Varsity Line - Historic Route

Historic Route

The line was built in stages, the first being that between Bletchley and Bedford which opened in 1846. The Buckinghamshire Railway opened the section between Bletchley and Verney Junction on 30 March 1850 as part of its line to Banbury. The Buckinghamshire Railway then opened the section between Verney Junction and Oxford on 20 May 1851. The L&NWR worked the Buckinghamshire Railway on a 999 year lease from 1 July 1851, and absorbed the company on 21 July 1879. The Bedford and Cambridge Railway opened in 1862. The L&NWR took it over in 1865 but did not use it to operate a through service between Oxford and Cambridge. Instead it operated separate Bletchley - Oxford and Bletchley - Cambridge services.

During the Second World War, the line carried many trains to and from the Bicester Military Railway. A junction between the line and the Great Central Main Line was built between Calvert and Claydon.

An attempt to close the line in 1959 failed due to large local opposition. The line was not listed for closure in Richard Beeching's 1963 report "The Reshaping of British Railways", but came under pressure from the road lobby and Minister of Transport Ernest Marples, who had appointed Dr Beeching. Patronage of the line fell when the introduction of fast trains from London to Oxford and Cambridge made it quicker for passengers to go via London. At the end of 1967 British Railways withdrew passenger services from the Oxford - Bletchley section and all trains from the Bedford - Cambridge section, a year after it had withdrawn passenger services north of Aylesbury on the Great Central Main Line.

In the 1980s the line between Aylesbury and Bletchley via Calvert was used for transfers of empty passenger rolling stock due to the closure of the London Marylebone depot, thus transferring the maintenance of the Chiltern Lines' Class 115s to Bletchley. This ceased with the opening of a new depot in Aylesbury and the introduction of the Class 165. During 1982 the entire length of the Bletchley-Oxford section, which was still double-tracked throughout, was used for diversionary passenger services while a bridge at Hill Wooton, between Coventry and Leamington Spa was replaced; all Birmingham-London Paddington services scheduled to stop at Coventry being diverted via this route for three days. Also in the 1980s, there were passenger specials to Milton Keynes from Marylebone via Aylesbury and High Wycombe, which picked up passengers at disused Winslow. The last passenger train to operate on this section of the line was the Mothball Tour in 1993, just before the line was taken out of use.

Network SouthEast, supported by Oxfordshire County Council, reopened the Oxford - Bicester Town section to passenger traffic in 1987, and reopened Islip railway station in 1989.