The Metropolitan and Great Central Joint Railway was a joint railway company that controlled a line extending from

Harrow on the Hill Harrow on the Hill is a locality and historic village in the borough of Harrow in Greater London, England. The name refers to Harrow Hill, ,Mills, A., ''Dictionary of London Place Names'', (2001) and is located some half a mile south of the mod ...

in what is now north-western

Greater London Greater may refer to: *Greatness, the state of being great *Greater than, in inequality (mathematics), inequality *Greater (film), ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film *Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record *Greater (song), "Greate ...

Verney Junction Verney Junction is a hamlet (UK place), hamlet in the parish of Middle Claydon in north Buckinghamshire, England. It is on the route of the former Varsity Line. , the line is disused but is scheduled to be reopened by about 2025 as part of the E ...

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. Owned by the

Metropolitan Railway The Metropolitan Railway (also known as the Met) was a passenger and goods railway that served London from 1863 to 1933, its main line heading north-west from the capital's financial heart in the City to what were to become the Middlesex su ...

and 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 ...

, the railway was nationalised in 1948.

History

On 2 April 1906, the same day that the

Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway The Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway was a railway built and operated jointly by the Great Western Railway (GWR) and Great Central Railway (GCR) between Northolt (in north west London) and Ashendon Junction (west of Aylesbury). It was ...

(GWGCJR) was opened, the Metropolitan and Great Central Joint Railway (MGCJR) was created. This took over the lines of the

north and west of Harrow South Junction, with the exception of the branch to . These comprised the main line between and and the branches from to and from to . The MGCJR was created under the terms of the Metropolitan & Great Central Railway Act, which received Royal Assent on 4 August 1905. Management of the joint line was to be in alternate periods of five years by the two co-owners, the first five-year term being that of the Metropolitan. After establishment of the MGCJR, new stations were opened at in 1910, and at in 1915.

Aylesbury station Aylesbury railway station is a railway station in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, on the London–Aylesbury line from via Amersham. It is from Aylesbury to Marylebone. A branch line from on the Chiltern Main Line terminates at the ...

was leased jointly to the MGCJR and the GWGCJR from 1907. The branch to from was authorised under an Act of Parliament obtained by the Metropolitan on 7 August 1912, but was a MGCJR project. Purchase of land began in 1914, but the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

held up further progress, and the first contract for construction was not placed until December 1922. At the start of 1923, the GCR was a constituent of the newly created

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after LMS) of the " Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At th ...

; and on 1 July 1933, the Metropolitan was a constituent of the

London Passenger Transport Board The London Passenger Transport Board was the organisation responsible for local public transport in London and its environs from 1933 to 1948. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and brand was Lond ...

. Through both these changes of ownership, the MGCJR retained its title, and was listed in the

Transport Act 1947 The Transport Act 1947 (10 & 11 Geo. 6 c. 49) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Under the terms of the Act, the railway network, long-distance road haulage and various other types of transport were nationalised and came under ...

, which nationalised the British railways, as one of the "bodies whose undertakings are transferred to the ritish TransportCommission". In 1993,

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

(now Chiltern Railways) services calling at Moor Park ceased.

Legacy

The route north of Aylesbury was closed to passenger trains in September 1966. The railway line and stations are used today by Transport for London's

Metropolitan line The Metropolitan line, colloquially known as the Met, is a London Underground line between in the City of London and and in Buckinghamshire, with branches to in Hertfordshire and in Hillingdon. Printed in magenta on the tube map, the line i ...

as far as , and

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 ...

provides a service from Marylebone as far as Aylesbury Vale Parkway station, opened on 15 December 2008, north of Aylesbury, about a four-minute journey.

Notes

References

* * * *{{cite web , title=Transport Act 1947 (10 & 11 Geo. 6 ch. 49) , url=http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/HMG_Act1947.pdf , date=6 August 1947 , author=His Majesty's Government , publisher=His Majesty's Stationery Office , location=London , access-date=5 August 2011 , ref={{sfnref, Transport Act, 1947 Great Central Railway Metropolitan Railway Railway companies established in 1906 British joint railway companies British companies established in 1906