Winslow railway station

Winslow railway station is a former railway station which served the town of Winslow in north Buckinghamshire, England. It is on a disused section of the Varsity Line; a single track remains in place but is rusted and overgrown far beyond use. The site of the original station is mostly covered by a small housing development, although the platforms still remain in a very poor state. It is planned to reopen the station on a different site in 2017 as part of the East West Rail Link.

Early days
Winslow was opened by the Buckinghamshire Railway on 1 May 1850 as part of its line from Banbury to Bletchley. The line was worked from the outset by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) which absorbed the Buckinghamshire Railway in 1879. The line was subsequently extended westwards to Islip, to a temporary station at Banbury Road and then to Oxford, opening throughout on 20 May 1851. Unlike the other stations on the line with the exception of Islip and Bicester Town, Winslow's station was conveniently situated in relation to village of Winslow which it served and which comprised 1,805 inhabitants at the time. It was situated at the end of Station Road which branches off from the High Street. The coming of the railway had a significant impact on the village, resulting in its northward extension and the opening of a "Railway Inn".

Winslow was regarded as an important station on the line, possibly even more so than Bicester, for it was the place where trains for Banbury and Oxford were joined and divided in the early years, even after the opening of Verney Junction. Passenger facilities were provided on each platform which were more generous than those found elsewhere on the line. Architecturally, the brick station resembled the stone structure provided at Bicester, particularly its twin symmetrical gables covered by ridge tiles and its portico. A stationhouse was also provided for the stationmaster and this was situated just beyond the main station building and arranged around a circular driveway at the centre of which was a large horse chestnut tree. A coal yard lay to the east of the station, while a goods yard was provided to the west. Winslow Gasworks opened in 1880 on a site immediately to the south of the coal yard; it received up to 1000 tons of coal annually via the yard, although it was not rail-connected. The station was lit by gas until the trains cease to call.

A typical LNWR goods shed was constructed in the goods yard and contained a crane with a 5-ton capacity. Like Bicester, Winslow had its own signal box with 34-levers which controlled the section between Verney Junction and Bletchley No. 1 box. Two water columns - the only ones between Bletchley and Oxford - supplied water to locomotives, these tanks taking their supply from a large 70000 impgal iron water tower which pumped water from a nearby brook. The columns, which had been manufactured by Edward Bury, may have pre-dated the station itself. Beneath the water tower was a brick engine house and boiler room which also served as accommodation for an LNWR engine driver. Until 1907 there was a long refuge siding trailing off the Up main line behind the Up platform which allowed freight trains stopping to take water to allow a following passenger train to pass. A second siding from the Up main line further to the west led to a turntable; this had been removed by 1925. Three further sidings trailed from the Down line; two for coal and one serving a separate side end loading dock for horses. A final siding served a milk dock at the rear of the Up platform.

Closure
In the wake of the abandonment of a plan to develop the Varsity Line as a freight link from the East Coast ports to South Wales, including a marshalling yard near Swanbourne, Winslow station was listed for closure in the Beeching report which called for the closure of all minor stations on the line. This followed the introduction of diesel trains in an attempt to reduce operating costs after a failed proposal to close the line, which had been put forward in 1959 but successfully resisted by local authorities. With the line's expenses amounting to £199,700 against a revenue of £102,200 in 1964, Winslow duly closed to goods traffic on 22 May 1967 and to passengers on 1 January 1968; the signal box followed one month later. The delay in closure was the result of replacement bus services not being able to handle the projected extra traffic. The line between Oxford and Bletchley was closed to passengers and local goods services, and later singled in 1985.

Winslow station continued to be used during the 1980s for "Chiltern Shopper" specials and British Rail handbills survive which show that services called at the station during November and December between 1984 and 1986. The station building, which was by then in a very derelict state, survived long enough to see the first visit of a Class 43 on 13 February 1993, but was demolished very shortly afterwards. The line between Claydon and Bletchley through Winslow was closed and mothballed in May 1993 following the closure of the ARC stone terminal at Wolverton which had provided the line's last source of traffic. The last train over the section was a Class 56 railtour called "The Mothball" which ran on 29 May 1993 from Waterloo to Bletchley via Winslow. Winslow station site was later developed for housing. The platforms remain in an overgrown and degraded state.

Reopening
A new station is planned for Winslow as part of the East West Rail Link project which envisages the reopening of the line between Oxford and Cambridge. On 29 November 2011, Chancellor George Osborne announced in his Autumn Statement that £270 million would be committed towards the construction of the western section of the project between Oxford, Milton Keynes Central and Bedford. The new route is expected to be open in 2017.

A site for the new station has been allocated on the opposite side of the road to the former station site, in a cutting by a proposed industrial estate and housing, at the junction between Buckingham Road and Horwood Road at grid reference. The station will be on the 100 mph section.

From 2017, Winslow should have direct trains to Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford as well as Aylesbury and London Marylebone. The journey time from Winslow to Oxford is estimated at 27 minutes.

The proposed service pattern has 3 trains per hour (tph) calling at Winslow in each direction:
 * 1tph to/from Reading;
 * 1tph to London Marylebone via Aylesbury and High Wycombe (an extension of the Chiltern Railways' service to Aylesbury Vale Parkway);
 * 1tph to Bedford Midland/Bletchley.