1911 Brill Brick and Tile Works closed, and the siding to the brickworks was removed, with the exception of the rails on the level crossing which in 1984 were still in place, albeit tarmacked over.

[123] Built by Beyer, Peacock and Company from 1864, the A Class had been the first locomotives owned by the Metropolitan (in 1863, the first year of operation, the MR had used engines borrowed from the GWR).

[122] Watkin had intended to run services from Manchester and Sheffield via Quainton Road and along the Metropolitan Railway to the MR's station at Baker Street.

[131] In addition, following the end of the First World War motorised road transport grew rapidly, drawing passenger and goods traffic away from the railways.

There has been no development in the traffic, and as, owing to its volume, it seemed quite feasible for it to be dealt with by means of road conveyance, the Board and the LNER jointly took steps to give notice for the closing of this branch line.

[136] 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 to concentrate on the electrification and improvement of the core routes in London.

[142] On 1 June 1935, the London Passenger Transport Board gave the required six months notice to the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad Company that it intended to terminate operations on the tramway.

The inspection was carried out with great speed, the special train taking just 15 minutes to travel the length of the line from Brill to Quainton Road.

[146] Late that evening, a two-coach staff train pulled out of Brill, accompanied by a band playing Auld Lang Syne and a white flag.

[153] In the 1973 documentary Metro-Land, John Betjeman spoke of a 1929 visit to Quainton Road, and of watching a train depart for Brill: "The steam ready to take two or three passengers through oil-lit halts and over level crossings, a rather bumpy journey".