page_title: Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway
section_title: The Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway
hierarchical_section_title: Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway / The Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway
caption_attribution_description: English: System map of the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway, England, in 1909
context_page_description: The Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway was a railway company formed at the beginning of 1909 by the merger of three earlier companies:
  the East and West Junction Railway,
  the Evesham, Redditch, and Stratford-upon-Avon Junction Railway, and
  the Stratford-upon-Avon, Towcester, and Midland Junction Railway.
  In 1910 the Northampton and Banbury Junction Railway was purchased and an east-west network was formed which linked routes to Bedford and Northampton in the east to lines leading towards Banbury and Gloucester in the west, by way of Towcester and Stratford-on-Avon.
  The constituent lines had each been built with a view to carrying Northamptonshire iron ore to South Wales and the West Midlands, but they were all unable to finance their planned lines in full. The formation of the SMJR in 1909 was in effect a financial reconstruction, but the management of the combined company also showed a certain flair for generating tourist income, based on the connection with Shakespeare and also the family connections with George Washington. In addition the line developed as a shorter route for Midland Railway goods traffic from the Bristol area to London.
context_section_description: The three railways – the E&WJR, the ST&MJR, and the ER&SJR – were only notionally independent and the reality was given official recognition when an Act of 13 April 1891 established a Joint Committee of the three lines, which could now openly work in concert. The network reached from the Midland Railway at Broom to the Midland at Olney, a west-to-east spread of nearly 60 miles.
  The Midland Railway had been running through goods and mineral trains over the line between Broom and Olney for some time with its own engines, but the very light track on the SMJR line was experiencing serious damage, and from 8 December 1891 the Midland engines were taken off and the through traffic worked by SMJR engines.
  The Joint Committee had made strenuous efforts to sell its lines to a larger railway, ideally the Midland Railway, but notwithstanding the interest shown by the GCR, no company made an offer; the lines were still heavily loss-making and there was a huge backlog of modernisation and upgrading required. The Joint Committee decided to try to raise more money on the market, and to amalgamate their three lines formally, and to create £600,000 of capital. This was authorised by the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway (Amalgamation) Act of 1 August 1908, by which the three railways were formed into the SMJR; the merger was effective on 1 January 1909, and the Joint Committee was dissolved on 21 April 1909. The attractiveness of investing in this new company must have been affected by the fact that the total population between Broom and Blisworth was only 18,000 in 1900: the only large settlements were Towcester (population 2,775) and Stratford-upon-Avon (8,500).
  The Northampton and Banbury Junction Railway joined the new group by being purchased by the SMJR for £53,223. This was authorised by an Act of 29 April 1910, which took effect on 1 July 1910.
  The Chairman of the SMJR was Harry Willmott, and his son Russell Willmott was appointed Traffic Manager and Engineer from 31 December 1913. The Willmotts were energetic in promoting the tourism potential of the line; in addition to the connection with Shakespeare at Stratford, there were considerable areas of natural beauty on the line, and combined tickets were issued for excursions including river trips and refreshments. Moreton Pinkney station was entitled Moreton Pinkney for Sulgrave from 10 January 1913 to build on the connection with the family of George Washington, who had inhabited Sulgrave Manor. The line was promoted in publicity material as The Shakespeare Route, and powers were obtained in 1910 to operate motor buses.
  Certain economies in train mileage were possible after acquisition of the Northampton line, and the opportunity was taken to rationalise the junction at Greens Norton: the junction (and signalbox) was abolished by running a second single track from Towcester; two single tracks ran side by side, and for the expense of the additional track the signalmen's wages were saved.
  For some time the Midland Railway had been using the route for its Bristol to London traffic, in competition with the Great Western Railway which had a more advantageous route. For a time this usage of the Stratford route flourished, but the Midland withdrew the lucrative banana traffic—5,500 tons and £1,100 in revenue annually—from Avonmouth to London, and also coal traffic to London, from 1912 or 1913. The long single line through Stratford with inevitable traffic delays and slow permitted speeds militated against reliable use of the line.
caption: System map of the Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway
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