Main Line to the South Part Three

Main Line to the South Part Three: St. Denys, Northam, Southampton Terminus and Southampton Central by John Nicholas and George Reeve.

The London and Southampton Railway opened its line in 1840, the first major railway in the south of England – soon to become the London & South Western Railway and eventually in 1923 the Southern Railway. The line gathered frenzied interest in the 1960s as the last steam-worked main line in England until its electrification in July 1967.

In Main Line to The South: The Southern Railway Route Between Basingstoke, Winchester, Eastleigh & Southampton – Part Three: St.Denys, Northam, Southampton Terminus and Southampton Central the authors, John Nicholas and George Reeve, cover in great detail all facets of the construction, opening and operation of the line over the decades. Every archive, contemporary account or historical description has been thoroughly investigated in depth and presented as part of the narrative. The text is supplemented by a variety of track plans, building plans, signal box diagrams and Ordnance Survey maps.

A central pillar of Part Three is inevitably the great and continuingly important operating centre within Southampton’s once vast railway network within the docks complex. Today the line between Basingstoke and Southampton carries not only heavy passenger traffic, but some of the nation’s heaviest freight traffic, in the shape of containers from Southampton Docks.

The Line Described
London & Southampton Railway 1838-1840
LSWR 1841-1867
LSWR 1868-1898
LSWR 1899-1922
Southern Railway 1923-1947
Early Southern Region 1948-1967
Modern Developments
Southampton Docks Traffic
Traffic and Train Services