Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 30, 2010

The Brill Tramway was a six-mile (10 km) rail line in rural Buckinghamshire, England. It was privately built in 1871 by the 3rd Duke of Buckingham as a horse tram line to help transport goods between his lands around Wotton House and the national rail network. Lobbying from the nearby town of Brill led to its extension to Brill railway station and conversion to passenger use in early 1872. Although locomotives were bought, the line had been designed for horses and thus trains travelled at average speed of only 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h). In the 1880s, the Duke of Buckingham planned to upgrade the route to main line standards and extend the line to Oxford, and in anticipation, the line was named the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramroad. The extension to Oxford was never built. Instead, the Brill Tramway became part of London's Metropolitan Railway. In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway became the Metropolitan Line of London Transport, and thus the Brill Tramway became part of the London Underground, despite being 40 miles (65 km) from London and not underground. In 1935 the London Transport management closed the Brill Tramway and the infrastructure was dismantled and sold. Little trace remains other than the former junction station at Quainton Road, now the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre. (more...)

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