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Railway junction near Calvert

This railway junction, named Claydon L& NE Junction by Network Rail, is used by freight trains, currently one a day, carrying containerised household waste from Bath and Bristol to the landfill site at Calvert, SP6924 : Waste transfer station, Calvert Landfill Site, Calvert. The train, known irreverently as the Avon Binliner, comes from behind the camera, and has to go the transfer station for the landfill site which is 1.5km to the south along the line forking back to the right. The train therefore has to pull forward beyond the junction, the engine is uncoupled and runs ahead to beyond the distant bridge and then runs back along the other track. The engine is coupled up to this end of the train and then pulls the train down the line to the right. Here is a photograph of an engine carrying out this manoeuvre looking back from the distant bridge, Link. This complicated manoeuvre arises from the history of these lines.

The track ahead, and the track behind the camera is all that remains of the double track Oxford to Bletchley railway that was constructed by the Buckinghamshire Railway Company and which opened on 1 October 1850, see SP6825 : Railway line near Calvert. In the distance beyond the next bridge, the line becomes a single again, and has been mothballed, SP6925 : Railway line near Steeple Claydon, so there is no access to the landfill site from the east.

The transfer station is on the route of the former Great Central Railway, which when it opened in 1899 was the last main line twin track railway to be built, SP6825 : Dismantled railway. However apart from this short line that comes from the transfer station at Calvert, known as the Claydon Loop, the main line going north from Calvert has been completely dismantled. In fact but for the landfill site it is doubtful if any of these lines would have remained in use.