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The Salisbury and Yeovil Railway linked Salisbury (Wiltshire), Gillingham (Dorset) and Yeovil (Somerset) in England. Opened in stages in 1859 and 1860, it formed a bridge route between the main London and South Western Railway (LSWR) network and its lines in Devon and Cornwall. Its trains were operated by the LSWR and it was sold to that company in 1878. Apart from a short section in Yeovil it remains open and carries the London Waterloo to Exeter service of South West Trains. Despite being founded after the "Railway Mania" of the 1840s, it proved to be one of the most profitable railways in the United Kingdom. This was in part due to carrying all LSWR trains to the south west, and in part due to the very good terms agreed for the LSWR to operate the trains. When the company finally sold out to the LSWR in 1878, it held out for a price which saw the shareholders receive more than the face value of their shares. ==History== The LSWR was completed to Southampton in 1840 and a branch line was opened in 1848 from Bishopstoke to Milford station in Salisbury. Within a few years efforts started on work to extend from Southampton to Dorchester. A great debate then started within the LSWR about whether to extend further west through Salisbury (the shorter "central route" or through Dorchester (the more populous "coastal route"). The rival Great Western Railway (GWR) was supporting the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway as an alternative route to Dorchester, which was to be built from the north through Yeovil. It also proposed a connecting line from Yeovil to Exeter which would have been in direct competition with either of the two proposed LSWR routes. Both companies applied for powers to construct new lines in 1846; the LSWR for a line from Basingstoke to Yeovil and both companies for different lines from Yeovil to Exeter. Neither was approved and so new applications were made in 1847, and after a mammoth 50-day hearing it was decided that the LSWR scheme was the better. Both their lines received their Act of Parliament on 22 July 1848. The large number of new railway schemes approved at that time caused an economic depression; it proved difficult to raise the money needed for the work and so the powers lapsed. Three years later an independent company tried to raise the money for a Salisbury to Exeter line and the LSWR agreed to take up half the shares, guarantee a 4% return on the shareholders' investment, and operate the trains. However a large faction in the LSWR now preferred the coastal route that could utilise the already constructed line to Dorchester, while still others opposed westward extension by any route. Another independent company now put forward their own proposals for a Salisbury and Yeovil Railway, and they were rewarded by an Act of Parliament on 7 August 1854.〔 The LSWR now applied for powers for a direct line from near to Salisbury. This had been proposed in the 1830s, authorised in 1846 but, like the original Salisbury and Yeovil line, had not been constructed. To get these renewed powers the company was forced by Parliament to commit to building the Yeovil to Exeter extension, and so the nominally independent Salisbury and Yeovil would link two otherwise isolated sections of the LSWR. The LSWR therefore agreed to subscribe to the shares, and to work the trains in return for 42½% of the receipts.〔 The line opened in three stages. From a new Fisherton station in Salisbury to Gillingham on 1 May 1859; from there to on 7 May 1860, and finally to Yeovil on 1 June 1860.〔 It used the Bristol and Exeter Railway’s station until a new joint Yeovil Town railway station was opened on 1 June 1861. In the meantime, the LSWR's line from Bradford Abbas Junction to Exeter Queen Street had opened on 19 July 1860. Although initially just a single track with passing loops at stations, work started in 1861 to double westwards from Salisbury, and east from . The whole route was doubled within ten years. In 1861 the Dorset Central Railway arrived at . The station for this line was at a lower level than the S&YR but a junction was established to allow traffic to be exchanged. This was a rather unusual arrangement that entailed Dorset trains reversing into the S&YR station on a line alongside the main line. This space was needed for doubling the Salisbury line in 1870 so a new Templecombe Junction Railway was built by the S&YR that allowed trains from the north to run directly into the main line station. In 1874 the lower line, by now the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway and part-owned by the LSWR, was extended to where a connection was made with the Midland Railway. This brought even more traffic onto the S&YR in the form of goods and passengers from the North to the LSWR. Bradford Abbas Junction was closed on 1 January 1870, after which time all trains to Yeovil had to run via . In January 1878 the company was sold to the LSWR.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Salisbury and Yeovil Railway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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