Varsity line

Varsity Line
Bletchley station, at the midpoint of the line, in 1962
Overview
Type	Heavy rail
System	National Rail
Status	Operational: Bletchley–Bedford, Oxford–Bicester Village Rebuild scheduled: Bicester Village–Bletchley Closed: Bedford–Sandy–Cambridge
Locale	South East England
Termini	Oxford Bedford
Stations	13 open 2 planned
Operation
Opened	1846–1851
Closed	1993 (mothballed Clayton Junction–Bletchley)
Owner	Network Rail
Operator(s)	Chiltern Railways (Oxford–Bicester) London Midland (Bletchley–Bedford)
Technical
Number of tracks	1–2
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge

The Varsity Line (or Oxford to Cambridge line) is the railway route that used to link the English university cities of Oxford and Cambridge, operated successively by the London and North Western Railway, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, and British Railways.

Services were withdrawn from the Oxford–Bletchley and Bedford–Cambridge sections at the end of 1967, even though the line had not been listed for closure as part of the Beeching Axe in 1963. Only the Bletchley–Bedford section remained open for passenger traffic.

Proposals to reopen the route began to gain momentum in the 2000s, led by the East West Rail Link consortium. As of the end of 2016, the section between Oxford and Bicester Junction (for Chiltern Main Line to Marylebone) has reopened; Network Rail has a (funded) schedule to rebuild the mothballed section between Bicester and Bletchley.

In the absence of a rail service, Stagecoach in Bedford's X5 coach service provides a passenger service by road between Oxford and Cambridge via Bicester, Milton Keynes and Bedford.

The line was built in two stages, the first by the Buckinghamshire Railway between Oxford and Bedford in 1845. and the second by the Bedford and Cambridge Railway which opened on 7 July 1862.

Proposed from 1844, the supporting and surveying engineers were George and Robert Stephenson. The engineers' proposal to junction with the London and Birmingham Railway at Bletchley was eventually accepted by the shareholders, with construction starting in December 1845 and completed by September 1846. All operations were subcontracted to the LNWR.