Early proposals The
London and Southampton Railway completed its line in 1839, and reached
Gosport the following year. Gosport was its station for
Portsmouth, which with
Southampton was important because of its maritime connection. The London and Southampton Railway changed its name to the London and South Western Railway (LSWR), and became the dominant railway operator in the area south of Basingstoke. In 1848 a small chink in that dominance was created when the
Great Western Railway, a great rival to the LSWR, opened a line from
Reading to
Basingstoke. In 1865 the
Mid-Hants Railway opened its line between
Alton and
Winchester. It had been promoted independently, hoping to form a new through route between London and Southampton. This did not endear it to the LSWR, for whom their main line route to Southampton was a prime part of its business, but the LSWR worked the line, and later absorbed it. It never rose to commercial success. In 1885 another incursion into the LSWR area of influence was made, when the
Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway opened its north – south line. It was sponsored by the Great Western Railway, but it failed to generate enough investment to pay to reach Southampton, and its Winchester extremity forced it to rely on the LSWR. The
London Brighton and South Coast Railway made a similar agreement, and schemes for new railways from Portsmouth northward, pressed for by Portsmouth interests, ran into the same obstacle. In 1896 a Portsmouth, Basingstoke and Godalming Railway Bill came to Parliament. It failed, but the LSWR board decided that they needed to respond to the pressure for such a line, in case some rival might do so instead. The Basingstoke connection might invite the LBSCR (at Portsmouth) to link up with the GWR (at Basingstoke). On 25 June 1896 the LSWR Board approved two new schemes: a Basingstoke to
Alton line, and a line from Alton down the
Meon Valley to
Fareham. Dean, etc., wrote that "It has been said that the LSWR planned the Light Railway as a "blocking line", to keep the GWR out of its territory. There is no evidence that this was so." Maggs is quite explicit: When the GWR proposed a line from Basingstoke to Portsmouth, the House of Lords Committee decided that a light railway, or railways, for Basingstoke-Alton-Fareham would be adequate as Portsmouth was already well-served by main lines. The result was that the LSWR constructed the Basingstoke & Alton Light Railway and the Alton to Fareham line. The authorisation process was not swift, and it was on 9 December 1897 that the '''''' was issued. The sum of £51,000 could be raised for the construction. Land for a double track was purchased, but earthworks were made for a single line only. It was the first English railway authorised under the
Light Railways Act 1896. Although the light railway order had been passed, taking into account submissions from public bodies, some local authorities nevertheless made a number of objections at this stage. The objectors were very persistent, and after an appeal hearing on 28 June 1899, the railway company was directed to provide gates at five level crossings, incurring additional staff costs, and to alter the planned location of the Cliddesden station.
Major Pringle of the
Board of Trade inspected the line on 7 May 1901, and apart from some minor matters, found it satisfactory for passenger operation.
Opening of the line The line opened on 1 June 1901. About 50 tickets were sold on the first day. The planned burrowing junction at Basingstoke was never built. A local newspaper observed "The man in the street expects to find the village somewhere near the station. But such little details do not trouble the promoters of railways... The three intermediate stations are named Cliddesden, Herriard, and Bentworth & Lasham respectively. But the villages bearing those names are a long way from the stations and not a glimpse of them can be seen from the train." The train service was three mixed trains each way daily except Sundays, shortly increased to four. The line climbed at 1 in 50 for much of the way from Basingstoke nearly seven miles to Herriard, where there was a
passing loop. From there it fell at a similar gradient for nearly a mile and a half, afterwards descending at more moderate gradients. There were numerous sharp curves on the line. The general speed limit was set at 20 mph, reduced to 10 mph on certain curves and approaching several level crossings.
Poor traffic volumes The income from the line was disappointingly low, and on 1 July 1904 railmotors were introduced on the line, the two examples having been constructed specially. Braking was by hand only and lighting by oil. They were not operationally successful, being incapable of surmounting the steep gradients on the line, and of handling goods wagons in a
mixed train formation. They were redeployed elsewhere on 12 August 1904. In 1908 a former
Boer War army hospital near Alton was reopened as a children's tuberculosis hospital, and a siding connection was installed, for coal and other supplies needed by the building. Wagons were winched over the steeply graded siding. A platform called Alton Park was opened near the hospital; it was available for visitors to the hospital only.
Wartime suspension and re-instatement later During World War I there was a demand for railway track equipment to lay in occupied France, and requisition allocations were given by the War Office to the railway companies. To fulfil its obligation the LSWR decided to close the Basingstoke and Alton line at short notice and recover the track from there. The line was heavily loss making, and the selection was commercially driven. The line closed on 1 January 1917. The considerable pressure to reopen led to a hearing by a House of Lords committee lasting three days in May 1923. The Grouping of the railways had just been implemented, following the
Railways Act 1921. Many emotional arguments were put by those claiming that the Southern Railway, as successor to the LSWR, had an obligation to expend considerable sums to rebuild a heavily loss-making minor railway. Despite objective evidence, the Lords Committee called upon the Southern Railway to reconsider – effectively an instruction to reopen the line. The line reopened on 18 August 1924. The crossing loop at Herriard was not reinstated. There were three trains each way daily, except Sundays. In 1928 filming took place at Salter Hatch level crossing.
Gainsborough Pictures were making a film whose plot centres on a road bus operator contriving train crashes to harm railway business. The Southern Railway co-operated with the filming, and provided an obsolete steam engine and six coaches, which were destroyed in the crash. A steam lorry loaded with five tons of ballast and a charge of explosive was on the level crossing, causing the collision. The filming took place on 19 August 1928, and the debris was removed and the line was in normal service the following day. The film was called
The Wrecker (1928), and some of the footage was used again in
Seven Sinners (1936).
Decline and closure In 1932 the Southern Railway reconsidered the future of the branch service, as it was heavily loss-making. The decision was taken to close it, and the last passenger train operated on 10 September 1932, The remaining line sections were finally closed in 1967, at which time the entire Basingstoke and Alton system was no more. ==Topography==