B431 (51369, 59521 & 51411) approaches Kingham on 20 May 1987 with the 2A56 16:50 Hereford to Oxford service. It is passing between the abutments of the former Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway. This cross country route originally stared out as two purely local lines branching out from Kingham to Chipping Norton to the east, and Bourton-on-the-Water to the west. These were then extended to meet up with the GWR at Kings Sutton, and Cheltenham. Although most trains still called at Kingham, a direct line was constructed, crossing the Cotswold Line via a wide girder bridge. Naturally this was removed for scrap shortly after the route closed in 1962, and now these abutments (much more overgrown now than in this view) are all that remains.