page_title: Oxford railway station
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Oxford railway station / History
caption_attribution_description: English: GWR Collett "2884" 2-8-0 No.3823 restarts after a signal stop at Oxford station on a Rowley Regis - Thames Haven oil tanker train, 04/65. Scanned photograph taken with an Halina 35X Super camera.
context_page_description: Oxford railway station is a mainline railway station, one of two serving the city of Oxford, England. It is about 0.5 miles west of the city centre, north-west of Frideswide Square and the eastern end of Botley Road. It is on the line for trains between London Paddington and Hereford via Worcester Shrub Hill. It is a starting point for fast and local trains to London Paddington and London Marylebone, and for local trains to Reading, Worcester, and Banbury. It is also on the north/south Cross Country Route from Manchester Piccadilly and Newcastle via Birmingham New Street and Reading to Southampton Central and Bournemouth. The station is managed by Great Western Railway, and also served by CrossCountry and Chiltern Railways trains. Immediately to the north is Sheepwash Channel Railway Bridge over the Sheepwash Channel.
context_section_description: The Great Western Railway (GWR) opened to Oxford on 12 June 1844 with a terminus station in what is now Western Road, Grandpont. In 1845 the Oxford and Rugby Railway (ORR) began to build its line, starting from a junction at New Hinksey 0.75 miles (1.2 km) south of the GWR terminus. The junction was known as Millstream Junction, and was  between the future sites of Hinksey Halt and Abingdon Road Halt, both of which were opened in 1908. The GWR took over the ORR while it was still being built, and opened the line as far as Banbury on 2 September 1850. For just over two years, trains from Oxford to Banbury started at Grandpont, and had to reverse at Millstream Junction in order to continue their journey.
  The ORR line included a new through station in Park End Street, so when this opened with the extension of the line from Banbury to Birmingham on 1 October 1852, the original Grandpont terminus was closed to passenger services. The old station at Grandpont became a goods depot, but was closed completely on 26 November 1872, the day that the broad gauge tracks were removed north of Didcot. The site of the station was then sold, as was the trackbed from Millstream Junction, some 66 chains (1,300 m) in length.
  Major subsequent changes were removal of the last 7 ft 0 ¹⁄₄ in (2,140 mm) gauge tracks in 1872 and of the train shed in 1890–1. The station was substantially rebuilt by the Western Region of British Railways in 1971, further improvements being carried out during 1974 including the provision of a new travel centre, and the new main building and footbridge were added in 1990 by Network SouthEast.
  Planning permission was granted for the expansion to support the proposed Chiltern Railways service to London Marylebone  and the service was subsequently launched on 12 December 2016. Meanwhile, Oxford City Council, Oxfordshire County Council and Network Rail have developed a masterplan for further development of the station.
  Flood remediation work south of the station at Hinksey saw services at the station curtailed & replaced by buses to/from Didcot Parkway in July and August 2016. This allowed the trackbed to be raised by 2 feet (0.65 m) and new culverts installed to reduce the impact of flooding from the nearby River Thames upon the railway (which has caused service interruptions on several occasions in recent years). Concurrent bridge repair work at Hanborough and signalling alterations at Banbury was also carried out over this period. The £18 million scheme was completed on 15 August 2016.
  The station has always been busy. In addition to current services, formerly there were others over the Wycombe Railway, Oxford, Witney and Fairford Railway, and Blenheim and Woodstock Branch Line.  Through trains from the north to the Southern Railway also typically changed locomotives at Oxford.
  It was for a time known as Oxford General station to distinguish it from the London and North Western Railway's Oxford Rewley Road terminus of the Varsity Line to Cambridge, which was adjacent and came under joint management in 1933. On 1 October 1951 British Railways closed Rewley Road station to passengers and transferred its services to this station.
  South of the station immediately west of the railway tracks is Osney Cemetery, established in 1848 just before the current station site. Nearby is the site of the former Osney Abbey.
caption: A GWR 2-8-0 at Oxford in 1965
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