Brill railway station was the terminus of a small railway line in Buckinghamshire, England, known as the Brill Tramway. Built and owned by the 3rd Duke of Buckingham, it was later operated by London's Metropolitan Railway, and in 1933 briefly became one of the two north-western termini of the London Underground, despite being and over two hours' travelling time from the City of London.
Approximately north of Brill, the station was opened in March 1872 as the result of lobbying from local residents and businesses. As the line was cheaply built and ungraded and the locomotives were of poor quality, services were very slow, initially taking 1 hour 45 minutes to traverse the from Brill to the junction station with main line services at Quainton Road. Although serving a lightly populated area and little-used by passengers, the station was a significant point for freight traffic, particularly as a carrier of milk from the dairy farms of Buckinghamshire to Aylesbury and London. A brickworks was also attached to the station, but it proved unable to compete with nearby rivals and closed within a few years of opening.
During the 1890s, plans were made to extend the tramway to Oxford, but the scheme was abandoned. Instead, the operation of the line was taken over by the Metropolitan Railway in 1899, and the line became one of the railway's two north-western termini. It was upgraded and better-quality locomotives were introduced making the journey time three times faster.
In 1933 the Metropolitan Railway came under public control and became the Metropolitan line of London Transport. The management of London Transport aimed to reduce goods services, and it was felt that there was little chance of the more distant parts of the former Metropolitan Railway ever becoming viable passenger routes. The line was closed on 30 November 1935, and all buildings and infrastructure at Brill associated with the line were sold at auction. Most of the infrastructure was subsequently demolished, though three station cottages survive.
Wotton Tramway
On 23 September 1868 the small Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway (A&BR) opened, linking the Great Western Railway's station at Aylesbury to the London and North Western Railway's Oxford to Bletchley line at Verney Junction. On 1 September 1894, London's Metropolitan Railway (MR) reached Aylesbury,
The first stage of the route, known as the Wotton Tramway, was a line from Quainton Road via Wotton to a coal siding at Kingswood, and opened on 1 April 1871. Intended for use by horse trams, the line was built with longitudinal sleepers, to avoid horses tripping.
Extension to Brill
upright=1|right|thumb|The Metropolitan Railway following the MR takeover of services on the Brill Tramway. Brill (arrowed) is one of two northwestern termini. The image is skewed approximately 45° from north; the main MR line in reality ran almost directly northwest from its junction with the present day [[Circle line (London Underground)|Circle line in London, shown at the bottom of the map. The blue bar marks the northern limit of London Underground operations after 1936, and the black bar the limit of LU operations after 1961.|alt=Map of a long railway line, ending at one end in a fork to two termini, and at the other end in a loop with a number of closely packed stations.]]
Lobbying from the nearby town of Brill for the introduction of passenger services on the line led to an extension from Wotton to a new terminus at the foot of Brill Hill, north of the hilltop town of Brill itself, With the extension to Brill opened the line was renamed the Brill Tramway. although a speed limit of was enforced.