Henley branch line

A branch railway line between Twyford and Henley on Thames
the railway line to Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire

The Henley branch line is a branch railway line between Twyford in Berkshire and Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire. It was built by the Great Western Railway in 1857. Train services are provided by the present day Great Western Railway train operating company. The railway provides access to the River Thames and the Thames Path and is heavily used during the Henley Royal Regatta. It is sometimes referred to as the Regatta Line, and was branded as such by First Great Western and Oxfordshire County Council in 2006. At periods other than the Regatta, many of the line's users are commuters to London, and students attending the nearby Henley College.

From a junction with the Great Western Main Line at Twyford railway station, the line turns north and goes under the A4 main road; the first station is at Wargrave. From there, the line crosses the River Thames into Oxfordshire and proceeds to Shiplake, the second stop on the line. Finally it continues to the town of Henley on Thames, where the line terminates. The speed limit is along most of line, except for the Shiplake bridge, which is for multiple units ( for any other type of train), and the approach to Twyford, which is .

This line is long and is not currently electrified. Electrification of the branch was announced in July 2012 and was started in April 2015; as of that time, markings have been placed next to the track where the overhead wire masts are to go and a significant number of trees have been trimmed or removed; re signalling was also carried out during this time. This is in conjunction with the electrification of the Great Western Main Line. It was announced on 8 November 2016 that the electrification of the branch was being delayed, without a revised forecast date.

The current (2022) passenger train service pattern on the line provides trains at about 30 minute intervals off peak. The first train out from Henley is at 06:05 and the last train back at 00:18. The Saturday service is also half hourly until around 20:15, after which a largely hourly service is operated. This is also the case with the Sunday service, with half hourly services until 19:15. Additional services are provided during Henley Regatta at the beginning of July, with longer trains. All services are operated by Great Western Railway (GWR), using Class 165 and 166 Turbo diesel multiple units. Upon completion of electrification, Class 387 trains will be used, while the Turbos will be displaced to other parts of the GWR network.

Henley had long flourished due to its location on the River Thames, and the road bridge there which formed a focus of road traffic. By the seventeenth century it was an established coaching stop, and it was only in the railway age that the dominance of the town was brought into question.

The Great Western Railway opened its main line as far as a temporary wooden terminus at Twyford on 1 July 1839, extending to Reading on 30 March 1840. Twyford was the nearest station to Henley, but customary transport routes using the River Thames continued in use for the time being. Meanwhile a number of railway schemes to connect the town were put forward, but the most realistic was from the Great Western Railway itself, and after a rejection in the 1846 session of Parliament, a Bill for the branch line was passed on 22 July 1847. It is likely that the Great Western Railway proposed the branch line as a tactical measure to exclude proposed railways from what was their intended exclusive area of influence. The financial situation became very difficult in the following years with money difficult to raise, lessening GWR's desire to build the line. In 1852 the possibility of incursion by competing companies was again in evidence and the powers for construction were due to expire in 1854, so the GWR made application for an extension of time. Interested parties in Henley were growing impatient at the lack of progress toward connecting their town to the railway network, and a meeting was held on 28 October 1852, chaired by the Mayor of Henley, at which it was urged that the railway should be built without delay. A deputation went to Paddington to press the matter with the Chairman of the GWR, and the outcome of that meeting was that the GWR agreed to build the line if the townspeople themselves contributed £15,000; if they did so the line would be built and 3% on their subscriptions would be guaranteed by the GWR. A subscription list was opened and about half the required subscription was taken; but the local people also requested a change in the planned course of the line to run on a more westerly alignment, to enable a direct approach to the Market Place. This risked delay while the line was resurveyed, and time was already tight to achieve deposition of a Bill in the 1853 session. Accordingly it was agreed that the originally intended route should be held to. (The deposited plans showed the termination of the line as being at Friday Street, but in fact the line ended some distance south of that place.)

It was becoming plain that the broad gauge was to be changed to the use of narrow gauge, later called standard gauge. The gauge conversion was carried out in a single night, on 24 and 25 March 1876.</blockquote>

In this period Henley was gaining increasing ascendancy as a favourite leisure resort, and also as a residential area. This brought considerable traffic, and began to pose operating difficulties for the railway. In 1881 the platforms at Henley were extended in length, and additional siding accommodation was provided.

The timber buildings of Shiplake station were destroyed in a disastrous fire on 26 August 1891. The main line in the area had become seriously congested, and an additional two tracks were installed, on the south side of the line. This "quadrupling" was opened for goods trains in November 1892 and for passenger trains on 30 April 1893. In 1894 Henley in Arden station (in Warwickshire) was opened, and to avoid confusion, Henley station was renamed Henley on Thames from 1 January 1895.</blockquote>

From 1900 there were further new direct expresses non stop to and from Paddington in 50 minutes; by 1902 there were five through trains from Paddington, one of them slipped at Twyford. About 20 trains a day ran each way on the branch for most of the twentieth century. A new station at Wargrave opened on 1 October 1900 with two 500 feet (152 m) platforms; a new road from the station site to the village had to be built.</blockquote>

The use of steam traction was also being phased out at this time, and the last steam trains ran on the branch on 14 June 1963. This was followed by the elimination of goods traffic, which ended on 7 September 1964.

As is common for branch lines, the Regatta Line brand has been introduced to ally public awareness of the train services with a tourist/educational stop along its course. The name refers to Henley Royal Regatta, an internationally important rowing competition for which the town of Henley on Thames is famed, and supplemented since the late 20th century by the country's River and Rowing Museum, Henley Women's Regatta and Henley Town & Visitors Regatta. The logo depicts a number of rowing oars, again to reflect the connection with the Regatta, plus a stylised image of Henley Bridge – only three of the five arches of this 18th century stone built bridge are shown. The blue colouring signifies the river, and the purple is one of First Group's corporate colours.