‘The Stratford Upon Avon & Midland Junction Railway’ (or S.M.J.) was a small independent railway company which ran a line across the empty, untouched centre of England. It visited the counties of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and a little of Buckinghamshire, only existing as the SMJ from 1909 to 1923. In 1923 the S.M.J.became a minor arm of the London Midland and Scottish (L.M.S.), then in 1948 'British Railways'
Gone but not forgotten: "the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth"
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SMJ Forum
Blisworth - Towcester ETS working
Electric train staff equipment had been brought into use between Blisworth and Towcester by 9 August 1910 (date of SMJR minute 451 (TNA file RAIL 674/3)) and presumably the new signal box at Blisworth appeared at the same time. In that this was so…Continue
Started by Richard Maund on Saturday.
Blisworth 1920
SMJ board minute 1474 of 13 April 1921 (TNA file RAIL 674/4) approved that “the following expenditure be charged to Capital” for year 1920: “Blisworth: Signalling and alterations to Permanent Way, Improvements and additional signalling: £800”. In…Continue
Started by Richard Maund on Saturday.
Evesham Redditch & Stratford-upon-Avon Junction Railway 8 Replies
Did this railway (as opposed to the East & West Junction Railway) go into receivership - if so, when. And when did it come out of receivership?Continue
Started by Richard Maund. Last reply by Richard Maund Feb 11.
Bidford-on-Avon 5 Replies
Shall we bring this discussion under the proper heading!So far as the OS plan surveyed 1885, published 1886, is concerned: the OS liked - wherever they could - to have text running parallel to the top and bottom borders. When they came to add the…Continue
Started by Richard Maund. Last reply by Richard Maund Feb 10.
SMJ photos
Two new SMJ related Articles
In June 'Railway Bylines' Barry Taylor continues his 'SMJ Revisited' series covering the Towcester to Ettington section.
In June 'Steam Days' Rex Partridge's 'Related Through Ironstone' describes rail operations at Byfield and Charwelton ironstone quarries.
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Permalink Reply by Barry Taylor on
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Excellent article by Rex with lots of very interesting detail and anecdotes.
However, I wonder if anyone has noticed the other reference to the SMJ in the same magazine?
In his article 'Passing the time at Bradley Lane' Mike page mentions the LCGB 'King commemorative' railtour of 17th November 1962. This worked its way from Paddington to Wolverhampton, back to Stourbridge, and eventually along the SMJ from Fenny Compton, to Towcester and Blisworth behind WR 22xx No. 2210.
Until now we all seem to have supposed that this loco then took the train on from Blisworth, along the WCML to Bletchley, along the Oxford branch, and then down to Marylebone. However, Mike destroys that theory by mentioning that a 4F took the train on from Blisworth, in place of the planned 2P 4-4-0 - it eventually got to London 3 hours late!
I've often wondered why nobody around Northampton reported the WR 22xx on the main line at the time - the answer is that, if anyone was out that late on a November afternoon, they would only have seen a far less noteworthy 4F anyway. Also I wonder what happened to the 22xx at Blisworth? We did occasionally get the odd one at Northampton a few years earlier (strangely one was the same 2210) and I wonder whether it went on shed, or just ran back light to home? Any thoughts?
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