| London And South Western Railway |
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After Railway Privatisation the name was partially evoked for South West Trains who operate over much of the old London & South Western routes. HISTORY The L&SWR was originally promoted in 1831 as the ''Southampton, London and Branch Railway and Dock Company'': its original plans envisaged the line through in 1834. It was the first of the three trunk routes running south of London. During its early years there were many eventful occurrences:
The L&SWR also had many strengths:
In 1891 , the works at Eastleigh , in Hampshire, was opened with the transfer of work from Nine Elms in London . Among the innovations of the LSWR was the running of an express train, the ''North Cornwall and Bude Express''. It was first run in 1907; the Southern Railway was later to rename it as the Atlantic Coast Express in July 1926. It was the 11am train from London, and it continued to run until 1964. For more details see these notes . Openings The first section to be opened was from Nine Elms, the company's first London terminus in the suburban parish of Battersea , to Woking (then named ''Woking Common'') on 21 May 1838 . On that date the company changed its name to L&SWR. The remainder of the main line followed:
Waterloo station It was ten years later that the L&SWR built its metropolitan terminus at . Southampton The Southern Railway built a new through station at Southampton Central in 1933. Southampton Terminus remained in use until 1966 and the L&SWR's classical building of 1840 (designed by Sir William Tite , who also designed the Nine Elms terminus) survives. MAIN LINE The stations on the main route (with dates of opening if not original L&SWR) are :
OTHER PRINCIPAL LINES Reading and Portsmouth lines Apart from the original main line, the LSWR had the following routes:
Apart from the Windsor branch, there are many suburban lines in this area, including the Hounslow loop line; and the Twickenham / Kingston-upon-Thames / Shepperton routes
There is also the Lymington branch, opened by the ''Lymington Railway'' on 12 July 1858 . See Lymington Flyer Route to the south-west
The LSWR main line continued, serving the following places:
Beyond Coleford Junction all lines, except that to Barnstaple, are now closed. They served, among other places:
LINE DETAILS Locomotives & rolling stock Locomotives were painted green lined in chocolate and black and white; passenger rolling stock, yellow tint of Salmon pink upper parts, brown below. The railway ran a large number of ''steam rail motor cars'' on the smaller branches. The locomotive works were at Eastleigh, having replaced Nine Elms in 1911. Other details
ELECTRIFICATION The L&SWR adopted Third Rail electrification of its suburban routes during the First World War . This subsequently became the standard for the entire Southern Railway , almost certainly because of the influence of Sir Herbert Walker , who had come from the London And North Western Railway to be General Manager of the LSWR in 1912; in 1914 he had also been appointed as Chairman of the wartime ''Railway Executive Committee''. TRIVIA Vauxhall station reputedly has had an interesting influence on other languages. Legend has it that a party from Russia came to see what happening around the time the station was opened (with a view to planning their own rail system). 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. The anglicised script version of the Russian word is 'vokzal'. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS |
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