In 1862, a Bill was presented to Parliament for a short branch from Cholsey to Wallingford, but this was withdrawn early in 1863, before it had come up for consideration.

[note 1][3][4] Unfortunately, two months earlier, in May 1866, the Overend, Gurney & Co bank had crashed, causing the severest financial crisis of the nineteenth century.

The Curator of the Cholsey and Wallingford Railway Museum attributes the following story to the late Mrs Harold Gale.

Harold and Len Gale, returning from football in Reading, had uncoupled the loco while it waited in the bay platform."

The Cholsey and Wallingford Railway Preservation Society was then formed to conserve the line for tourist services.

It first ran train rides for the public in 1985, with regular advertised services over the full available length of the line beginning in 1997.

[5] The line is the home to several diesel locomotives, including three of British Rail's ubiquitous Class 08 shunters, which are used on most trains.