London and South Western Railway

The London and South Western Railway originated as a renaming of the London and Southampton Railway, which opened in May 1840 to connect the port of Southampton with London. Its original London terminus was Nine Elms, on the south bank of the river Thames, the route being laid through Wimbledon, Surbiton, Woking, Basingstoke and Winchester, using what became the standard track gauge of 4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in (1,435 mm).[2]

The railway was an immediate success, and this encouraged the company to think of extensions, to Windsor, to Gosport (for Portsmouth) and to Salisbury. The company then saw potential from the area westward, which put it in direct competition with the Great Western Railway: it was important to secure lines and stations to seek to keep the competitor out. As the Great Western Railway used the broad gauge (7 ft or 2,134 mm), any gauge adopted by independent smaller lines dictated their permissibility for joint running, and this territorial competition became known as the gauge wars. The Nine Elms terminus was obviously inconvenient to most Londoners and the line was extended north-eastwards to Waterloo via the Nine Elms to Waterloo Viaduct in 1848; later the LSWR built its own tube railway—the Waterloo & City line—to connect to City station close to the Bank of England building in the City of London.[lower-alpha 1]

The Great Western Railway secured access early on to Exeter and Plymouth through its allied companies, and the LSWR aspired to build its own competing route to reach Devon and Cornwall, which would offer considerable traffic potential. It made a slow start but eventually had its own line from Basingstoke to Salisbury and Exeter, continuing by a northerly arc to Plymouth, and to north Devon and north Cornwall. Coming later than the Great Western to the area, it never achieved the solid prosperity there of its broad gauge neighbour.

The Southampton line had been extended to Weymouth via Ringwood, and the LSWR consolidated its home area building branches closer to London, and direct lines to Portsmouth, and to Reading. It also became joint owner, with the Midland Railway, of the Somerset and Dorset Railway, responsible for infrastructure and coaching stock on the latterly famous route. Shipping became significant also, with passenger and freight services to the Channel Islands, to Saint-Malo in France, and to the Isle of Wight.

In the twentieth century, it embarked on a programme of electrifying the suburban routes, at 600 V DC using a third rail. Eventually this covered the entire suburban area. Freight traffic, especially from the West Country was important, but the emphasis on suburban electrification led to weaker development of steam traction for fast passenger and goods services to Devon and Cornwall, and to Portsmouth, Bournemouth and Weymouth.

At the grouping of the railways, the LSWR amalgamated with other railways to create the Southern Railway, and the independent Isle of Wight railways were absorbed, becoming part of the former LSWR section within the Southern Railway. Its enlightened and unorthodox Chief Mechanical Engineer, Oliver Bulleid, put in hand the construction of a fleet of powerful express steam locomotives, the Merchant Navy class, followed by a larger fleet of so-called light pacifics, built with lighter axle loading to give access to branch lines with weaker track and bridge strengths; this enabled radical improvements to main line passenger services, and the streamlined profile of the new fleet made an impact as a modern design, and it remained an iconic image. At the same time they revolutionised express passenger train speeds to Weymouth and the West Country, although their technical innovation incorporated a number of difficulties. Electrification of the Portsmouth line was now carried out.

Capital infrastructure works were also undertaken, including the Feltham marshalling yard, major improvements to Southampton Docks and Waterloo station, a new locomotive workshop at Eastleigh, and grade separated junctions on the main line, as well as signalling modernisation schemes. A concrete manufacturing works was established at Exmouth Junction in Exeter, producing standardised precast components such as platform units, lamp posts and platelayers' huts; the designs became familiar throughout Southern Railway territory.[3][4]

Nationalisation of the railways in 1948 brought relatively little immediate change to the former LSWR system, now part of the Southern Operating Area of British Railways, later the Southern Region, although national centralisation of locomotive design made Bulleid's position untenable and he retired. However, in 1966 the geographical limits of the British Railways regions was rationalised, and the Devon and Cornwall lines were transferred to the Western Region. Many of the branch lines had declined in traffic in the 1950s and were considered uneconomic, and following the Beeching Report, the Reshaping of British Railways,[5] many of the branches were closed, as was the Plymouth main line.

The Bournemouth line was electrified in 1967, at first with converted steam coaching stock, later replaced by purpose built stock; the electrification was extended to Weymouth in 1988. In recent years the system has remained constant, with gradually increasing train frequency from about 1990 now forming a limitation.

When international train services from London to Paris and Brussels were initiated in 1994, they required space for very long trains, and this was provided at Waterloo: the Eurostar terminal was built on the north side of the station with the international trains using the first three miles (4.8 kilometres) of the LSWR main line before diverging. The services were transferred to St Pancras International in 2007 and as of 2017 the Eurostar terminal, having sat dormant for a decade, is being developed for re-opening and use by Windsor and Reading services.

Southampton Terminus station today

The London and South Western Railway arose out of the London and Southampton Railway (L&SR), which was promoted to connect Southampton to the capital; the company envisaged a considerable reduction in the price of coal and agricultural necessities to places served, as well as imported produce through Southampton Docks, and passenger traffic.

Construction probably started on 6 October 1834 under Francis Giles, but progress was slow. Joseph Locke was brought in as engineer, and the rate of construction improved; the first part of the line opened to the public between Nine Elms and Woking Common on 21 May 1838, and it was opened throughout on 11 May 1840. The terminals were at Nine Elms, south of the River Thames and a mile or so southwest of Trafalgar Square, and a terminal station at Southampton close to the docks, which were also directly served by goods trains.

The railway was immediately successful, and road coaches from points further west altered their routes so as to connect with the new railway at convenient interchange points, although goods traffic was slower to develop.[6]

The London and Southampton Railway promoters had intended to build a branch from Basingstoke to Bristol, but this proposal was rejected by Parliament in favour of the competing Great Western Railway's route. The parliamentary fight had been bitter, and a combination of resentment and the commercial attraction of expanding westwards remained in the company's thoughts.

A more immediate opportunity was taken up, of serving Portsmouth by a branch line. Interests friendly to the L&SR promoted a Portsmouth Junction Railway, which would have run from Bishopstoke (Eastleigh) via Botley and Fareham to Portsmouth. However resentment in Portsmouth—which considered Southampton a rival port—at being given simply as branch and thereby a roundabout route to London, killed the prospects of such a line. Portsmouth people wanted their own direct line, but in trying to play off the L&SR against the London & Brighton Railway they were unable to secure the committed funds they needed.

The L&SR now promoted a cheaper line to Gosport, on the opposite side of Portsmouth Harbour, shorter and simpler than the earlier proposal. Approval had recently been given for the construction of a floating bridge (chain ferry)[7] giving connection between Gosport and Portsmouth, and the L&SR secured its Act of Parliament on 4 June 1839. To soothe feelings in Portsmouth, the L&SR included in its bill a change of name to the London and South Western Railway under Section 2.[8][9][10]

Construction of the Gosport branch was at first quick and simple under Thomas Brassey. Stations were built at Bishopstoke (the new junction station; later renamed Eastleigh) and Fareham. An extremely elaborate station was built at Gosport, tendered at £10,980, seven times the tender price for Bishopstoke. However, there was a tunnel at Fareham, and on 15 July 1841 there was a disastrous earth slip at the north end. Opening of the line had been advertised for 11 days later, but the setback forced a delay until 29 November; the ground slipped again four days later, and passenger services were suspended until 7 February 1842.

Isle of Wight ferry operators altered some sailings to leave from Gosport instead of Portsmouth. Queen Victoria was fond of travelling to Osborne House on the island, and on 13 September 1845 a 600-yard (550-metre) branch to the Royal Clarence Victualling Establishment was opened for her convenience.[11]

Between the first proposal for a railway from London to Southampton and the construction, interested parties were considering rail connections to other, more distant, towns that might be served by extensions of the railway. Reaching Bath and Bristol via Newbury was an early objective. The Great Western Railway (GWR) also planned to reach Bath and Bristol, and it obtained its Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835, which for the time being removed those cities from the LSWR's immediate plans. There remained much attractive territory in the South West, the West of England, and even the West Midlands, and the LSWR and its allies continually fought the GWR and its allies to be the first to build a line in a new area.

The GWR was built on the broad gauge of 7 ft ¹⁄₄ in or 2,140 mm while the LSWR gauge was standard gauge (4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in or 1,435 mm), and the allegiance of any proposed independent railway was made clear by its intended gauge. The gauge was generally specified in the authorising Act of Parliament, and bitter and protracted competition took place to secure authorisation for new lines of the preferred gauge, and to bring about parliamentary rejection of proposals from the rival faction. This rivalry between the GWR and the standard gauge companies became called the gauge wars.

In the early days government held that several competing railways could not be sustained in any particular area of the country, and a commission of experts referred to informally as the "Five Kings" was established by the Board of Trade to determine the preferred development, and therefore the preferred company, in certain districts, and this was formalised in the Railway Regulation Act 1844.[12]

Diagram of the LSWR in 1890

The LSWR was the second British railway company to begin running what could be described as a commuter service, after the London and Greenwich Railway had opened in 1836.

When the first main line opened, the LSWR built a station called Kingston, somewhat to the east of the present-day Surbiton station and this quickly attracted business travel from residents of Kingston upon Thames. The availability of fast travel into London encouraged new housing development close to the new station. Residents of Richmond upon Thames observed the popularity of this facility, and promoted a railway from their town to Waterloo; the Richmond branch opened in July 1846 and became part of the LSWR later that year. Already a suburban network was developing, and this gathered pace in the following decades.

Branches off the main line were made to Chertsey in 1848 and Hampton Court in 1851, while the Richmond line was extended, reaching Windsor in 1851, while a loop line from Barnes via Hounslow rejoining the Windsor line near Feltham had been opened in 1850. In 1856 a friendly company, the Staines, Wokingham and Woking Junction Railway, opened its line from Staines to Wokingham, and running powers over the line shared by the South Eastern Railway and the Great Western Railway gave access for LSWR trains over the remaining few miles from Wokingham to Reading.

South of the main line, the important towns of Epsom and Leatherhead needed to be served; the rival London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) reached Epsom first (from Sutton), but in 1859 the LSWR opened a line from Wimbledon, closely paralleling the main line as far as the present-day Raynes Park and then turning south to Epsom. Between Epsom and Leatherhead a joint line with the LB&SCR was built, also opening in 1859.

Parts of Kingston were three miles (4.8 kilometres) from Surbiton station and in 1863 the town got its own terminal station, reached westward via Teddington. A single-track branch was laid in 1864 to reach westwards up the Thames Valley to Shepperton. In 1869 the Kingston line was formed into a loop by the extension from Kingston to Malden.

The daily inconvenience of the LSWR London terminal at Waterloo, close to Whitehall via Westminster Bridge but poorly connected at the time to the City of London, became increasingly prominent as daily commuting increased. This was partly alleviated when friendly relations with the LB&SCR and the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LC&DR) gave access for LSWR trains to its Ludgate Hill (City) station from Wimbledon via Tooting, Streatham and Herne Hill: this service commenced in 1869, and in the same year the LSWR opened a new route from Waterloo to Richmond via Clapham Junction and Kensington (Addison Road) on the West London Extension Railway, over new track through Hammersmith and the present-day Turnham Green and Gunnersbury. Although circuitous, this route swept up considerable inner-suburban business.

Map of LSWR Suburban Network in 1922

At the end of the independent life of the LSWR its trains reached, with the help of running powers and friendly companies, to today's suburban destinations. The railway was only convenient for Westminster as to commuters, lacking an underground station, and made strenuous exertions to get direct access for its trains to the City of London, the destination of the majority of business customers in the later decades of the nineteenth century, but in most cases these were circuitous and thus slow. The problem was resolved by the opening of the Waterloo & City Railway, an electric tube railway, in 1898.[13][14][15]

Quadrupling, grade-separated junctions, and electrification all enhanced the efficiency of the service offered.

Waterloo Station

The company's first London terminus was at Nine Elms on the southwestern edge of the built-up area. The wharf frontage on the Thames was advantageous to the railway's objective of competing with coastal shipping transits, but the site was inconvenient for passengers, who had to travel on to London either by road or by steamer.

The "Metropolitan Extension" to a more central location had been discussed as early as 1836, and a four-track extension to Waterloo Bridge station was authorised by Act of Parliament on 31 July 1845 with a supplementary Act of 1847; the capital authorised was £950,000. The line had an intermediate station at Vauxhall.

Opening was planned for 30 June 1848, but the Board of Trade inspector did not approve some of the large-span bridges at the eastern end, however his superior was satisfied by later load tests, and the line opened on 11 July 1848. At first incoming trains stopped outside the station and were pulled in by capstan after the locomotive had been detached.

The Nine Elms site became dedicated to goods traffic and was much extended to fill the triangle of land eastwards to Wandsworth Road. The independent Richmond Railway was promoted, joining the LSWR at Falcon Road (near the present-day Clapham Junction). The LSWR adopted the Richmond line and there were four tracks from Falcon Road to Waterloo Bridge. There were four platforms with six platform faces, about where platforms 9 to 12 are today. They were doubled in length soon after opening.

In 1854 the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company opened its one-platform station adjacent to Waterloo on the south side between York Street and Westminster Bridge Road. The company arranged for the transport of the dead and the funeral parties, to a burial site near Brookwood, using LSWR locomotives.[13]

Map of LSWR electrified routes in 1922

In the early years of the 20th century electric traction was adopted by a number of urban railways in the United States. The London and North Western Railway adopted a four-rail system and started operating electric trains to Richmond over the LSWR from Gunnersbury, and soon the Metropolitan District Railway was doing so as well. In the face of declining suburban passenger income, for some time the LSWR failed to respond, but in 1913 Herbert Walker was appointed Chairman, and he soon implemented an electrification scheme in the LSWR suburban area.

A third rail system was used, with a line voltage of 600 V DC. The rolling stock consisted of 84 three-car units, all formed from converted steam stock, and the system was an immediate success when it opened in 1915–16. In fact, overcrowding was experienced in busy periods and trains were augmented by a number of two-car non driving trailer units from 1919, also converted from steam stock, which were formed between two of the three-car units, forming an eight-car train. All the electric trains provided first and third class accommodation only.

The routes electrified were in the inner suburban area—a second stage scheme had been prepared but was frustrated by the First World War—but extended as far as Claygate on the New Guildford line; this was operated at first as an interchange point, but the section was discontinued as an electrified route when overcrowding nearer London occurred, the electric stock being used there and the Claygate line reverting to steam operation.

Concomitant with the electrification, the route between Vauxhall and Nine Elms was widened to eight tracks, and a flyover for the Hampton Court line was constructed, opening for traffic on 4 July 1915.[27]

When the company was founded it showed interest in Southampton Docks. The first docks had already been built and the development of the port of Southampton was accelerated by the arrival of the railway. In 1843 the LSWR started running ships from Southampton as the New South Western Steam Navigation Company.[28] Later, the LSWR took over the vessels and in 1892 it bought the docks and continued the rapid development of them.[29]

In 1891, the works at Eastleigh, in Hampshire, were opened with the transfer of the carriage and wagon works from Nine Elms in London. The locomotive works were transferred from Nine Elms under Drummond, opening in 1909.

Bideford railway station in Devon on the disused section of the Tarka Line from Barnstaple.

For details of the LSWR main line routes, see:

• South Western Main Line
• West of England Main Line
• Exeter to Plymouth railway of the LSWR
• North Devon Railway
• Waterloo & City line

Notable people connected with the LSWR include:[30]

Locomotive engineers, works and corporate liveries

Adams T3 class locomotive No. 563 built in 1893

• 1838–1840: Joseph Woods (as Locomotive Superintendent)
• 1841–1850: John Viret Gooch (as Locomotive Superintendent)
• 1850–1871: Joseph Hamilton Beattie (as Locomotive Superintendent)
• 1871–1877: William George Beattie (as Locomotive Superintendent)
• 1877–1895: William Adams (as Locomotive Superintendent)
• 1895–1912: Dugald Drummond (as Chief Mechanical Engineer from 1904)
• 1912–1922: Robert Urie (as Locomotive Engineer)

LSWR carriage looking rather pristine.

Liveries for painting of locomotives adopted by the successive Mechanical Engineers:

To 1850 (John Viret Gooch)

Little information is available although from 1844 dark green with red and white lining, black wheels and red buffer beams seems to have become standard.

1850–1866 (Joseph Hamilton Beattie)

• Passenger classes – Indian red with black panelling inside white. Driving splashers and cylinders lined white. Black wheels, smokebox and chimney. Vermilion buffer beams and buff footplate interior.
• Goods classes – unlined Indian red. Older engines painted black until 1859.

1866–1872 (Joseph Hamilton Beattie)

• All engines dark chocolate brown with 1-inch (25 mm) black bands edged internally in white and externally by vermilion. Tender sides divided into three panels.

1872–1878 (William George Beattie)

• Paler chocolate (known as purple brown) with the same lining. From 1874 the white lining was replaced by yellow ochre and the vermilion by crimson.

1878–1885 (William Adams)

• Umber brown with a 1-inch (25 mm) black band externally and bright green line internally. Boiler bands black with white edging. Buffer beams vermilion. Smokebox, chimney, frames etc. black.

1885–1895 (William Adams)

• Passenger classes – pea green with black borders edged with a fine white line. Boiler bands black with a fine white line to either side.
• Goods classes – holly green with black borders edged by a fine bright green line.

• On 11 September 1880, a passenger train collided with a light engine at Nine Elms Locomotive Junction due to errors by signalmen and the fireman of the light engine. Seven people were killed.[31]
• On 6 August 1888, a light engine and a passenger train were in a head-on collision at Hampton Wick station due to a signalman's error. Four people were killed and fifteen were injured.[32]

Salisbury.

• Salisbury rail crash: On 1 July 1906, an express passenger train was derailed at Salisbury due to excessive speed on a curve. Twenty-eight people were killed and eleven were injured.

As the London and South Western Railway served Portsmouth, Southampton and Weymouth, it developed a number of shipping routes, operating them with its own vessels.

• The Waterloo and City Railway was built by the LSWR to give them access to the City of London. This is now part of London Underground
• Disregarding the Waterloo & City line, the longest tunnel is Honiton Tunnel 1,353 yards (1,237 m); there were six others longer than 500 yards (457 m)
• The LSWR and the Midland Railway were joint owners of the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway
• The anglicised script version of the Russian word for railway station is 'vokzal'. A longstanding legend has it that a party from Russia planning their own railway system arrived in London around the time that the LSWR's Vauxhall station was opened. 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. (Fuller details are in the Vauxhall article.)

• List of early British railway companies

• Williams, R. A. (1968). The London & South Western Railway, volume 1: The Formative Years. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-4188-X.
• Williams, R. A. (1973). The London & South Western Railway, volume 2: Growth and Consolidation. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-5940-1.
• Faulkner, J. N.; Williams, R. A. (1988). The LSWR in the Twentieth Century. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-8927-0.
• Gillham, J. C. (2001). The Waterloo & City Railway. Usk: Oakwood Press. ISBN 0-85361-525-X.

• Dendy-Marshall, C. F. (1968). Kidner, R.W. (ed.). A history of the Southern Railway. London: Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-0059-X. new ed.
• Hamilton, E. C. (1956). The South Western Railway: its mechanical history and background, 1838-1922. George Allen & Unwin. 256 p.
• Nock, O. S. (1971). The London & South Western Railway. Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-0267-3.
• Whishaw, Francis (1842). The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland Practically Described and Illustrated (2nd ed.). London: John Weale. pp. 292–301. OCLC 833076248.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to London and South Western Railway.

• www.lswr.org – South Western Circle: The Historical Society for the London & South Western Railway