Brackley Central was a railway station on the former Great Central Main Line which ran from Manchester Piccadilly to London Marylebone, the last main line to be built from the north of England to London. History The station opened when passenger services commenced on 15 March 1899 serving the Northamptonshire town of Brackley, and was the second station in the town, following the London and North Western Railway's facility, which was known simply as Brackley. The Great Central Railway's London Extension was a victim of the Beeching Axe as it was seen as a duplicate of the Midland Main Line and after a period of rundown with lesser stations closing first, the section between Aylesbury and Rugby Central, including Brackley Central station, was closed to all traffic on 5 September 1966. The former L&NW line had closed a few years earlier. Layout The station was a variation on the standard island platform design typical of the London Extension, and here it was the more common "cutting" type reached from a roadway (the A43), that crossed over the line. The cutting itself was substantial and typical of the line, involving the excavation of some 336,000 cubic yards (256,892 cubic metres) of material. The original intention was for the station entrance to be located on the bridge itself, as it was at numerous other stations on the line, but local concerns about traffic congestion forced a change in the layout, the entrance being relocated at the top of the cutting on the west side in a lay-by off the road, with a footbridge leading across to the platform (Hucknall Central had a similar arrangement, only there the entrance was on the east side). Although the town of Brackley had a population of barely 2,500 at the time, it was considered a sufficiently large and important settlement for the station to be provided with a more extensive range of platform buildings and facilities beneath a longer awning, as at Woodford Halse and Rugby Central. Many myths surround construction, one being that Brackley was to house a locomotive depot and workshops. The unbuilt Northampton branch The early photograph of the station (dated 1906) is interesting in that it shows, on the right hand (west) side, a third platform under construction. The story is somewhat shrouded in myth but according to legend the Great Central had visions of building a branch line from Brackley via