Opening Construction of the branch line from Bishopstoke (now Eastleigh) station to Gosport, terminating "outside the fortifications", was approved in 1839. In Portsmouth, there were strong objections to the city being served by a company with rival city Southampton featuring prominently in its name, and so the same act of parliament renamed the company from the
London and Southampton Railway to the
London and South Western Railway (LSWR). Constructed by
Thomas Brassey's company, the line was opened on 29 November 1841 but closed four days later due to concerns about the stability of the tunnel at Fareham. In particular the chief inspecting officer, Sir Frederick Smith, remarked that the line at this point passed "through a soil which has baffled all calculation", with the banks of the cutting so steep that "there is scarcely any slope at which it would stand". The line reopened on 7th February 1842.
2022 Fareham Tunnel cutting repairs In 2014 the line experienced a further landslip near
Botley which resulted in services being suspended for over a month. This was followed by further temporary repairs in the aftermath of
Storm Frank in 2016. Following these incidents,
Network Rail temporarily closed the line in June 2022 to implement "a permanent fix to keep trains running safely". The closure was set to last for 9 days and as well as the main task of repairing the cutting near
Fareham Tunnel and reducing its gradient, the company sought to carry out 42 other jobs on the line at the same time including winter-proofing the points, clearing litter and graffiti and replacing freight sidings. The project cost £2.28 million and involved 20 construction vehicles, 10 trains and hundreds of engineers working a combined 7,500 hours, in which 5,000 tonnes of earth were removed from the cutting and an 80-metre long retaining wall was built.
2024 slope stabilisation The line was closed again for five days in early 2024 for works near Fareham Tunnel to prevent a landslip. Heavy rainfall caused land movement which was observed by Network Rail engineers, leading to the work that involved drilling 260 steel nails, each one long, into the sides of the cutting to prevent the soil slipping onto the railway. Network Rail confirmed this was a different part of the cutting from where the 2022 works had taken place, and no problems with land movement were detected around those earlier works. == Development plans ==