Aylesbury Town railway station
Aylesbury railway station is a railway station in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England. It is a major stop on the London to Aylesbury Line from via Amersham. It is 38 miles (61 km) from Aylesbury to Marylebone. A branch line from on the Chiltern Main Line terminates at the station.HistoryThe first station on the site was opened in 1863 by the Wycombe Railway, which in 1867 was taken over by the Great Western Railway. In 1868 the Aylesbury & Buckingham Railway (later part of the Metropolitan Railway) reached Aylesbury. The Metropolitan Railway connected from Little Chalfont in 1892, and in that year the station was rebuilt. The Great Central Railway reached Aylesbury in 1899 from Annesley Junction just north of Nottingham on its London extension line to London Marylebone.Aylesbury Railway Disaster of 1904Because the station had been a terminus for the Metropolitan Railway the original junction layout on the route to London Marylebone included a sharp curve. This became inconvenient once some Great Central trains began to run non-stop through Aylesbury from 1899 onwards. Rather than change the junction layout to suit faster trains a 15 mph (24 km/h) speed restriction was applied to the curve.On 23 December 1904 at about 3:38 a.m. this curve was the site of the Aylesbury Railway Disaster. The 2:45 a.m. Great Central express newspaper train from London Marylebone consisting of a locomotive, tender, and ten vehicles - three coaches, an assortment of six fish, meat and parcel vans, and a brake van - failed to slow for the curve, and was completely derailed. The locomotive, tender, and the first three or four vehicles mounted the "down" platform of the station, two vehicles mounted the "up" platform, and the rest of the train was smashed to pieces and scattered over a distance of 50 yards (46 m) between the two platforms. The driver of the train, Joseph Barnshaw was seriously injured and died the next day. The fireman George Masters was killed as also were London-based driver David Summers and fireman Josiah Stanton who were travelling as passengers in the first coach on their way to, Manchester.