Upton and Blewbury

Upton and Blewbury is a closed station that once served the Berkshire villages of Upton, Blewbury and West Hagbourne (which became part of Oxfordshire after 1974).

Information
Type:	National Rail (Didcot, Newbury & Southampton Railway)
Opened:	1882
Closed:	1962
Platforms:	2

The station was opened by the Didcot, Newbury & Southampton Railway in 1882 as Upton, it mostly served military camps in the area. Later it became part of the Great Western Railway and was renamed Upton and Blewbury in 1911.

Despite also serving the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell after the Second World War Upton and Blewbury was closed in 1962.

Upton and Blewbury had two platforms with a station building and one and a shelter on the other. To the North of the station were a couple of sidings and a signalbox. The main station building survives today as a residential property.

Upton and Blewbury looking South (KD Collection)

Finchley Road (ZFR)

Finchley Road is a tube station in Camden, North London that serves as an interchange between the Jubilee and Metropolitan Lines.

Information
Type:	Transport for London (Jubilee & Metropolitan Lines)
Station code:	ZFR
Opened:	1879
Platforms:	4

The station was opened as Finchley Road in 1879 by the Metropolitan Railway, it was renamed Finchley Road (South Hampstead) in 1885 though reverted back to it's original name in 1914 [1] when the station was rebuilt [2]. The station had a freight yard though this closed in 1941 (the sidings remained in place until 1953).

The station was heavily rebuilt again in 1938 [3] as new tunnels and lines as an extension of the Bakerloo Line were built to relieve the pressure on the Metropolitan [4]. The Bakerloo Line served the two central platforms with the Metropolitan the two outer ones [5]. In 1979 this part of the Bakerloo Line became the Jubilee Line [6].

Jubilee Line 96ts 96085 arrives at Finchley Road

View up the platform 

Jubilee Line platforms

Looking North

Metropolitan Line S8 21009 arrives

Both Jubilee platforms occupied

[1] Jason Cross, London Underground Guide 2017 (Train Crazy, 2017) p. 124
[2] Vic Mitchell & Keith Smith, Baker Street to Uxbridge & Stanmore (Middleton Press, 2006) Fig. 14
[3] Mike Horne, The Metropolitan Line (Capital Transport, 2003) p. 60
[4] Mike Horne, The Jubilee Line (Capital Transport, 2000) p. 23
[5] Mitchell & Smith, Fig. 15
[6] Mike Horne, The Bakerloo Line (Capital Transport, 2001) p. 69

Butlers Lane (BUL)

Butlers Lane is a stop on the Northern half of the Cross-City Line between Four Oaks and Blake Street.

Information
Type:	National Rail (Cross-City Line)
Station code:	BUL
Opened:	1957
Platforms:	2

Butlers Lane Halt was opened in 1957 by British Railways on a temporary and experimental basis to serve new housing developments in Four Oaks and Mere Green. The station was a success and lost the "Halt" suffix in 1963 when it was decided to keep the station open permanently [1].

The station built with wooden huts to serve as the ticket office (despite being called a halt it was staffed) and shelters on the platforms which were also wooden. The station was closed for about a year from late 1991 to be rebuilt, this coinciding with the electrification of the Cross-City Line. The platforms and ticket office/waiting room were built from brick and stone, the shelters replaced by the standard bus shelter type.

Butlers Lane retains a manned ticket office, though only open part-time. The station is managed by West Midlands Trains.

WMT 323 202 arrives at Butlers Lane

Steps/ramp down to the platform

Station sign

General view of the station, the ticket office is on the right

A Lichfield bound 323 prepares to depart

WMT 323 202 departs

[1] Vic Mitchell, North of Birmingham (Middleton Press, 2014) Fig. 106

Smallbrook Junction (SAB)

Smallbrook Junction is a recent addition to the Isle of Wight's Island Line and was built to form an interchange with the Isle of Wight Steam Railway which had extended their line to Smallbrook Junction. The station opened in 1991 [1].

Information
Type:	National Rail (Island Line) & Isle of Wight Steam Railway
Station code:	SAB
Opened:	1991
Platforms:	2

Smallbrook Junction itself predates the station by some margin, in 1926 the new owners of the railways on the island the Southern Railway installed turnouts and a signal box at the location [2]. Prior to this there had been two separate lines owned by the Isle of Wight Central Railway and the Isle of Wight Railway.

Smallbrook Junction is a basic station with two platforms of wood construction for the National Railway and the heritage line (though some of the heritage line's steam locomotives are younger than the Island Line's Class 483 EMUs!) There is a ticket office on the IOWSR's platform but little else on the station. An interesting feature of the station is that there is no non-rail access to the station, the only way on or off it is by rail. The station is only open when the Isle of Wight Steam Railway is operating.

483 007 has just deposited a load of passengers for the steam railway

A1 Class W11 on the IOWSR's platform

Ivatt Class 2 41298 on the IOWSR platform

483 007 arrives on a Ryde bound service

The Isle of Wight Steam Railway
Opening in 1971 the Isle of Wight Steam Railway runs for nine km between Smallbrook Junction and Wootton via Havenstreet, it's headquarters. The IOWSR has preserved part of what was once the line to Newport, the capital of the island. Although there have been plans to extend the railway back towards Newport roads and houses have now been built across the former trackbed making it unlikely.

The IOWSR maintains an excellent collection of rolling stock at Havenstreet including Victorian and Edwardian era stock from the island's railway past when an extensive network operated.

Stock shed at Havenstreet

[1] R.J. Maycock & R. Silsbury, The Isle of Wight Steam Railway from 1923 Onwards (Oakwook Press, 2006) p. 242
[2] Ibid p. 81

Edgware (ZED)

Edgware is the terminus of the Edgware branch of the Northern Line in Barnet, North London.

Information
Type:	Transport for London (Northern Line)
Station code:	ZED
Opened:	1924
Platforms:	3

The station was opened in 1924 as the terminus of the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway which was extended from Golders Green. Edgware did already have a mainline railway station, a LNER station which closed in 1939.

In the 1930s as part of the New Works Programme it was planned to continue the Northern Line (as it then was) as far as Bushey Heath and the line from Mill Hill East would have continued to Edgware. The Second World War and the shortage of funds afterwards, plus new Green Belt protection laws put paid to these planned extensions though they remained shown on tube maps until 1949 [1].

So Edgware has remained a terminus. It has three platforms, one open air and the other two under a shed roof. There are also stabling sidings for the Northern Line's 1995 Tube Stock when not in service [2][3]. The main station building was designed by Stanley Heaps and has retained it's Art Deco touches.

95ts 51502 just after arriving with a train from Morden

One platform is open air, the other two under a roof

End of the line

Station frontage

Platform 1

[1] Siddy Holloway, Highgate Wilderness Walkabout (London Transport Museum, 2017) p. 14
[2] Jason Cross, London Underground Guide 2017 (Train Crazy, 2017) p. 118
[3] John Scott Morgan, London Underground in Colour since 1955 (Ian Allan, 2013) p. 53