Olney Station History (1)
This is a history of the railways at Olney incorporating what is currently published and understood and make some points about what remains to be discovered. It does not deal in detail with the station buildings or the sidings, nor with the construction of the line and the navvies who built it.
Olney station, on the Bedford & Northampton Railway, which linked Oakley Junction on the Midland Railway main line north of Bedford with St John's station in Northampton, opened on 10 June 1872. At Northampton trains to and from Bedford shared St John's terminus with Midland Railway services from Wellingborough, which the company operated under running powers that the company enjoyed from 1866 over the LNWR route from Blisworth and Northampton to Peterborough.
The B&NR amalgamated with the Midland Railway with effect from 1 January 1886. The line was always closely linked to the Midland company and at first sight its route of Seventy one and three quarter miles from Northampton to St Pancras might appear competitive with the Sixty five and a half miles of the London & North Western route to Euston via Roade, but although double track, the branch was cheaply laid with gradients that were severe for lowland England. Trains leaving Olney for Northampton had to climb One and three quarter miles at 1 in 70 and then Two miles at 1 in 75.
The passenger service in 1887 consisted of five trains in each direction. It appears that push-and-pull trains (known on the MR as Motor Trains) were introduced on the lines from Bedford to Hitchin and Northampton from about 1908. Each train consisted of an 0-4-4T locomotive coupled between two driving trailers. Push-and-pull operations of this kind ceased in 1917. There were six trains in each direction on the eve of the Grouping in 1922, and six, plus a late night train in each direction on Saturdays, when the line was in the charge of the LMSR in 1938. After 1917 it is likely that trains between Northampton and Bedford were hauled by tender engines until they ceased to use St John's station in 1939. One surviving photograph portrays a tender engine with a train of six-wheeled carriages crossing the Ouse bridge at Olney and another shows Bedford-based MR 2-4-0 No.256 waiting to leave St John's in the early 1930s. In 1939 the LMSR closed St John's station, after which Bedford and Wellingborough trains were diverted to Castle station, calling at Bridge Street station en route. It was probably at this time that two-coach push-and-pull sets comprised of new steel-bodied non-corridor coaches were introduced, similar to those deployed in the late 1930s on branch trains and suburban services from Bletchley.
The passenger service through Olney was busiest under British Railways, when it was operated by push-and-pull trains, most of them worked by Ivatt 2MT 2-6-2Ts (introduced in 1946) from Bedford shed. They included No 41272 which carried a plaque recording that it was the 5000th locomotive built at Crewe. A few trains were worked by other types of locomotive. A photograph taken on 23 July 1951 shows ex-MR 0-4-4T 58071 heading a Bedford train out of Northampton. Some workings in the late 1940s were handled by ex-LNWR Webb class 1P 2-4-2Ts from Northampton (4B) shed, and it is possible that some trains were worked by Stanier 3MT 2-6-2Ts of which 40141/45/46/65 were shedded at Bedford in 1950. A photograph of 8 February 1958 shows 3MT 2-6-2T, No 40182, a long-term Leicester engine, on the 15.08 Northampton-Bedford train.
84005 at Olney with the 11.58am to Northampton Castle - December 1961
In the early 1960s the Ivatt engines were joined by the similar standard class 2MT 2-6-2Ts, of which 84005/6 were photographed working Northampton-Bedford trains on 15 February 1962. In the summer of 1961 there were nine trains in each direction on weekdays and ten on Saturdays. Park Royal four-wheel railbuses were tried on the line in 1958 and in subsequent years a few workings were handled by diesel multiple units, but until closure most trains were steam-operated. Services on 3 March 1962, the last day of passenger train working, were handled by Ivatt 2MT 41225 and Standard 2MT 84005.
While similar locomotives and rolling stock were used on services between Bedford and Hitchin, as far as is known, trains were never timetabled to work through from Northampton to Hitchin, nor to any other destinations beyond Northampton and Bedford.