Oxfordshire Ironstone Railway

Oxfordshire Ironstone Railway

Legend
 (Left arrow Leamington Spa – Banbury Right arrow)
Banbury on the Cherwell Valley Line
Stone terminal
Alcan Factory depot (lifted- late 1950s)
Alcan Factory sidings (lifted- early 1950s)
A423 road bridge (demolished- 1967)
Railway-come-foot bridge after 1967 over a
local brook, replaced in 2007 by a short culvert pipe.
Hardwick signal box (closed and demolished- since 1967)
Hardwick loco sidings and depot (lifted- 1964)
WW2 pill box, demolished by 2000
Hardwick Farm Crossing. (Line lifted- 1967)
Pin Hill workers' halt (demolished- 1967)
Pin Hill maintenance depot (demolished- 1967)
Pin Hill Farm grading plant (demolished- 1967)

Nethrop Fields loco sidings (lifted- 1964)
 B4100 road bridge
Niethrop Fields Signal Box (demolished 1967)
Drayton tool shed/privy (closed- since 1967)
Drayton P-hut/signal box (closed- since 1967)
 Drayton Village Crossing. (Line lifted in 1967)
The bridge over Stor Brook,
replaced in 1967 by a short culvert pipe.
 Farm Lane Crossing (Line lifted- 1967)
Woxton-Hanwell Road Crossing (Line lifted- 1967)
Moor Mill Hill Path Crossing. (Line lifted- 1967)
The Bridge over Horley–Wroxton road. (Demolished- 1968)
Horley signal box (demolished- 1967)
 Horley Village Crossing. (Line lifted- 1967)
Horley tool shed/p-hut (closed- since 1967)
Horley sidings (closed and lifted- 1967)
Wroxton Depot (built by 1925, closed and lifted- 1967)
Friars Hill Sidings(built by 1945, closed and lifted- 1952)
 Drift Lane Crossing\Wroxton Village Crossing. (Line lifted- 1967)
Wroxton worker's halt. (built- 1919, closed- 1967, demolished- 2006)
 Wroxton Central Ironstone Quarry.
 (Opened by 1919, closed and filled in- 1967)
Ragnel sidings (built by 1945, closed and lifted- 1952)
The New Inn spurs and Ragnel mine workings.
 (built- 1952 and 1947, both lifted- 1967)
the Heath Farm workings and Gentra spurs.
(built by 1945 and 1952, both lifted- 1967)
Langley Ironstone Quarry (Built by 1926, closed and filled- 1943.)
Dyke Lane Bridge. Built- 1940 and abandoned- 1967.
Dyke Lane Bridge workings and siding.
Built ~1940-1941, closed 1949, filled in by 1967.
 A422 road.
 Water tower. (built by WW2 and demolished- ~2004-2005)
 Balscote crossing, lifted- 1967)
Balscote Quarry (Built by 1956, closed and filled- 1967)
 Sidings (Built by 1952, closed and lifted- 1967)

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

The line's History

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

Wroxton Central Ironstone Quarry. (Opened by in 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 [8][9] Dyke Lane Bridge was built in 1940 and abandoned in 1967.[2][8][9]

The line was extended to the Balscote Quarry which was worked between 1956 and its closure in 1967.[10] Balscote Quarry a shorter lived warrkingit was built by 1956, but closed and filled in 1967.[2][2][10]

A newer quarry close by 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.[4] The track works' permanent way hut (p-hut) still stood at Drayton in 2007 and Horley in 2002. A few old OIR fence posts/gates remain to this day along the route. Banbury's Ruscote and Hardwick estate are also built over a large part of its route, including most of the former Pin Hill farm grading works.

Train fleet

The OIR operated its own fleet of steam locomotives: 0-6-0T and 0-6-0ST locomotives built by Hunslet and 0-4-0ST's built by Hudswell Clarke.[11] They also purchased two diesel Rolls Royce Sentinel units in the 1960s.[12]

Local geology

Many heavy clay and Ironstone deposits surround Banbury and Wroxton.[3][13]

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.[14]

There was talk of reopening the by then overgrown, but workable line early in to World War II but, it was decided that the Oxfordshire Ironstone line was to be considered adequate to serve the area's requirements.[15]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Geograph:: Fields on the site of the old Langley... (C) Oliver Dixon".
  2. 1 2 3 4 http://www.deddingtonhistory.uk/ironstone/ironstonepics.html
  3. 1 2 "Take a ride on our lost railways".
  4. 1 2 3 "Geograph:: Oxfordshire Ironstone Quarries... (C) David Stowell".
  5. ↑ "Geograph:: Course of Ironstone quarry railway (C) David Stowell".
  6. ↑ "Geograph:: Site of bridge over the dismantled... (C) Roger Templeman".
  7. ↑ "Geograph:: Site of Drayton Crossing (C) David Stowell".
  8. 1 2 "Geograph:: Site of Langley Ironstone Quarry (C) David Stowell".
  9. 1 2 "Geograph:: Dyke Lane Bridge (C) David Stowell".
  10. 1 2 "Geograph:: Stratford Road bridge and Balscote... (C) David Stowell".
  11. ↑ Waters, Laurence (1991). Oxfordshire Railways in Old Photographs, a Second Selection. Stroud: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-86299-852-2.
  12. ↑ http://www.nvr.org.uk/istg/oic.php
  13. ↑ https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:sppuMpvgMg8J:www.oum.ox.ac.uk/learning/pdfs/oxmin.pdf+clay+pits+in+banbury&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgn-Yi-g1qgnV32eBJ5Bi24KzjITDU7kcw_uL-KWGxPnzzgLbT8n9stdyOyB9bxEnAdJs1yyzKFGNwmj0NWApex23PAad6KTYb4lJdKEqLBNLnqifn3yk8Xc8Fp-ya8DY20dPo5&sig=AHIEtbREJLbdRHQ5aetZoqTAk3mdY2Gy0w
  14. ↑ "Geograph:: Edge Hill Light Railway embankment (C) David Stowell".
  15. ↑ http://www.hfstephens-museum.org.uk/other-railways/edge-hill.html

External links

Books

The Ironstone Quarries of the Midlands Part II, The Oxfordshire Field. ISBN 1-870754-02-6. Tonks, Eric (April 1988). "Wroxton Quarries". The Ironstone Quarries of the Midlands. Part II The Oxfordshire Field. Cheltenham: Runpast. p. 146. ISBN 1-870754-02-6.

Historic imagery of the site

Coordinates: 52°04′N 1°24′W / 52.067°N 1.400°W / 52.067; -1.400

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/9/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.