Oxfordshire Ironstone Railway

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The Oxfordshire Ironstone Railway was a standard-gauge industrial railway that served an ironstone quarry near the village of Wroxton in Oxfordshire. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

History

The OIR linked the quarry with the Great Western Railway about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) to the east at a junction just north of Banbury. [4] [2] The line was opened between 1917 and 1919 [5] and closed in 1967; [5] the track was removed between 1967 and 1968. The quarry was heavily worked in the Second World War. [6] The line also served the Banbury Alcan works at one point. [7] The popular footpath from Drayton to Drayton Lodge crossed the railway at Drayton Crossing. [8]

Wroxton Central Ironstone Quarry [9] was opened by 1919, closed and filled in 1967. Langley Ironstone Quarry was built near Balscot by 1926, and was closed and filled during 1943 when it ran out of ironstone. [10] [11] Dyke Lane Bridge was built in 1940 and abandoned in 1967. [2] [10] [11]

The line was extended to the Balscote Quarry which was worked between 1956 and its closure in 1967. [12] Balscote Quarry, a shorter-lived working, was built by 1956, but closed and filled in 1967. [2] [12] [4] A newer quarry close by its former site is now served by road haulage only.

The mine buildings, manager's house and workers' halt are now a small set of new light industrial buildings, built circa 2006–2008. [5] [4] The track works' permanent way huts (p-huts) [4] still stood at Drayton in 2007 and Horley in 2002. [4] A few old OIR fence posts/gates remain to this day along the route. Banbury's Ruscote and Hardwick estate's (Daimler Avenue, Devon Way and Longelandes Way) [4] are also built over a large part of its route, including most of the former Pen Hill farm grading works (Longelandes Way). Other built over places include the proposed minor Pin Hill maintenance depot (Pin Hill Road) [13] and major active Pen Hill maintenance depot (Beaumont Road). [4] [14] [15] Despite the development that has occurred north of Banbury since closure, much of the line of the route can be walked today. [16]

Locomotive fleet

The OIR operated its own fleet of 0-6-0 T and 0-6-0 ST steam locomotives built by Hunslet, Hudswell Clarke, Peckett & Sons and 0-4-0 ST s built by Hudswell Clarke, Hunslet, W. G. Bagnall and Peckett & Sons. There was also a vertical boiler locomotive supplied by Sentinel. The earliest locos carried names associated with Oxford University such as "The President" and "The Dean". Later locos carried boys and girls names, typically the 0-6-0 locos had male names eg "Graham" and "Frank" and the 0-4-0 locos had female names eg "Betty" and "Jean". [17]

In the 1960s, the railway also purchased thirteen Rolls-Royce Sentinel diesel-hydraulic locomotives fitted with Rolls-Royce C range engines. [18] Several of these Sentinel locomotives are still in existence, with "Betty", "Jean" and "Graham" at the Rocks By Rail Museum, [19] "Barabel" at the Nene Valley Railway, [20] and "Joan" at the East Somerset Railway. [21] All five preserved locomotives are in operational condition.[ citation needed ]

Local geology

Many heavy clay and Ironstone deposits surround Banbury and Wroxton. [3] [22]

The Edge Hill Light Railway connection

The firm behind the Oxfordshire Ironstone Railway was one of the backers of the ill-fated 1920–1922 Edge Hill Light Railway. [23]

There was talk of reopening the Edge Hill Light Railway early in World War II but the Oxfordshire Ironstone line was considered adequate to serve the area's requirements. [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. ↑ "Geograph:: Fields on the site of the old Langley... © Oliver Dixon cc-by-sa/2.0". www.geograph.org.uk.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Ironstone Enquiry Pictures". Deddington History. 2004. Retrieved 30 January 2019.
  3. 1 2 "Take a ride on our lost railways". Oxford Mail. 14 December 2009. Retrieved 30 January 2019.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Old-Maps - the online repository of historic maps - home page". www.old-maps.co.uk.
  5. 1 2 3 "Geograph:: Oxfordshire Ironstone Quarries... © David Stowell cc-by-sa/2.0". www.geograph.org.uk.
  6. ↑ "Geograph:: Course of Ironstone quarry railway © David Stowell cc-by-sa/2.0". www.geograph.org.uk.
  7. ↑ "Geograph:: Site of bridge over the dismantled... © Roger Templeman". www.geograph.org.uk.
  8. ↑ "Geograph:: Site of Drayton Crossing © David Stowell cc-by-sa/2.0". www.geograph.org.uk.
  9. ↑ "Oxfordshire Ironstone Company remembered – rocks-by-rail.org".
  10. 1 2 "Geograph:: Site of Langley Ironstone Quarry © David Stowell cc-by-sa/2.0". www.geograph.org.uk.
  11. 1 2 "Geograph:: Dyke Lane Bridge © David Stowell". www.geograph.org.uk.
  12. 1 2 "Geograph:: Stratford Road bridge and Balscote... © David Stowell". www.geograph.org.uk.
  13. ↑ "House Prices in Pinhill Road, Banbury, Oxfordshire, OX16". www.rightmove.co.uk.
  14. ↑ "Property to let in Penhill Industrial Park, Beaumont Road, Banbury, Oxfordshire, OX16 1RW - £10000 pa". www.brown-co.com.
  15. ↑ "Actecs - Banbury, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom". Yelp.
  16. ↑ Hone, Chris (2017). A Walk Along The Ironstone. Witney: Robert Boyd Publications. pp. 40–45. ISBN   9781908738288.
  17. ↑ Waters, Laurence (1991). Oxfordshire Railways in Old Photographs, a Second Selection. Stroud: Sutton Publishing. ISBN   0-86299-852-2.
  18. ↑ Hone, Chris (2017). A Walk Along The Ironstone. Witney: Robert Boyd Publications. p. 28. ISBN   9781908738288.
  19. ↑ "Home". rocks-by-rail.org.
  20. ↑ "Home". nvr.org.uk.
  21. ↑ "Industrial Diesel Locomotives". East Somerset Railway. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
  22. ↑ "Clay Pits in Banbury". docs.google.com. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
  23. ↑ "Geograph:: Edge Hill Light Railway embankment © David Stowell cc-by-sa/2.0". www.geograph.org.uk.
  24. ↑ "A Short History of the Edge Hill Light Railway". The Colonel Stephens Railway Museum. Archived from the original on 17 December 2010. Retrieved 30 January 2019.

Books

Historic imagery of the site

52°04′N1°24′W / 52.067°N 1.400°W / 52.067; -1.400

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