The Alton line is a railway line in Hampshire and Surrey, England, operated by South Western Railway; it is a relatively long branch of the South West Main Line.
The branch leaves the main line at Pirbright Junction to the west of Brookwood station, Surrey, then turns to the south-west. The route crosses and recrosses the Surrey/Hampshire border, serving the towns of Aldershot and Farnham, before reaching its present-day terminus at Alton in East Hampshire. The line originally continued west to Winchester; the section between Alton and New Alresford is preserved as the heritage Watercress line.
The Alton line was electrified (750 V DC third rail) during the late inter-war years by Southern Railway. Steam trains connected to the Mid Hants Watercress Railway (by way of rolling stock supply or special excursion) operate on the line.
Route Infrastructure The Alton line is a standard-gauge railway line in South East England. It runs for from the South West Main Line at Pirbright Junction in Surrey to in Hampshire. The line is electrified using the 750 V DC third-rail system and is double track between Pirbright Junction and . Between Farnham and Alton, there is an single-track section, although trains may pass at Bentley station. The entire line is controlled by Woking Area Signalling Centre; the signalling system uses track circuits, with the exception of the station area, which uses the absolute block method. The maximum permitted speed on the line is and passenger trains from Alton typically reach on the South West Main Line in around 30–35 minutes.
At Pirbright Junction, a flyover allows trains heading from Alton towards London to pass over all four tracks of the South West Main Line. There are two additional junctions with National Rail lines: Ash Vale Junction allows trains to access the Ascot–Ash Vale line and Aldershot North Junction allows trains to access the spur towards the North Downs Line. At the southern end of the line, the connection to the Watercress Line, a heritage railway, is fully signalled.
There are two tunnels on the Alton line: the longest is the Foxhills Tunnel, between Pirbright Junction and , which runs beneath Pirbright Common; the shorter Aldershot Tunnel, between Ash Vale and Aldershot, passes under Redan Hill. The Alton line crosses the Basingstoke Canal twice: at Ash Vale and Aldershot Railway Bridges. The level crossing at Farnham, where the line crosses the B3001, is one of the most misused in the Network Rail Wessex Region. Between Farnham and Alton, the line parallels the north branch of the River Wey.
Stations and services
All five stations on the line—Ash Vale, Aldershot, Farnham, Bentley and Alton—are managed by South Western Railway (SWR), which operates all passenger services. Aldershot and Alton have three platforms, although Platform 3 at the latter is used exclusively by the Watercress Line. The other stations have two platforms each.
Three distinct passenger services run on the Alton line, all of which are operated by SWR: to Alton via services travel along the full length of the line; Ascot to Aldershot via services travel on the line between Ash Vale Junction and Aldershot; to Farnham via services travel on the line between Aldershot North Junction and Farnham. Passenger services are typically operated by electric multiple units, although units are expected to operate services north of Farnham via Ash Vale.
Stations on the Alton line StationDistance from Number ofplatformsOpening date Original nameRef.measured via 2North Camp & Ash Valemeasured via Brookwood3measured via 2Bentleymeasured via Tongham2measured via Tongham3(2 for Alton line)relocated 2 October 1865
Farnham Traincare Depot
Farnham Traincare Depot () is located on Weydon Lane in Wrecclesham; it is close to the border between Surrey and Hampshire, in between and Bentley stations. SWR uses the depot, as part of their franchise agreement; it houses mainly Class 450 electric multiple units, but also Class 444 and Class 701 units. Before the introduction of the 701/5 units, the depot has been used as sidings for the fleet awaiting their first runs in passenger operation.
The depot was opened by the Southern Railway, at the time of the electrification of the Portsmouth and Alton lines in 1937. The company had wanted to build the facility at Alton, but the local authority had refused permission and it was constructed at Farnham instead. The depot was refurbished for the introduction of modern units when slam-door trains were replaced circa 2005. At the same time, disused quarry and ballast dump sidings behind the carriage shed were removed and a number of outdoor sidings were laid for overnight storage and servicing of units.
History The 1840s and 1850s In 1845, the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) proposed two lines to serve Farnham and Alton. The two market towns were at the centre of a large barley-growing area and the promoters hoped to transport 145,000 barrels of ale annually. They also saw an opportunity to carry building materials, including stone quarried from east Hampshire. Plans were deposited with Parliament for a branches from Pirbright and from Guildford, which were to converge at Ash Green Halt before heading south-west towards Farnham.
The London and South Western Railway (Farnham and Alton Branch) Act 1846 authorised the construction of the line from Guildford to Alton. The Reading, Guildford and Reigate Railway (RG&RR) was granted running powers between Guildford and Ash Junction, from where it would branch north-westwards towards Reading. The LSWR line was to continue to Alton via (initially called Ash), Farnham and Bentley. The act explicitly authorised the construction of level crossings where the route intersected local roads.
The contract for construction was awarded to Thomas Brassey, who was to be paid £145,500 (equivalent to £ million in ). The LSWR opened the double-track line from Guildford to Ash Junction on 20 August 1849, when the South Eastern Railway (SER) began running Guildford–Reading services on behalf of the RG&RR. The single-track line to Farnham, with an intermediate halt at Ash Green, opened on 8 October that year. The railway historian R.A. Williams, notes that the LSWR and SER "worked uneasily together" as the two companies competed for passengers travelling from west Surrey to London. In 1858, the SER offered a free bus service from Farnham town centre to its station at in the hope of attracting custom from its rival.
Work on the extension from Farnham to Alton did not begin until October 1850. The line was originally to have been double track, but the LSWR directors had become sceptical of the traffic potential and sought to reduce costs by laying only a single line. Brassey was able to complete the work at a cost of £3,500 per mile (£,000 in ), meaning that the line cost only £30,000 (£ million in ) more to build than would have been lost by abandoning it. The extension south-westwards from Farnham opened on 28 July 1852. The station at Alton was laid out as a terminus, and the intermediate station at Bentley, around from the village it serves, opened two years later.
A public freight siding was opened at with the line, but initially no passenger facilities were provided in the village. A station was opened in the same location as the sidings in October 1856, to serve the new army camps at Aldershot that had been under construction since February 1854. A single-track branch was laid from Tongham to South Camp, but was removed in mid-1859 when building work was complete.
The 1860s and 1870s
The independent Mid-Hants Railway proposed the extension of the line west from Alton, with the intention of providing a direct link between the army camps at Aldershot and the ports of the south coast. The line was authorised on 18 June 1861. The LSWR was sceptical of the new route, fearing that traffic would be taken away from its main line via . Nevertheless, the company agreed to operate passenger services on 17 February 1865, and the new route to opened on 2 October that year. Initially most trains ran as extensions of existing Guildford–Alton services.
By the end of the Crimean War in early 1856, the number of military personnel garrisoned at Aldershot was over 14,000, growing to over 29,000 that August. A horse-drawn omnibus service to Farnham began that year, but the town was not directly connected to the passenger railway network and the closest stations were at Tongham, and Farnborough.
The first proposals for a railway through Aldershot were put forward in 1857 and 1863. However, both schemes, which would have linked the growing town to the South West Main Line at Farnborough, failed in Parliament. In 1864, an independent company submitted the Farnham, Aldershot and Woking Junction Bill, but the promoters were persuaded to withdraw their plans by the LSWR which submitted a similar scheme to Parliament the following year. The only major differences between the two proposals were that the link to North Camp station in the 1864 plans was eliminated and that the link to Ash station was replaced by a shorter, more tightly curved spur. The total cost of the line was estimated to be £160,000 (equivalent to £ million in ) and the LSWR bill requested borrowing powers for up to £53,330 (£ million in ).
The line from Pirbright Junction to Farnham Junction was authorised in the South Western (Aldershot) Railway Act 1865 on 19 June 1865. It was built with two tracks from the South West Main Line to Aldershot, from where it continued south as a single line towards Farnham. The original intention was for the line to pass through Redan Hill in a cutting, but a tunnel was added to the scheme in 1866 at the request of the War Department. The army also insisted that the bridge over the Basingstoke Canal at Ash should include a untracked section to allow military personnel to cross the waterway on foot.
Poor weather over the winter of 1869-70 delayed the opening of the Pirbright Junction–Farnham Junction line, but the first passenger services finally ran on 2 May 1870. The new line not only included new stations at Ash Vale and Aldershot, but also provided a more direct link to London from Farnham than the existing route via Guildford. The initial service was eight northbound and six southbound trains each day and trains from Aldershot typically reached London Waterloo in around 70 minutes. The single line from Aldershot to Farnham Junction was doubled on 10 March 1875. The first services over the Ash–Aldershot spur were run by the SER on 1 May 1879, and the LSWR launched a Guildford–Aldershot via Ash passenger service on 1 October 1882.
The single frack from Ash Vale Junction to Frimley Junction opened on 2 June 1879, completing the Ascot–Ash Vale line. The new route provided a direct rail link from Aldershot to , the closest station to the Staff College for the British Armed Forces, although initially the majority of services on the southern part of the new line ran as shuttles between Frimley and Farnham.
Late 19th and early 20th centuries
Several infrastructure projects were undertaken in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The single-track section between Ash Green Halt and Farnham was doubled in June 1884, and laying of a second track between Farnham and Alton was completed in June 1901. At the northern end of the route, the South West Main Line was widened from two tracks to four. As part of the first phase of these works, a flyover was opened at Pirbright Junction on 30 June 1901, allowing trains from Alton and Aldershot to pass over the main line on a bridge. A new signal box was installed at the junction in 1904, which remained operational until 1931. At the end of the 19th century, there were 20 trains per day between Farnham and London. The average journey time was 1 hour 31 minutes, but the fastest express took only 1 hour 5 minutes.