Banbury Station with Down express
View SE, towards Oxford. This shows the station as totally - and belatedly - rebuilt in the mid-50s. The train is a Bournemouth - Wolverhampton relief express, headed by 'Modified Hall' 4-6-0 No. 7911 'Lady Margaret Hall' (built 2/50, withdrawn 12/63). (This was one of exceptional 'Halls' that were not Country Mansions: it was the first Ladies' College at Oxford). Note all the cattle vans stored in the sidings.

Peter Kerslake says "This working would have been one which had for so long earlier traversed the Somerset and Dorset line until the end of the 1962 Summer Services when the Western Region took the opportunity of diverting all such through services between the North of England to Bournemouth and the South Coast on to its own lines and away from the much loved Somerset and Dorset route across the Mendip Hills.
Banbury had been an important rail centre for many years past, its Motive Power Depot having over seventy locomotives on its books during the mid 'fifties with the wartime years running essential freights from the North down to the South Coast ports through Banbury.
Although it closed to steam in October of 1966 Banbury Depot was given an extended lease of life when in September of 1965 it received eight "Britannias" for working the services between Marylebone and Nottingham for four months in what became the Depot's final months of service."