Transport in Buckinghamshire has been shaped by its position within the United Kingdom. Most routes between the UK's two largest cities, London and Birmingham, pass through this county. The county's growing industry (such as in Slough, now part of Berkshire) first brought canals to the area, then railways and then motorways.
Much of Buckinghamshire's transport network can be traced to two ancient roads, the Roman Akeman Street and the Celtic Watling Street. The A41 and A5 roughly follow their paths. In 1838, Buckinghamshire became one of the first counties in England to gain railways, with sections of both the West Coast Main Line and Great Western Main Line opening. These were later followed by other main lines and numerous rural branch lines, many of which closed in the 1930s. The Beeching cuts of the 1960s also closed the Great Central Main Line north of Aylesbury in 1966. The county was also one of the few counties to gain a motorway in the 1950s when the M1 motorway opened its entire section through Buckinghamshire in 1959. Air travel is the only major mode of transport not to have a presence in Buckinghamshire - although Heathrow Airport in Greater London is less than a mile from the border with Bucks.
Rail
This section describes Buckinghamshire as it was prior to 1974.
Origins
The railway boom of northern England led to the formation of the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR). In 1833, Robert Stephenson in 1833, planned to meet Joseph Locke's Grand Junction Railway at Birmingham, thus creating a north-south route. Though the rail line was initially planned to go through Buckingham, where carriage works would have been built, it was altered to Wolverton due to objections from the Duke of Buckingham. A line to Buckingham would later open in 1850. Construction of the L&BR began in November 1833 and the section from London Euston to Boxmoor in Hertfordshire opened in 1837. The line to near Bletchley was completed by the summer of 1838; from there passengers took a stagecoach shuttle to Rugby where the railway continued north. The line through what is now Milton Keynes opened several months later on 17 September 1838. Wolverton later became famous as the site of Wolverton railway works which produced rolling stock for over a century—the last new carriage was built there in 1962. The site now houses a supermarket.
At the same time, another railway company, the Great Western Railway (GWR) was formed in 1833, intending to link London with the growing port of Bristol. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was appointed as engineer the same year. Construction began in the mid-1830s. The line from Paddington through Buckinghamshire was opened on 4 June 1838 terminating at Maidenhead Bridge station until Maidenhead Railway Bridge was ready. The line west into Berkshire opened 1 July 1839. The line became notable for its use of broad gauge (which was favoured by Brunel) as opposed to standard gauge, which was preferred by most other railway engineers including George and Robert Stephenson. Other railways using standard gauge later met the GWR resulting in the gauge war which the GWR eventually lost. The section through Bucks had a third rail laid on 1 October 1861 allowing both standard and broad gauge trains to run. The broad gauge was removed throughout the country in 1892. The line through Buckinghamshire was quadrupled in late 19th century.
In 1839, a branch line opened from Cheddington on the L&BR to Aylesbury, the county town of Buckinghamshire to transport goods, particularly the Aylesbury Duck, to London. This however required a change at Cheddington, as the line was built connecting north towards Bletchley. The Aylesbury Railway, or Cheddington to Aylesbury Line was independent but operated by the L&BR up to 1846, when the L&BR and two other railway companies merged to form the London and North Western Railway (LNWR). From then onwards, the line was owned by the LNWR.
The next line to open was the Bedford and Bletchley Railway on 17 November 1846; it ran from Bedford railway station to the London and Birmingham Railway at Bletchley, changing Bletchley from a minor rural backwater to an important junction town. That company merged with the Buckingham and Brackley Junction Railway in 1847 to form the Buckinghamshire Railway, which opened a branch line in 1850 to Banbury. A junction was formed in 1851 at Verney Junction for another new line from there to Oxford, to form what became known as the Varsity Line between Oxford and Cambridge via Bletchley. The Buckinghamshire Railway was worked by the LNWR from July 1851 on, and it was later absorbed by the LNWR in 1879.