Staines–Windsor line

History

Proposals and authorisation

The first proposal for a railway to Windsor was made by the Windsor, Slough and Staines Atmospheric Railway (WSSAR) company. Its engineer, Charles Vignoles, proposed two lines, one linking the town to Slough and the other to Staines, which would have crossed the Thames together at Romney Island. A bill was prepared and was given its first reading in the House of Commons on 13 February 1846. After scrutiny by a select committee, parliament declined to consider the scheme any further on 19 May of that year.

In the late 1840s, there was an intense rivalry between the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) and the Great Western Railway (GWR), both of which wanted to be first to open a railway to Windsor. The board of the WSSAR joined with representatives of the LSWR and the Staines and Richmond Railway, to propose a standard gauge line to Windsor via Staines. The new company, known as the Windsor, Staines and South Western Railway (WSSWR), employed Joseph Locke to design the new railway. Locke proposed two separate undertakings: a railway line from Richmond to Datchet via Staines and a loop line connecting Barnes and Hounslow.

In early 1847, the GWR and WSSWR submitted separate bills to parliament for railways to Windsor. The GWR bill was rejected on 11 June, but the second scheme was approved two weeks later. Thomas Brassey was paid £111,700 to construct the WSSWR from Richmond to Datchet. The LSWR agreed to lease the line for a 4.5% capital return and payment of half of the operating profits.

Opening

The first section of the Staines–Windsor line opened on 22 August 1848. The western terminus was at Datchet and passengers for Windsor were required to catch a stagecoach to complete their journeys. The initial weekday service, operated by the LSWR, was 15 daily trains to London Waterloo and 12 trains to Windsor. A provisional agreement between the WSSWR and the Crown to continue the line to Windsor was reached that month, but was not formalised until 14 February 1849, by which time the extension was under construction. Formal powers for the Datchet–Windsor section were granted on 26 June of that year.

The WSSWR hoped to be able to open the extension to Windsor during August 1849, but on the 9th of that month, a crack appeared in one of the girders of the Black Potts Railway Bridge, requiring urgent structural repairs. As a result of the delay, the GWR, which had obtained authorisation for its own line, opened the first railway station in Windsor on 8 October that year. The WSSWR finally opened its temporary terminus in Windsor on 1 December 1849.

The LSWR, which had leased the line from the outset, took over the WSSWR on 30 June 1850. The permanent terminus at Windsor opened on 1 May 1851. Designed by William Tite in the Tudor-Gothic style, it included a private waiting room provided for Queen Victoria and her attendants. The three 700 ft (210 m) platforms were spanned by a single roof and the enlarged signal box had 44 levers. Initially trains stopped outside of the trainshed to allow the locomotives to be detached, before the carriages were hauled by rope into the station. This practice ceased in June 1868, following an accident in which a set of carriages crashed into the buffer stop.

Later history

The two original intermediate stations on the line were rebuilt after their initial openings. In April 1861, Wraysbury station was resited around 26 chains (520 m) southeast of its original site. A new brick-built station building was opened at Datchet on 10 October 1888, replacing the original timber structure.

The Staines West Curve was opened with Staines High Street station on 1 July 1884. It enabled direct trains to run between Windsor and Egham, without the need for reversal. From 1 May 1889, the service was extended southwestwards to Woking via Chertsey. By 1911, there were only four timetabled passenger trains using the curve on weekdays. Staines High Street station closed on 30 January 1916. The Staines West Curve was used again between 1921 and 1930 for a Windsor-Waterloo via Chertsey service, but the High Street station did not reopen. Sunnymeads station, configured with a single island platform, opened on 10 July 1927.

Electric trains began running on the Staines–Windsor line on 6 July 1930. Initially the off-peak service was half-hourly to Waterloo with trains running non-stop east of Richmond. Additional services ran via Hounslow at peak times. From summer 1936, 2-NOL electric multiple units worked the line, but were replaced by 4-SUB units in December 1957. The latter had a brief tenure on the line, being replaced by Class 415 units the following May. Class 414 units were also used on the line from the late 1950s. Class 707 trains were introduced in August 2017 and the first Class 701 units ran in passenger service on the line in January 2024.

Between 1897 and 1940, coal was delivered from the Staines-Windsor line to the Metropolitan Water Board pumping station in London Road, Staines, via a 3⁄4 mi (1.2 km) private siding. The goods yards on the line closed in the early 1960s; the shutting of the yard at Wraysbury in 1962, was followed by the closure of the signal box in March 1965. A major resignalling project took place in the mid-1970s, which resulted in the line being controlled from Feltham area signalling centre. The scheme was commissioned on 8 September 1974 and the signal box at Windsor and Eton Riverside closed the same day. Datchet signal box was retained for three months to operate the level crossing, but closed on 17 December 1974 when control was transferred to Feltham. A second major resignalling project took place in the early 2020s. when control of the line was transferred to Basingstoke rail operating centre.

Connections to the Staines and West Drayton line

The LSWR opposed a junction with the Staines & West Drayton Railway but three separate connections have existed. The earliest was through the sidings of the Staines Linoleum Company and would have required use of turntables or reversals to pass wagons between the lines. During the Second World War, a single-track spur was laid from just south of Yeoveney Halt to just west of the site of Staines High Street station, to provide an alternative should cross-London routes be blocked by bomb damage; this link existed from 23 June 1940 to 16 December 1947 but was little used. The last, laid in 1981 when the Staines West branch was severed by the M25 motorway, was to an oil terminal built in the former goods yard of Staines West station and lasted until 1991.

Proposed enhancements

The AirTrack scheme, proposed in 2008 to provide a new link to Heathrow Airport, included a station near the site of the former Staines High Street station. The Windsor Link Railway also proposed a route for southern rail access to Heathrow, as well as linking the line to Slough via a tunnel in Windsor.