Great Central Railway
In 1893 another of Edward Watkin's railways, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, had been authorised to build a new 92-mile (148 km) line from its existing station at Annesley in Nottinghamshire south to Quainton Road. Watkin had intended to run services from Manchester and Sheffield via Quainton Road and along the Metropolitan Railway to the MR's station at Baker Street. Following Watkin's retirement in 1894, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway obtained permission for a separate station near Baker Street at Marylebone, and the line was renamed the Great Central Railway (GCR). The new line joined the existing MR just north of Quainton Road, and opened to passengers on 15 March 1899.
Although it served a lightly populated area, the opening of the GCR made Quainton Road an important junction station at which four railway lines met. The number of passengers using the station rose sharply. It had many passengers in comparison to other stations in the area. In 1932, the last year of private operation, the station saw 10,598 passenger journeys, earning a total of £601 (about £30,900 as of 2012) in passenger receipts.
The 10,598 passenger journeys in 1932 made Quainton Road by far the busiest of the Metropolitan Railway's rural passenger stations north of Aylesbury. In comparison, the isolated Verney Junction railway station saw only 943 passenger journeys in the same year, and the five other stations on the Brill Tramway had a combined passenger total of 7,761.
Read more about this topic: Quainton Road Railway Station
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