‘Direct’ it may have been, but it was little more than a minor secondary route. In his book on the line, The Banbury and Cheltenham Railway, 1887-1962 (OPC Railprint, 1978), Jim Russell calls it ‘one of the GWR’s longest branch lines’. The Banbury & Cheltenham Direct Railway was, however, cut through a scenic part of England, and 60 years after its closure it still has a substantial following and even its own Facebook page.
From Banbury, trains to Cheltenham first headed in the wrong direction, south-east, up the GWR main line to Kings Sutton, where the B&CDR branched west through Adderbury, Bloxham and Hook Norton, to the substantial market town of Chipping Norton. Continuing south-westwards, it crossed the Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton line at Kingham. It then served the picturesque…
