Oxford and Rugby Railway

It was authorised in 1845, but the GWR soon decided to make its own line to Birmingham, and in 1846 it acquired the O&RR; work had not started on its construction.

[4][6][7] The GJR saw that the Oxford and Rugby Railway was in Parliament in the 1845 session, and the GJR altered its own proposal to join the Oxford and Rugby line at Knightcote, north of Fenny Compton, saving several miles of construction.

[9][5] The construction contract for the Oxford and Rugby Railway was let in the autumn of 1845, but there was considerable delay in getting possession of the land, and the contractor failed, and had to be replaced.

The construction work was concentrated on the line as far as Fenny Compton, "at which point, it seems, the Directors had already decided to stop".

[10] Shortage of funds resulted in the progress of the work being very slow, and in 1849 "it had definitely been decided not to proceed farther than the point of junction with the Birmingham and Oxford [Junction] Railway, two miles beyond Fenny Compton, and to abandon the remaining 15+1⁄2 miles to Rugby, on which no work had been done".

[11] In the face of the Grand Junction Railway leaving the consortium to build from Birmingham, 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.

The London and Birmingham Railway (and its successor the LNWR) resorted to a series of spoiling tactics in Parliament intended to undermine the case for the line, but after a considerable struggle royal assent was given to the Birmingham and Oxford Junction Railway Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict.