London and South Western Railway
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The London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1840 to 1923. Its ultimate network extended to Plymouth via Yeovil, Exeter and Okehampton with branches to Barnstaple and Wadebridge - a territory in which it was in direct competition with the Great Western Railway - and along the Dorset coast to Bournemouth and Weymouth. Following the grouping in 1923, the L&SWR lines became part of the Southern Railway.
After railway privatisation the name was partially evoked for South West Trains who operate over much of the old London & South Western routes.
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History
The L&SWR was originally promoted in 1831 as the Southampton, London and Branch Railway and Dock Company: its original plans envisaged the line through Basingstoke (where a branch was to have run to Bristol) and Winchester to Southampton). Parliament rejected the scheme and it was re-promoted as the London and Southampton Railway: it was authorised by Act of Parliament in 1834. It was the first of the three trunk routes running south of London. During its early years there were many eventful occurrences:
- conflict with the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway over the building of the Portsmouth branch
- the "battle of the gauges" in the West Country with the Great Western Railway
- the acquisition of the Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway, unconnected to the remainder of the sytem until 1895.
The L&SWR also had many strengths:
- it connected with many holiday centres, and virtually brought them to prominence;
- Southampton Docks were entirely owned by the Company; it dealt with Continental and Channel Islands traffic; and it owned steamers on the Isle of Wight ferry routes
- it was instrumental in building up the south-west London suburban area;
- it was associated with much of the military parts of southern England: for example, Aldershot and Bordon; and Portsmouth and Plymouth dockyards
Among the innovations of the LSWR was the running of an express train, the North Cornwall and Bude Express. It was first run in 1907; the Southern Railway was later to rename it as the Atlantic Coast Express in July 1926. It was the 11am train from London, and it continued to run until 1964. For more details see these notes (http://www.atlantic-highway.co.uk/default.asp?URL=http://www.atlantic-highway.co.uk/Special-Interest/Atlantic-Coast-Express/Default.asp).
Openings
The first section to be opened was from was from Nine Elms, the company's first London terminus in the suburban parish of Battersea, to Woking (then named Woking Common) on 21 May 1838. On that date the company changed its name to L&SWR. The remainder of the main line line followed:
- Woking to Winchfield (Shapley Heath): 24 September 1838
- Winchester - Southampton: 10 June 1839
- Winchfield - Basingstoke: 10 June 1839
- Basingstoke - Winchester: 11 May 1840. This last section was the most difficult on the route with an initial climb to Litchfield Tunnel and a ten-mile down-grade to Winchester.
Waterloo station
It was ten years later that the L&SWR built its metropolitan terminus at Waterloo. On 11 July 1848 the line was extended through a new Vauxhall station: the original terminus at Nine Elms took on the role of works, locomotive depot, and goods depot. Today it is the site of Covent Garden market.
Southampton
The Southern Railway built a new through station at Southampton Central in 1933. Southampton Terminus remained in use until 1966 and the L&SWR's classical building of 1840 (designed by Sir William Tite, who also designed the Nine Elms terminus) survives.
Main Line
The stations on the main route (with dates of opening if not original L&SWR) are :
- Vauxhall
- Queenstown Road Battersea opened 1 November 1877 as Queens Road
- Clapham Junction
- Earlsfield
- Wimbledon
- Raynes Park
- Malden: after several renamings now called New Malden
- Berrylands, opened 16 October 1933 to serve new suburban traffic
- Surbiton
- Esher
- Hersham, opened in 1936
- Walton-on-Thames
- Weybridge
- West Weybridge opened ?
- Byfleet - reopened in 1927 as Byfleet & New Haw
- Woking
- Brookwood
- Farnborough
- Fleet: originally opened as Fleetpond
- Winchfield
- Hook
- Basingstoke
- Micheldever
- Winchester
- Shawford was Shawford & Twyford
- Eastleigh: originally Bishopstoke
- Southampton Airport railway station opened
- Swaythling
- St Denys
- Southampton
Other principal lines
Reading and Portsmouth lines
Apart from the original main line, the LSWR had the following routes:
- Waterloo to Wokingham (for Reading):
- Richmond Railway opened from Clapham Junction to Richmond 27 July 1846
- Windsor, Staines & South Western Railway opened from Richmond via Staines to Datchet 22 August 1848; to Windsor 1 December 1849
- Staines - Ascot opened 4 June 1856
- Ascot - Wokingham opened 4 July 1856
- from here to Reading the line was South Eastern Railway property
Apart from the Windsor branch, there are many suburban lines in this area, including the Hounslow loop line; and the Twickenham/Kingston-upon-Thames/Shepperton routes
- Woking to Havant (for Portsmouth) via Guildford [The Portsmouth Direct route]
- Guildford Junction Railway opened 5 May 1845
- Guildford-Godalming opened 15 October 1849
- Godalming - Havant opened 1 January 1859
- Bisley Camp branch (for rifle range) closed 1952
- Here was the Brookwood Cemetery line
- Brookwood - Farnham via Aldershot - Alton opened 2 May 1870
- Farnham - Fareham opened 1 June 1903
- Alton to Winchester branch line. The LSWR also built a branch line to Bordon Camp.
- Southampton to Bournemouth and Weymouth
- Southampton & Dorchester Railway line opened (via Brockenhurst and Ringwood 1 June 1847
- Ringwood - Christchurch opened 13 November 1862
- Brockenhurst - Bournemouth East 14 March 1870
- Poole - Bourneworth West station 18 June 1874: link to Bournemouth Central completed 20 July 1885
There is also the Lymington branch, opened by the Lymington Railway on 12 July 1858. See Lymington Flyer
Route to the south-west
- Basingstoke to Exeter
- Basingstoke to Salisbury
- Between Basingstoke and Salisbury on the main line were:
- Two links between Hurstbourne and Andover through Romsey to Eastleigh and Southampton: both closed. Link via Longparish opened 1 June 1885; closed all traffic 6 July 1931.
- At Andover was the junction with the Midland and South Western Junction Railway
- The Bulford Camp branch
- Salisbury to Romsey; and to Bournemouth
- In Salisbury the Great Western Railway (GWR) line from Westbury and Bristol had its own terminus: the LSWR continued the route southwestwards towards Southampton. This route today is the Wessex Main Line route.
- Salisbury-Yeovil opened 2 May 1859
- Yeovil - Exeter opened 19 July 1860
- Between Salisbury and Exeter on the main line; the sections were opened as follows:
- branch to Yeovil Town joint station with the GWR
- branch to Chard joint station with the GWR
- branch to Lyme Regis from Axminster
- branch to Sidmouth from Sidmouth Junction (also alternative route to Exmouth
- branch to Exmouth from Exmouth Junction near Exeter
- LSWR station: Exmouth (Queen Street): here was a short section through GWR Exeter (St Davids) to Cowley Bridge Junction
- Exeter to Plymouth
The LSWR main line continued, serving the following places:
- Newton St Cyres
- Crediton
- Yeoford Junction beyond was Coleford Junction and the branch railway to Barnstaple and Ilfracombe. From Barnstaple Junction station was the branch to Bideford and Torrington (closed)
Beyond Coleford Junction all lines, except that to Barnstaple, are now closed. They served, among other places:
- Okehampton
- The branch to Bude
- Launceston
- Padstow
- and the Tamar valley line to Plymouth. The southern section is now operated as the Tamar Valley Line to Gunnislake
Line details
Locomotives & rolling stock
Locomotives were painted green lined in chocolate and black and white; passenger rolling stock, yellow tint of cream upper parts, brown below. The railway ran a large number of steam rail motor cars on the smaller branches. The locomotive works were at Eastleigh, having replaced Nine Elms in 1911.
Other details
- the longest tunnel is Honiton Tunnel 1353 yds (1218 m); there were six others longer than 500 yds (450 m)
- the Waterloo and City Railway became part of the L&SWR
- the L&SWR and the Midland Railway were joint owners of the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway
Electrification
The L&SWR adopted third rail electrification of its suburban routes during the First World War. This subsequently became the standard for the entire Southern Railway, almost certainly because of the influence of Sir Herbert Ashcombe Walker, who had come from the London and North Western Railway to be General Manager of the LSWR in 1912; in 1914 he had also been appointed as Chairman of the wartime Railway Executive Committee.
Trivia
Vauxhall station reputedly has had an interesting influence on other languages. Legend has it that a party from Russia came to see what what happening around the time the station was opened (with a view to planning their own rail system). They saw the station nameboards, thought the word was the English word for railway station and took it back home. In fact, the first Russian railway station was built on the site of pleasure gardens based on those at Vauxhall - nothing to do with the English railway station. The anglicised script version of the Russian word is 'vokzal'.
See also
External links
- South Western Circle (http://www.lswr.org/)