The Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway was opened in 1901, by the London and South Western Railway. It was the first English railway authorised under Light Railway legislation. It ran through unpromising, lightly populated terrain, and was probably built only to exclude competitors from building a line in the area. It had steep gradients and a line speed limit of 20 mph, later raised to 25 mph.
It never attracted much business and the hoped-for through traffic never materialised. When the War Office demanded recovered track for laying in France, during the First World War, the LSWR closed the line and lifted the track, in 1917.
After the war, local pressure mounted to reinstate the railway; this was resisted by the Southern Railway, which had taken over from the LSWR. The SR had no wish to spend considerable sums to reopen a railway that had lost money and had no positive prospects. A House of Lords Committee effectively forced the SR to resume operation, which it did in 1924. Losses mounted and business declined further, and the line was closed to passengers in 1932, with limited goods services continuing until 1936.
Before closure a film company staged a train crash with the co-operation of the LSWR, and the event appeared in a feature film.
History
Early proposals
The London and Southampton Railway completed its line in 1839, and reached Gosport the following year. Gosport was its station for Portsmouth, which with Southampton was important because of its maritime connection. The London and Southampton Railway changed its name to the London and South Western Railway (LSWR), and became the dominant railway operator in the area south of Basingstoke.
In 1848 a small chink in that dominance was created when the Great Western Railway, a great rival to the LSWR, opened a line from Reading to Basingstoke.
In 1865 the Mid-Hants Railway opened its line between Alton and Winchester. It had been promoted independently, hoping to form a new through route between London and Southampton. This did not endear it to the LSWR, for whom their main line route to Southampton was a prime part of its business, but the LSWR worked the line, and later absorbed it. It never rose to commercial success. In 1885 another incursion into the LSWR area of influence was made, when the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway opened its north – south line. It was sponsored by the Great Western Railway, but it failed to generate enough investment to pay to reach Southampton, and its Winchester extremity forced it to rely on the LSWR.
Many of the lines on the district seemed to be on a north-east to south-west trajectory, leading from London to points on the Hampshire or Dorset coast. From time to time, lines running directly from north to south were put forward. The topography in that direction was difficult, consisting of high ground between deep broad valleys. At the same time the chalk geology led to poor agricultural land and a low population density.
In 1884 the Great Western Railway and the LSWR had agreed on territorial boundaries: neither would encourage the building of new lines that encroached on the established area of the other. When in the same year a Basingstoke to Alton Railway was proposed independently, it received no support from the LSWR, on which it would be dependent at each end, and the scheme foundered. The London Brighton and South Coast Railway made a similar agreement, and schemes for new railways from Portsmouth northward, pressed for by Portsmouth interests, ran into the same obstacle.
In 1896 a Portsmouth, Basingstoke and Godalming Railway Bill came to Parliament. It failed, but the LSWR board decided that they needed to respond to the pressure for such a line, in case some rival might do so instead. The Basingstoke connection might invite the LBSCR (at Portsmouth) to link up with the GWR (at Basingstoke). On 25 June 1896 the LSWR Board approved two new schemes: a Basingstoke to Alton line, and a line from Alton down the Meon Valley to Fareham.
Reason to build the line
The line was designed to run through a thinly populated agricultural area. Although it connected neatly on a map to the (proposed) Meon Valley Railway, it would be a 20 mph light railway, with several 10 mph open level crossings, and it was unlikely to form part of a trunk route.
Dean, etc., wrote that "It has been said that the LSWR planned the Light Railway as a "blocking line", to keep the GWR out of its territory. There is no evidence that this was so."
Kelly, writing in 1900 was quite sure that the line was built as a spoiler against a Great Western Railway connection to Portsmouth: