Salisbury and Yeovil Railway

The LSWR was completed to Southampton in 1840 and a branch line was opened in 1848 from Bishopstoke to Milford station in Salisbury. Within a few years efforts started on work to extend from Southampton to Dorchester. A great debate then started within the LSWR about whether to extend further west through Salisbury (the shorter "central route" or through Dorchester (the more populous "coastal route"). The rival Great Western Railway (GWR) was supporting the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway as an alternative route to Dorchester, which was to be built from the north through Yeovil. It also proposed a connecting line from Yeovil to Exeter which would have been in direct competition with either of the two proposed LSWR routes. Both companies applied for powers to construct new lines in 1846; the LSWR for a line from Basingstoke to Yeovil and both companies for different lines from Yeovil to Exeter. Neither was approved and so new applications were made in 1847, and after a mammoth 50-day hearing it was decided that the LSWR scheme was the better. Both the '''''' (11 & 12 Vict. c. lxxxvii) and the Exeter, Yeovil and Dorchester Railway Act 1848 (11 & 12 Vict. c. lxxxv) received royal assent on 22 July 1848. The large number of new railway schemes approved at that time caused an economic depression; it proved difficult to raise the money needed for the work and so the powers lapsed. Three years later an independent company tried to raise the money for a Salisbury to Exeter line and the LSWR agreed to take up half the shares, guarantee a 4% return on the shareholders' investment, and operate the trains. However a large faction in the LSWR now preferred the coastal route that could use the already constructed line to Dorchester, while still others opposed westward extension by any route. Another independent company now put forward their own proposals for a Salisbury and Yeovil Railway, and they were rewarded by the '''''' (17 & 18 Vict. c. ccxv) which was passed on 7 August 1854. In the meantime, the LSWR's line from Bradford Abbas Junction to Exeter Queen Street had opened on 19 July 1860. Although initially just a single track with passing loops at stations, work started in 1861 to double westwards from Salisbury, and east from . The whole route was doubled within ten years. In 1861 the Dorset Central Railway arrived at . The station for this line was at a lower level than the S&YR but a junction was established to allow traffic to be exchanged. This was a rather unusual arrangement that entailed Dorset trains reversing into the S&YR station on a line alongside the main line. This space was needed for doubling the Salisbury line in 1870 so a new Templecombe Junction Railway was built by the S&YR that allowed trains from the north to run directly into the main line station. In 1874 the lower line, by now the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway and part-owned by the LSWR, was extended to where a connection was made with the Midland Railway. This brought even more traffic onto the S&YR in the form of goods and passengers from the North to the LSWR. Bradford Abbas Junction was closed on 1 January 1870, after which time all trains to Yeovil had to run via . In January 1878 the company was sold to the LSWR. ==Finances==

The capital of the railway was divided into £100 shares. An agreement was made with the LSWR, under which that company would provide the locomotives and stock required and operate the trains for 42.5% of the gross receipts. After twenty years this would be converted into a lease at a fixed price to be set once the traffic levels and costs had been determined. The 57.5% remaining with the S&YR was to pay the capital costs including a dividend to the shareholders. This was paid in two annual instalments and was never less than 4.25% per annum; in the last five years it was in excess of 8% (see table, right). The LSWR itself owned 10,000 of the shares; it nominated two directors but had no voting powers at shareholders meetings. ==Key personnel==

The chairman of the company was Henry Dandy Seymour. He died in 1877 and was succeeded by John Chapman. The secretary was Mr H Notman, who held the second largest block of voting shares. Another notable shareholder was Louis H Ruegg, who persuaded his fellow shareholders to reject the LSWR buy-out offer of 1872. He was a local journalist and published a history of the company in 1878. The railway's engineer was Joseph Locke. Once an assistant to Robert Stephenson, he served as engineer to the LSWR until 1849 but left them as he preferred the central route to Exeter rather than the coastal one proposed at the time. Stations were designed by William Tite. The actual construction of the line was contracted to Thomas Brassey, although he sub-contracted the actual work to other people. ==Route==

The railway made an end-on junction with the LSWR at its new Salisbury railway station, which opened on the same day in 1859 as the line to Gillingham and was next door to the existing GWR station. The line ran north-westwards close to the GWR's Salisbury Branch Line almost the whole to the first station, Wilton. Here the S&YR turned west towards ( from Salisbury). The next stations were at () and then (), the station for Shaftesbury. To get to here, the summit of the line above Salisbury, the line had been climbing steadily, mostly at gentle gradients and nowhere steeper than 1 in 120 (0.8%), but from Semley the line dropped down at grades as steep as 1 in 100 (1%) to Gillingham (). The section from Wilton to Templecombe has reverted to single track with passing loops at Tisbury and Gillingham. Of the original eight stations (excluding Salisbury), only those at Tisbury, Gillingham, Templecombe, and Sherborne remain open. Templecombe was closed from 1966 to 1983 and nothing remains of the original station. ==See also==