Aylesbury–Princes Risborough line

Stations2ServiceTypeRural branch line, Heavy railSystemNational RailServices1Operator(s)Chiltern RailwaysRolling stockHistoryOpened1863TechnicalNumber of tracks1Track gauge1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gaugeOld gauge7 ft (2,134 mm)

Route map
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v t e Aylesbury–Princes Risborough line
Legend
to Aylesbury Vale Parkway Aylesbury London–Aylesbury line South Aylesbury Halt B4009 road Little Kimble Monks Risborough A4129 road B4444 road Chiltern Main Line to Banbury Former Wycombe Railway to Oxford Princes Risborough Chiltern Main Line to High Wycombe

The Aylesbury–Princes Risborough line is a rural branch line between Princes Risborough and Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, England. The line is single track throughout with a maximum speed of 40 mph (64 km/h).^[1]

History

The line was built as a single track broad gauge branch of the Wycombe Railway in 1863. The branch became part of the Great Western Railway when the latter took over the Wycombe Railway in 1867. The GWR converted the line to standard gauge in 1870. The branch was incorporated into the newly formed Great Western and Great Central Joint Railway in 1906. Network SouthEast made the branch part of its Chiltern subdivision in the 1980s.

Traffic

Passenger services are now operated by Chiltern Railways. The line is regularly used by freight services operated by DB Cargo UK and Freightliner. The trains, referred to as "binliners", carry waste from London to a waste facility near the site of the former Great Central Railway station at Calvert. For this purpose, during Chiltern Railways' Evergreen 2 project the line was resignalled with two new signals at Little Kimble, one for each direction of travel.^{[citation needed]} These allow two trains to travel in the same direction, thus allowing a passenger service to follow the freight train or vice versa.

Services

The current timetable, produced for December 2019, offers one passenger service per hour in each direction, with services outside the weekday morning and evening peaks operating directly between Aylesbury and London Marylebone.^[2] In peak periods a shuttle service operates between Aylesbury and Princes Risborough, with a change onto connecting services needed at Princes Risborough for onward travel towards London.^[2] Not all services stop at Little Kimble.

References

External links

• Route plan 16: Chilterns (2007) Network Rail.
• Route plan 16: Chilterns (2008) Network Rail.
• Route plan 16: Chilterns (2009) Network Rail.