Officials needed help from above to restore order among drunken workers on one of Oxfordshire’s new railway lines.

They sought heavenly intervention when labourers building a cross-country route from Banbury into Buckinghamshire in the 19th century hit the bottle.

According to one account, “the construction sites became a hard drinking and riotous centre. It was so bad that the directors had to bring in a full-time chaplain and several scripture readers in an attempt to calm things down”.

The line ran from Merton Street station in Banbury to Brackley, Buckingham and Verney Junction, where it joined the Oxford-Bletchley line. When work was finally completed, there were great celebrations at Banbury on the opening day of May 1, 1850.

A huge crowd flocked to the Merton Street station to watch the first train leave at 6.30am.

“The station was gaily decorated with flags, there were booths and stalls and, throughout the day, a brass band played,” according to one contemporary account. The Duke of Buckingham and Sir Harry Verney supported the Verney Junction-Banbury section and it was no surprise that it should receive priority.

It took three years to complete the single track and when it opened, there were four daily trains each way.

The line to Oxford opened on May 20, 1851 and the following day, a ten-coach train carried 400 passengers to London via Bletchley to the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park.

The Verney Junction-Banbury route closed in stages between 1961 and 1964, while the route from Oxford closed to passenger trains in 1967.

Although the Banbury link remained shut, freight continued to and from Oxford and passenger services resumed between Oxford and Bicester in the late 1980s.

Now the route is taking on a new lease of life, with a new link from Oxford to London Marylebone via Bicester opening in October.

The track to Bletchley is now being cleared of vegetation in readiness for the revived East-West route.

The story of the Banbury-Buckingham line is told in Lost Railways of the Chilterns, by Leslie Oppitz. The book features other railways that came into Oxfordshire, notably the Oxford-Thame-Wheatley-Princes Risborough, and the Princes Risborough to Watlington and Chinnor lines.

One major obstacle in building the Oxford-Princes Risborough route was at Horspath, where 640,000 cubic yards of blue clay had to be dug out to create a 12,584ft long tunnel.

The line was particularly welcomed at Thame because it cut the price of household coal.

pLost Railways of the Chilterns and other books in the series are published by Countryside Books, of Newbury, and are available in bookshops.