Quainton Road railway station

Quainton Road
Up (southbound) platform and the main station building
Location
Place	Quainton
Area	District of Aylesbury Vale
Grid reference	SP738189
Operations
Original company	Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway (1868–1891)
Pre-grouping	Metropolitan Railway and Great Central Railway (1891–1923)
Post-grouping	Metropolitan Railway and London and North Eastern Railway (1923–1948) Eastern Region of British Railways (1948–1962) London Midland Region of British Railways (1962–1963)
Platforms	3
History
23 September 1868	Opened
1897	Re-sited to "London" side of new overbridge.
6 July 1936	Metropolitan services withdrawn
4 March 1963	GCR passenger services withdrawn
4 July 1966	GCR goods services withdrawn
1969	LRPS/Quainton Railway Society operations commenced
1971	special passenger services started
1970s	"Buckinghamshire Railway Centre" title adopted for QRS operations
Stations on heritage railways in the United Kingdom
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Quainton Road railway station was opened in 1868 in under-developed countryside near Quainton, in the English county of Buckinghamshire, 44 miles (71 km) from London. Built by the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway, it was the result of pressure from the 3rd Duke of Buckingham to route the railway near his home at Wotton House and to open a railway station at the nearest point to it. Serving a relatively unpopulated area, Quainton Road was a crude railway station, described as "extremely primitive".

The Duke of Buckingham built a short horse-drawn tramway to transport goods between his estates at Wotton and a terminus adjacent to the station. He extended it soon afterwards to provide a passenger service to the town of Brill, and the tramway was converted to locomotive operation, known as the Brill Tramway. All goods to and from the Brill Tramway passed through Quainton Road, making it relatively heavily used despite its geographical isolation, and traffic increased further when construction began on Ferdinand de Rothschild's mansion of Waddesdon Manor. The plan of extending the Brill Tramway to Oxford, which would have made Quainton Road a major junction station, was abandoned. Instead, the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway and the Brill Tramway were absorbed by London's Metropolitan Railway (MR), which already operated the line from Aylesbury to London. The MR rebuilt Quainton Road and re-sited it to a more convenient location, allowing through running between the Brill Tramway and the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway. When the Great Central Railway (GCR) from the north of England opened, Quainton Road became a significant junction at which trains from four directions met, and by far the busiest of the MR's rural stations.