page_title: Quainton Road railway station
section_title: Expansion of the Wotton Tramway
hierarchical_section_title: Quainton Road railway station / Wotton Tramway / Expansion of the Wotton Tramway
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph taken at Quainton Road station, 2 September 2006 A query has been raised about the "authorship" of this picture. All I can say is that I took it on the date stated as part of the centenary celebrations of the birth of John Betjeman. Hope this helps. IXIA (talk) 21:26, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
context_page_description: Quainton Road railway station was opened in 1868 in under-developed countryside near Quainton, in the English county of Buckinghamshire, 44 miles 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 underpopulated 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.
context_section_description: In late 1871 the residents of Brill, the former seat of the Mercian kings and the only significant town near Wotton House, petitioned the Duke to extend the route to Brill and to run a passenger service on the line. In January 1872 a passenger timetable was published for the first time, and the line was officially named the "Wotton Tramway", but it was commonly known as the "Brill Tramway" from its opening to passengers until closure. The new terminus of Brill opened in March 1872. With horses unable to cope with the loads being carried, the Tramway was upgraded for locomotive use. The lightly laid track with longitudinal sleepers limited the locomotive weight to a maximum of nine tons, lighter than almost all locomotives then available, so it was not possible to use standard locomotives. Two traction engines converted for railway use were bought from Aveling and Porter at a cost of £398 (about £35,800 as of 2020) each. The locomotives were chosen on grounds of weight and reliability, and had a top speed on the level of only 8 miles per hour (13 km/h), taking 95–98 minutes to travel the six miles (10 km) between Brill and Quainton Road, an average speed of 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h).
  The line was heavily used for the shipment of bricks from the brickworks around Brill, and of cattle and milk from the dairy farms on the Wotton estate. By 1875 the line was carrying around 40,000 gallons (180,000 l; 48,000 US gal) of milk each year. Delivery of linseed cake to the dairy farms and of coal to the area's buildings were also important uses of the line. The line also began to carry large quantities of manure from London to the area's farms, carrying 3,200 tons (3,300 t) in 1872. As it was the only physical link between the Tramway and the national railway network, almost all of this traffic passed through Quainton Road station.
  By the mid-1870s the slow speed of the Aveling and Porter locomotives and their unreliability and inability to handle heavy loads were recognised as major problems for the Tramway. In 1874 Ferdinand de Rothschild bought a 2,700-acre (1,100 ha) site near the Tramway's Waddesdon station to use as a site for his country mansion of Waddesdon Manor. The Tramway's management recognised that the construction works would lead to a significant increase in the haulage of heavy goods, and that the Aveling and Porter engines would be unable to cope with the increased loads. The newly established engineering firm of W. G. Bagnall wrote to the Duke offering to hire a locomotive to him for trials. The offer was accepted, and on 18 December 1876 the locomotive was delivered. The tests were generally successful and an order was placed to buy a locomotive from Bagnall for £640 (about £60,700 in 2020) which was delivered on 28 December 1877. With trains now hauled by the Bagnall locomotive (the Kingswood branch generally remained worked by horses, and occasionally by the Aveling and Porter engines), traffic levels soon rose. Milk traffic rose from 40,000 gallons carried in 1875 to 58,000 gallons (260,000 l; 70,000 US gal) in 1879, and in 1877 the Tramway carried a total of 20,994 tons (21,331 t) of goods. In early 1877 the Tramway was shown on Bradshaw maps for the first time, and from May 1882 Bradshaw included its timetable.
  Although the introduction of the Bagnall locomotives and the traffic generated by the works at Waddesdon Manor had boosted the line's fortunes, it remained in serious financial difficulty. The only connection with the national railway network was by the turntable at Quainton Road. Although the 3rd Duke of Buckingham was both the owner of the Wotton Tramway and Chairman of the A&B, the latter regarded the Tramway as a nuisance, and in the 1870s pursued a policy of charging disproportionately high fees for through traffic between the Tramway and the main line, with the intention of forcing the Tramway out of business. A&B trains would deliberately miss connections with the Tramway, causing milk shipped via Quainton Road to become unsellable. The Tramway sought legal advice and was informed that the Duk
caption: Quainton Road station in 2006, showing the platform formerly used by trains to Brill. The building on the platform now houses an exhibition on the Brill Tramway.
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