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Vital wartime supplies arrived at station
The railways were vitally important to Oxford - and the rest of the country - during the Second World War.
The London Midland & Scottish railway station - better known as Rewley Road - was busy with both passengers and freight. While the Great Western station next door handled trains to London, the South Coast, the north and west, the LMS provided eastbound services to Bicester, Bletchley and beyond.
The extensive marshalling yards were in constant use, bringing much-needed food, clothing and fuel to the city in wartime.
The history of the Rewley Road station, which has now been rebuilt at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre at Quainton, near Aylesbury, is told in a new book, A Triumph of Restoration, by Lance Adlam and Bill Simpson.
The station, planned by the then London North Western Railway, was based on the design of Crystal Palace, the huge Palace of Glass' constructed in London's Hyde Park to the Great Exhibition in 1851.
The station opened on May 20 that year, and one of the first trains was an excursion to the Great Exhibition, which attracted 400 passengers paying 3s 6d return, a journey that took two and a half hours.
The station, which closed in 1951 when all services were transferred to the former GWR platforms, had an undistinguished spell as an engine men's hostel, a tyre and exhaust depot and a car rental centre.
In the 1990s, Oxford University bought the land to build the Said Business School and offered the building to a railway society.
After much effort, the station is now restored to its former glory at Quainton.
Triumph of Restoration is published by Lamplight Publications, price £9.95.
4:19pm Tuesday 15th July 2008
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