Ashendon Junction in

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

, England, was a major mainline

railway junction A junction, in the context of rail transport, is a place at which two or more rail routes converge or diverge. This implies a physical connection between the tracks of the two routes (assuming they are of the same gauge), provided by ''points'' ( ...

where, from July 1910, the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

's (GWR) London-Birmingham direct route diverged from the

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company was grouped into the ...

's (GCR) main London-Sheffield route. It was near the small village of Ashendon, about 10 miles north-east of

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. The junction was where what is now the

Chiltern Main Line The Chiltern Main Line is a railway line which links London () and Birmingham ( Moor Street and Snow Hill), the United Kingdom's two largest cities, by a route via High Wycombe, Bicester, Banbury, Leamington Spa and Solihull. It is one of tw ...

(formerly the "Birmingham Direct Line" aka "Bicester cut-off" of the GWR), inaugurated in 1910, joined the post-1906 "Alternative Route" alignment of the GCR. It was located north-west of today's ; from

London Paddington Paddington, also known as London Paddington, is a London station group, Central London railway terminus and London Underground station complex, located on Praed Street in the Paddington area. The site has been the London terminus of services pro ...

via Northolt Junction, and from

London Marylebone Marylebone station ( ) is a Central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the Marylebone area of the City of Westminster. On the National Rail network it is also known as London Marylebone and is the southern te ...

via Neasden and Northolt Junctions. It was a high-speed

flying junction A flying junction or flyover is a railway junction at which one or more diverging or converging tracks in a multiple-track route cross other tracks on the route by bridge to avoid conflict with other train movements. A more technical term is "gr ...

carrying southbound GWR trains from Birmingham via Bicester North (

Engineer's Line Reference {{Use British English, date=April 2020 An Engineer's Line Reference (ELR) is a three alpha, or four alpha-numeric, code used to uniquely identify a railway line on the main-line railway of Britain owned, or maintained, by Network Rail but officia ...

NAJ2) on an embankment with a girder bridge over the top of northbound Great Central trains travelling from

on to the 90 mph five-mile link to

Grendon Underwood Junction Grendon Underwood is a village and civil parish in west Buckinghamshire, England, near the border with Oxfordshire. The village sits between Woodham and Edgcott, near the Roman road Akeman Street (now part of the A41), and around north-wes ...

(

GUA) where they rejoined the original

Great Central Main Line The Great Central Main Line (GCML), also known as the London Extension of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MS&LR), is a former railway line in the United Kingdom. The line was opened in 1899 and built by the Great Central Railw ...

towards

Brackley Brackley is a market town and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England, bordering Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, from Oxford and from Northampton. Historically a market town based on the wool and lace trade, it was built on the inters ...

and beyond to the East Midlands and North.

Closure

When the Great Central was closed south of Rugby in September 1966, the junction became redundant and the trackwork was later dismantled. The link to Grendon Underwood was already relatively little used by then, at least as far as passenger trains were concerned, most services from Marylebone towards Brackley and beyond using the original GC route through Aylesbury after long-distance expresses were ended in 1960. Few signs of the old Great Central lines can now be seen from ground level on the site of the junction itself, but the trackbed is clearly visible from the air.Ashendon Junction
at Bing Maps (select "Aerial View"). Immediately north of the site, the Great Central trackbed towards Grendon Underwood is still intact. Little other evidence remains, except that over the best part of a mile the twin tracks of the Chiltern route still diverge at this point, a relic of the old layout preserved when

Chiltern Railways Chiltern Railways, formally The Chiltern Railway Company Limited, is a British train operating company that has operated the Chiltern Railways franchise since July 1996. Since 2009, it has been a subsidiary of Arriva UK Trains. Chiltern Railw ...

redoubled the line between and

Aynho Junction Aynho (, formerly spelt ''Aynhoe'') is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England, on the edge of the Cherwell valley south-east of the north Oxfordshire town of Banbury and southwest of Brackley. Along with its neighbour C ...

in 1998, it having been singled in the late 1960s.

Closure

Notes

Further reading