Basingstoke's Railway History, by Chris Tolley

There were many influences on the way the railways around Basingstoke developed, both in growth and in decline. Different routes were built by different companies, for varying reasons, some positive, others, it must be said, negative. Naturally, the lie of the land played its part, as did the goods to be transported. The main business of railways is and was carrying people. Even so, within a few miles of Basingstoke, lines were built to carry cargo from biscuits to bombs to bricks (both collecting and delivering!) This history aims to record the development, and the factors behind it.

I have used sketch maps in historical sequence to document the changes in the railway system, while text (with footnotes) follows the development topic by topic. Each of the lines passing through Basingstoke is covered in the text, and there are extra sections which cover the general history of the railways over the past century and three quarters, the military railways in the neighbourhood and the background to the changes which Privatisation have brought to the railways. Those lines shown on the maps which did not pass through Basingstoke are, with the exceptions just referred to, not covered in the text sections.

Dates given in the text and maps have generally been verified by reference to several sources (a list of these and other relevant reading material is included in the Bibliography). Sometimes sources disagree as to the dates when events happened. Mistakes aside, this can partly be explained by the different style and emphasis of each author, but a more significant factor is how one actually determines that a railway is "open" or "closed". For openings, modern practice is to include new stations in timetables before they are open, with a note saying that they are expected to open during the life of the timetable; sometimes they do not. In the past, stations like Newbury Racecourse could be open for several years before first appearing in a public timetable. Closures present different problems: a line might be closed to passengers, but not to goods; or to both, but the track left in place. Even in the extreme case where the track is taken up. there is one line in the area for which this was not the end of the story. Consequently, if you have reason to doubt dates I have quoted, I would be pleased to learn from you.

The impetus for drafting this history was an invitation to speak about the local railways to the Probus group in Basingstoke in September 1995. Whilst Basingstoke is not a particularly large town, it has a complex railway history, which could not be completely covered in a short talk. These web pages provide background information for those wishing to know more. I hope that readers will find something of interest in this history; I certainly discovered much that was new to me while researching it.

Many of the sections of this history contain drawings and photographs. The page showing the development of the railway network in map form contains almost 40 maps, for example.

Inter-City 125 High Speed Trains pass at Basingstoke
on 28 April 1998. The nearer one is southbound.

You are welcome to read this work and to print it out for your own use, but if you would like to make any other use of any of these materials, such as incorporating pictures, maps or diagrams into your own work, please obtain my permission first. In the past, I have been amenable to this, providing I have known that the material is to be used suitably.

This page is a part of Chris Tolley's web-site. Latest update: Thursday, January 04, 2001 19:34
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©1996 to 2001: Christopher J. Tolley

Backtracking	(An Introduction to this History)
Abbreviations and glossary
Things Ain't What They Used To Be	(The Effects of the Rise and Fall of the Railways)
On the Main Line	(The London and Southampton Railway)
A Cuckoo in the Nest	(The Berks & Hants Railway Basingstoke Branch)
Border Line	(The Railway from Basingstoke to Andover and beyond)
First Stop Buggleskelly	(The Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway)
The Long Siding	(The Park Prewett Hospital Railway)
Ordnance Survey	(Military Railways near Basingstoke)
All Change	(Competition and Privatisation)
Signs of Change	(A Photo Gallery of Privatisation - with all the pictures, this will take time to load!)
Asides	(Snippets and Anecdotes)
Basingstoke's Railway History in Maps
Acknowledgements and Bibliography

Table of Contents

Backtracking

An Introduction to this History