GeoGraph - photograph every grid square

Railway line & former railway junction

This photograph marks the site of Grendon Underwood Junction, and the railway line was once part of the Great Central Railway, which when it opened in 1899 was the last main line twin track railway to be built. The line ran between Sheffield, Nottingham and London Marylebone, see Link. Much of the line was closed in 1966, but this single track stretch between Claydon Junction, and Quainton Road, about 4km away in the direction of the picture, remains. It is used by four freight trains a day from Brentford in London carrying containerised household waste to the landfill site at Calvert just before Claydon Junction, see SP6923 : Waste transfer station, Calvert Landfill Site.

From this point, an alternative route to Marylebone via High Wycombe was constructed to avoid sharing the main line with the Metropolitan Railway via Aylesbury, but this was largely dismantled in the late 1960s, and only the trackbed can now be seen in this photo curving off to the right in the middle distance. Part of this line was still in use until the mid 90s by a weekly freight train to serve a fertiliser depot just north of the A41 near Woodham.

Here is a photo from 1904 of this junction in much the same position as this photo with the alternative line to High Wycombe off to the right not yet complete, Link. The Grendon Underwood Junction signal box of 1904 contrasts with the sad little wooden hut on the other side of the line in 2007.