The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (OW&WR) was a railway company in England. It built a line from Wolvercot JunctionThe nearby settlement is spelt Wolvercote and a later station on the LNWR Bicester line follows that spelling. The OW&WR and GWR consistently used the spelling Wolvercot. near Oxford to Worcester, Stourbridge, Dudley and Wolverhampton, as well as some branches. It was known locally as the "Old Worse & Worse" due to the perpetual mismanagement of the line leading to poor public perception, and due to the acronym of its name (OW&W).
Its main line was opened in stages between 1852 and 1853. When the West Midland Railway (WMR) was formed by amalgamation in 1860, the OW&WR was the dominant partner, but the West Midland company amalgamated with the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1863. Several branches and extensions were built in the West Midlands, and the main line was developed as an important trunk route. Much of the original main line is in use at present.
Background In 1841 the GWR opened its first main line between London and Bristol. It was engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the track was on the broad gauge, in contrast to most of the railways already in existence in Great Britain. The broad gauge would, Brunel argued, give greater stability to trains running at speed. In 1844 a branch line from Didcot to Oxford was opened, preparatory to extending the GWR system into the West Midlands. It too was designed by Brunel, and used the broad gauge.
Birmingham and the industrial area of the Black Country were already served, by the London and Birmingham Railway of 1838, and the Grand Junction Railway (GJR). The GJR had opened in 1837, and ran north from Birmingham, skirting Wolverhampton to reach the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
Approaching Birmingham from the south was the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway, opened in 1840; it bypassed Worcester at some distance. In 1845 it became part of the Midland Railway, and linked with the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, forming a through route to Bristol, although with a break of gauge at Gloucester initially.P J Long and W V Awdry, The Birmingham and Gloucester Railway, Alan Sutton Publishing, Gloucester, 1987, C G Maggs, The Bristol and Gloucester Railway and the Avon and Gloucestershire Railway, The Oakwood Press, Witney, second edition 1992,
The opening of these lines gave an enormous impetus to the heavy industry of the areas they served, representing a considerable move forward from the canal-based transport that had formerly been a near-monopoly. At the same time, the limited network generated a demand for further lines serving areas remote from the existing lines, and if possible competition.John Boynton, The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway, Mid England Books, Kidderminster, 2002,
Proposal Against this background, there was considerable interest in a railway crossing the Black Country to Wolverhampton, its largest town. A line from Oxford could be made, running through Worcester, Kidderminster and Stourbridge to Wolverhampton, and this would connect into a great many locations of industry. The proposed line fell naturally into the Great Western Railway's area of dominance, and Brunel was commissioned to undertake a survey for a broad gauge line.
A prospectus was issued on 22 May 1844; the capital of the company was to be £1,500,000, and negotiations were in hand to lease the line on completion to the Great Western Railway. In fact this was provisionally agreed in September; the lease term was to be 999 years; the GWR would pay a rent of 3.5% on the capital plus 50% of the profits.The arrangement appears to have been provisional only, and was not formalised, but the GWR subscribed £375,000 to the subscription list.
The necessary bill incorporating the company went to the 1845 session of Parliament, and received royal assent as the (8 & 9 Vict. c. clxxxiv) on 4 August 1845.E. T. MacDermot, History of the Great Western Railway: volume I: 1833 - 1863, part 1, published by the Great Western Railway, London, 1927Herbert Rake, The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway, in the Railway Magazine, January and February 1913
Gauge
The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway Act 1845 required the track gauge to be the same as on the GWR: the broad gauge, but with qualifications.
The line was to start from a junction off the mixed gauge Oxford and Rugby Railway immediately north of Oxford, at Wolvercot Junction.The Oxford and Rugby Railway was authorised on the same day as the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway.
However, at the northern end it was to terminate by a junction on to the Grand Junction Railway at Bushbury Junction.Bushbury, from Boynton, page 10. The junction would leave OW&WR trains directed away from Wolverhampton, even though it was the most important town in the area. On page 12 Boynton refers to the junction as being proposed "on the edge of the town, at Wednesfield Heath." The Grand Junction was a solidly narrow (standard) gauge railway, and any "junction" must have been a transhipment point. The waters were muddied by a possible change of heart by the GJR. They had relied on the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) for access to London, but relationships had soured when the L&BR planned amalgamation with the Manchester and Birmingham Railway. Fearing that this would bypass their own line, the GJR flirted with the idea of converting to the broad gauge, or at least mixed gauge. This would give it access to London over the , by-passing the .
Webster says that this alarmed the , but "whether the Grand Junction Board ever seriously contemplated relaying their tracks with the broad gauge is extremely doubtful."Mark Huish of the told shareholders: "The question at issue has been represented as one entirely of Broad and Narrow Gauge; upon this point the Directors may observe that they do not anticipate any inconvenience whatever to arise from the introduction of the Broad Gauge among the Narrow Gauge lines, or a mixture of gauges on the same line. On the contrary, looking at express trains running at high speed, which are now being introduced on the leading roads, they deem it probable that many Companies possessing trunk lines on the Narrow Gauge principle may find it their interest to adopt both; and the Directors have ascertained the perfect practicability of adding the Broad Gauge on the Grand Junction at a very reasonable cost."Norman W. Webster, Britain's First Trunk Line': the Grand Junction Railway, Adams and Dart, Bath, 1972, , pages 134 and 135
The next issue was that the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway had been built passing at some distance from Worcester, a fact that had caused resentment in the city. A spur at Abbots WoodLater spelt Abbotswood. between the two lines would enable B&GR trains to reach Worcester, and it was contemplated that a connecting line from Droitwich to the B&GR line at Stoke Works would form a loop line for the B&GR. The B&GR was a narrow (standard) gauge line, and the loop line would need to be mixed gauge.
Construction
Initial cost escalation In 1846, Francis Rufford, the chairman of the OW&WR saw that the inflation of construction costs brought about by the railway mania, now at its height, meant that the £1.5 million estimate they had used would be inadequate, and he asked the GWR to increase its rent in proportion to the anticipated cost, thought to be £2.5 million at least. The GWR was not immediately opposed to this, and the OW&WR may have understood that the GWR had formally agreed. The OW&WR board improperly represented to prospective shareholders that the GWR guaranteed 4% interest on the whole construction cost whatever that might prove to be, and this led to soured relations between the two companies for a long period later on. (In August 1847 when the OW&WR found itself once again embarrassed financially, it asked the GWR to raise the interest rate to 5%, increasing the bad feeling.)E. T. MacDermot, History of the Great Western Railway: volume I: 1833 - 1863, part 2, published by the Great Western Railway, London, 1927
In 1847, a review of the northern termination of the line was made; rather than simply join the Grand Junction at Bushbury, a spur would be added to reach a proposed joint station at Wolverhampton, shared with the Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Dudley Railway and the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway.
This was authorised by the (11 & 12 Vict. c. cxxxiii) of 14 August 1848; the act also authorised a further million pounds of capital, to be raised by preference shares. As the economy was recovering from the post-mania depression, the French Revolution of 1848 plunged public confidence into turmoil, and for the time being construction ceased due to lack of money. A shareholders' committee was appointed, alarmed at the repeated deferral of construction, and opening of the line. They thought that a further £1.5 million would be needed to complete the line, and they recommended a drastic curtailment of the extent of the construction for the time being. The Board of Trade heard of this and sent Captain Simmons to investigate. His report of 27 November 1849 resulted in the Board of Trade instructing the Great Western Railway to complete the line itself. The 1845 act had authorised the GWR to do so, but the Board of Trade had no power to compel them. Matters stalled for the time being.
Use of trackbed of Shipston-on-Stour line The Stratford and Moreton Tramway had been built, opening between Stratford-upon-Avon and Moreton, opening in 1826. It was a horse-operated toll tramway, although there had been grand ideas of continuing to London. An extension to Shipston-on-Stour was opened in 1836, this time with the intention of extending to Coventry. The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway Act 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. clxxxiv) authorised the new railway to take over the tramway on a perpetual lease; it had debts then of over £48,000.
The Stratford section fell into disuse about 1880, but local people agitated for the Shipston part to be modernised, and it was converted by the GWR into a conventional railway, opening on 1 July 1889, with locomotive operation. It was therefore the Shipston-on-Stour branch of the Great Western Railway.E T MacDermot, History of the Great Western Railway: volume II: 1863 - 1921, published by the Great Western Railway, London, 1931 The sharp curves of the tramway alignment made it a slow journey, but passenger operation continued until 8 July 1929. Goods operation continued until closure on 3 May 1960.
Midland Railway and a branch to Worcester When the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway was built, its route avoided Worcester by some distance, and this remained a sore point with the city. The Midland Railway had taken over the B&GR in 1846. The OW&WR proposed route crossed the B&GR line at Abbot's Wood, and by agreement the Midland Railway built a short spur between the two linesAbbot's Wood Junction to Norton Junction. and laid narrow (standard) gauge track on the OW&WR alignment as far as a temporary station at Tallow Hill, near Shrub Hill in Worcester. It was in effect a single line branch; it opened to Midland Railway trains on 5 October 1850. There were five trains to Bristol daily and six to Birmingham (Curzon Street); the latter journey took over two hours.