The Witney & East Gloucestershire Railway

7404 & 7412 at Witney with the 14:25 Fairford to Oxford train
11th June 1962.
Gerald T Robinson

The Witney and East Gloucestershire railway was built and opened in 2 stages, by 2 companies, the Yarnton junction to Witney section of 8 miles 220 yards in length, construction of which started on 19th May 1860, and opened 13th November 1861.
On the 14th January 1873, a 14 mile 220 yard extension from a junction just short of Witney's station to Fairford in Gloucestershire was opened, this gave the line a total length of 21¾ miles, the extension was part of a proposed line from Yarnton thorough to Cheltenham & Swindon, but the route beyond Fairford was never finished.
To facilitate the extension with the East Gloucestershire Railway Co., Witney's old passenger station was turned in to Witney's goods station and a new joint passenger station was built.

· Yarnton (junction with the Oxford Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway)
· Eynsham
· South Leigh
· Witney
· Bampton (Later know as Bampton (Oxon) on the 2nd July 1906 and Brize Norton & Bampton (Oxon) 1st May 1940)
· Alvescot
· Lechlade
· Fairford

· Cassington   (Halt opened by the Great Western Railway in 1936 between Yarnton and Eynsham)
· Carterton   (Station opened in 1944 between Bampton & Alvescot)
· Kelmscott & Langford   (Station opened in 1907 between Alvescot and Lechlade)

On the 1st July 1890 the Great Western Railway Company bought out the shareholders of the two railway companies.

The GWR made improvements to the line, which included the line being one of the first lines in the country to test the Great Westerns, Automatic Train Control System in 1906

The railway passed on to British Railway Board hands along with the rest of the British railway network on 1st January 1948 .
The railway was closed in two sections the first the East Gloucester section on the 18th June 1962 , and the track removed by railway.
And the Witney section was closed on the 2nd November 1970 .

Title:	Author:	Publisher:	ISBN:

The Fairford Branch	Stanley C. Jenkins	The Oakwood Press	0 85361 316 8
The Witney & East Gloucestershire Railway (Fairford branch )	Stanley C. Jenkins	The Oakwood Press	-
Branch Line To Fairford	Vic Mitchell & Keith Smith	Middleton Press	0 906520 52 5
Branch Lines of Oxfordshire (Pages 133 - 146)	Colin G. Maggs	Alan Sutton Publishing	0 7509 1024 0
An Historical Survey of Great Western Stations Vol. 1 (Alvescot, Lechlade,& Witney passenger station)	R.H. Clarke	O.P.C	0 902888 29 3
Oxfordshire Railways In Old Photographs (Pages 106 - 110)	Laurence Waters	Alan Sutton Publishing	0 86299 669 4
Oxfordshire Railways In Old Photographs A Second Selection (Pages 128 - 133)	Laurence Waters	Alan Sutton Publishing	0 86299 852 2
The Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway (Page 38 - Locomotives)	S.C Jenkins & H.I Quayle	The Oakwood Press	-
The Last Days Of Steam in Oxfordshire (Pages 117 - 127 & 137)	Kevin Robertson	Alan Sutton Publishing	0 86299 332 6
More Last Days Of Steam in Oxfordshire (Pages 140 - 147)	Laurence Waters	Alan Sutton Publishing	0 7509 0093 8
British Railways Past and Present Oxfordshire (Pages 91- 105 and centre colour section)	Laurence Waters & Tony Doyle	Past & Present Publishing Ltd	1 85895 059 7
A History Of The Railways Of Oxfordshire Part 1: The North (Pages 169 - 187)	Bill Simpson	Lamplight Publications	1 899246 02 9

Thanks to Gerald T Robinson, Tony Newman And D. K. Jones For the use of their Photographs, Please respect their copyright.

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