The Wycombe railway was formed in 1845 and was successful in getting it's act in 1846. Construction was slow and the line opened between
Maidenhead and High Wycombe in 1854. In 1873 the Marlow branch was added connecting the town to Bourne End. The original station at
Maidenhead was located on Castle hill but was closed when the present Maidenhead station opened in 1871. The line was 9.75 miles in
length (excluding the Marlow branch) and, in distance from Maidenhead (original station), stations were opened at Cookham (3
miles), Bourne End (4.5 miles), Wooburn Green (5.75 miles), Loudwater (7.25 miles) and on to Wycombe station. There were numerous
underline and overline bridges and one river bridge. Also many level crossings, occupation crossings and foot crossings.
When the mainline from Wycombe to Marylebone opened in 1899, the company continued to run freight over the line with the main London
bound passenger services running over the new line. A snapshot of the line in 1937 shows there were 12 return trains a day between
Maidenhead and Wycombe which were well used by the local population. The line flourished until the 1960's when competition from the
road gradually took all the freight and more people began using private cars more and more. In 1970, British rail asked the
Wycombe council for £60,000 to help keep the line open but no money was forthcoming and consequently the line closed to all traffic
in the same year. The track and signalling were recovered and the stations left to crumble. 116 years of local train services
came to an end. Will it ever re-open? See the feasibilty section.
The first part of this feature covers the still open part of the line from Maidenhead to Bourne End and Marlow.
All rights reserved. Copyright remains with the owner.
All images within these web pages have been reproduced with the
permission of the copyright owner, either by published consent or by direct contact.
All black and white images in this feature
are copyright controlled by Bucks County Council with the exception of the 92220 locomotive at Cores End and those marked
as "High Wycombe Society".
Here on these next few pages I've done a small feature on the closed line between Bourne End and Wycombe. I don't know why, it's just
been a curiosity to me as to where it actually was, and what the stations looked like. So I started researching it and came up with
a wide spread collection of photo's from various websites here and there. There wasn't anything that portrayed the line as a whole,
so I set out to painstakingly put together this feature so that I could look at it as a whole. I have contacted the owners of the
images, sent out loads of emails, received a few back and have finally been able to produce this addition to my website. I'm not the
best website designer in the world so it probably appears a little bit random here and there, but there is a purpose to the progression
of the pages. I have put a links section further down this page so please visit them to see their sites, which you will no doubt find
interesting. Please find the time, as without this kind of sharing spirit it wouldn't be possible to produce this kind of site. One
thing I have learned a lot about on this quest is copyright and ownership laws and I have endeavoured to ensure that every image which
does does not belong to me has been granted permission by the owner or copyright holder to be used. If any mistakes have been made,
please contact me and I will put the situation right.
One thing I like about researching things from the past is the relics and
questions it throws up. I have put together a lot of pictures in the relics section which I am unable to identify at present other
than they were found at the side of the old line and would appear to be connected in some way to the railway. If you're anything like
me, such things will stir the imagination.