There are funded plans for the entire line to be re-established by the mid 2020s, partly on a new route and under a new name  – East West Rail.

Initially, passengers alighted here to take a stagecoach on Watling Street to Rugby during construction work on the intervening section, which opened on 17 September 1838,[1] and this temporary terminus was closed.

Subsequently and for a time, Wolverton (a few miles further north and on the main road between Oxford and Cambridge via Buckingham and Bedford[2]) took over as an important stop on the line, as a point where engines were changed over and passengers rested.

A proposed extension of the Bedford line on to Cambridge through Hitchin was submitted to Parliament in the 1846 session but failed standing orders.

The commercial benefit to Bedford, already well served by coastal water-borne commerce over the River Great Ouse, is indicated by the immediate fall of coal prices, from 1s 9d to 11d per cwt.

The junction with Oxford and Rugby Railway at Banbury was not made by the company, and the southwards extension from Verney was abandoned for the time being.

[4] The LNWR provided more than half the capital and worked the line from the beginning, and leased it for 999 years from 1 July 1851 guaranteeing a 4% dividend to the other shareholders.

Its line was to be 89 miles in length, connecting to the Great Western Railway at Wolvercot Junction, just north of Oxford.

In 1853 however the proposed connection (later known as the Yarnton Spur) was approved, and on 4 June 1853 the OW&WR had opened its line as far as Wolvercot Junction, its southern extremity.

The LNWR at once started operating through passenger services between Euston and Wolverhampton, via Bletchley, Yarnton Spur and the OW&WR.

[4] A west to south curve to the Yarnton Spur was opened, allowing direct access from the OW&WR line to the LNWR Oxford station; this was used chiefly for goods traffic, but in the autumn of 1857 local passenger trains used it during a period of exceptionally strained relations between the OW&WR and the GWR.

[10][4] Nevertheless, the goods and mineral traffic from the OW&WR line remained considerable; Lawrence, writing in 1910, said that, "In March last, no fewer than 7,500 coal trucks made use of the loop.

[12] The Great Northern Railway had opened its line from London to Peterborough on 7 June 1850, ultimately giving access to York, and running through Sandy.

[17] In fact the construction significantly overran cost estimates, and the company had to confer with the LNWR (as prospective lessee) about how to raise the extra cash.

The autotrains, and the halts west of Bicester, were finally withdrawn on 25 October 1926, during the General Strike, but competition from road omnibuses had led to a significant decline in rail patronage.

[4] The system continued further east but, in 1959, the autotrains were replaced by diesel multiple units, and the remaining stopping places were given raised platforms.

It was a three-car articulated unit, powered by six 125 hp diesel engines; the design was stylish and futuristic, and included central control of sliding passenger doors by the guard.

Of necessity this was some distance from the capital, both to avoid disruption from heavy air raids, and also to utilise existing lines as far as possible.

[33][30] Crump explains the strategic significance: The combined length of [the Sandy and Claydon curves] cannot have been much more than a mile, but in conjunction with a link joining the Great Western and Southern lines at Staines they provided a route for trains from the Great Northern to run via Sandy, Bletchley, Calvert, High Wycombe, Greenford and Staines on to the Southern.

The same is true of the Claydon curve, which provided a useful route for certain freight flows, and for empty passenger stock moves.

The main line railways of Great Britain were taken into state ownership at the beginning of 1948, pursuant to the Transport Act 1948.

We had … driven … a pretty big nail into Swanbourne's coffin by refusing to put into it any East Coast traffic.

Swanbourne should have been stopped then.If development of passenger business on the line had been envisaged in 1955, that too was suddenly reversed, and in 1959 closure of the entire route was considered.

However the introduction of diesel multiple unit passenger trains in that year substantially reduced operating costs, and the closure idea was rescinded.

In the Beeching Report of 1963,[40] retention of the line was recommended, with only minor curtailment, but in December 1963 closure was once again put forward, as income was only a little over half of operating expenses.

Following public protest, passenger operation on the central section between Bedford and Bletchley was retained (and continues in use as the Marston Vale Line).

[44] The freight-only section between Bicester and Bletchley was mothballed by Trainload Freight in 1993 following the closure of the ARC roadstone terminal at Wolverton.

[45] Until earlier that year, there had been up to three limestone workings from Whatley to Wolverton, plus the daily Avon-Calvert binliner but this had been re-routed via London and Aylesbury.

[45] The Oxford-Bicester section remained open for freight traffic to Bicester Central Ordnance Depot and the reinitated passenger service.

Beginning in 2015, work to revitalise and renew the route began; it hoped that the two university cities will be connected by rail again (as the East West Main Line) before the end of the 2030s.