Metropolitan Railway Takeover of The Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway
In 1837 Euston railway station opened, the first railway station connecting London with the industrial heartlands of the West Midlands and Lancashire. Railways were banned by a Parliamentary commission from operating in London itself, and thus the station was built on what was then the northern boundary of the city. Other main line termini north of London soon followed at Paddington (1838), Bishopsgate (1840), Fenchurch Street (1841), King's Cross (1852) and St Pancras (1868). All were built outside the built-up area of the city, making them inconvenient to reach.
Charles Pearson (1793–1862) had proposed the idea of an underground railway connecting the City of London with the relatively distant London main line rail termini in around 1840. Construction began in 1860. On 9 January 1863 the line opened as the Metropolitan Railway (MR), the world's first underground passenger railway. The MR was successful and grew steadily, extending its own services and acquiring other local railways in the areas north and west of London. In 1872 Edward Watkin (1819–1901) was appointed as its Chairman. A director of many railway companies, he had a vision of unifying a string of railway companies to create a single line running from Manchester via London to an intended Channel Tunnel and on to France. In 1873 Watkin entered negotiations to take control of the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway and the section of the former Buckinghamshire Railway running north from Verney Junction to Buckingham. He planned to extend the MR north from London to Aylesbury and extend the Tramway southwest to Oxford, and thus create a through route from London to Oxford. Rail services between Oxford and London at this time were poor, and although still an extremely roundabout route, had the scheme been completed it would have formed the shortest route from London to Oxford, Aylesbury, Buckingham and Stratford upon Avon. The Duke of Buckingham was enthusiastic, and authorisation for the scheme was sought from Parliament. Parliament did not share the enthusiasm of Watkin and the Duke, and in 1875 the Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire Union Railway Bill was rejected. Watkin did, however, receive consent in 1881 to extend the MR to Aylesbury.
Read more about this topic: Quainton Road Railway Station
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