Oxford, Bletchley & Bedford Line Through Time

This fascinating selection of photographs traces some of the many ways in which the Oxford to Bletchley Line has changed and developed over the last century.

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Although, in pre-Grouping days, Oxfordshire was primarily Great Western territory, the county was also served by the Buckinghamshire branch of the London & North Western Railway, which was in many ways a 'foreign' intruder. The line was completed to its western terminus at Oxford Rewley Road in 1851 and provided an alternative route to London, via Islip, Bicester and Swanbourne, as well as a cross-country link to Cambridge. The Buckinghamshire Railway incorporated a branch to Banbury that left the main line at Verney Junction - at which point the Bletchley route met the northernmost extremity of the Metropolitan Railway from Baker Street. The Oxford to Bletchley line was closed to regular passenger traffic in 1967, but the section of line from Oxford to Bicester was subsequently reopened.