Verney Junction railway station 2.2

Verney Junction was an isolated station at a four-way railway junction in Buckinghamshire, open from 1868 to 1968; a junction existed through the site without a station from 1851.The first line to open on the site was the Buckinghamshire Railway, which opened a line from Bletchley to Banbury in 1850; a line branching west to Oxford followed in 1851. This formed an east-west link from Oxford to Bletchley and Cambridge passing through Verney Junction and this, known as the Varsity line, became the busiest line through the site, leaving the line to Banbury as a relatively quiet branch. The station opened in 1868 concurrently with the opening of the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway (later owned by London Underground) towards Aylesbury and London. Soon after the Buckinghamshire Railway became absorbed into the London and North Western Railway.The lines south to Aylesbury closed to passengers in 1936 and the line to Buckingham in 1964, but the station remained open until the Oxford-Cambridge line closed to passengers in 1968. The track was singled and then mothballed, but a disused track has remained through the station site. The line between Oxford and Bletchley is to be reopened by 2019, but because of its isolated location Verney Junction will not be reopened.While never very busy, Verney Junction was a local interchange point for a century from which excursions as far as Ramsgate could be booked. Situated from Baker Street, the station is one of London's disused Underground stations and, although it never carried heavy traffic, the Aylesbury line was important in the expansion of the Metropolitan Railway into what became Metro-land.