Southern Railway Routes West of Salisbury - Independent Railways - The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway

The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway

The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway formed a most important connecting line for the L&SWR, intersecting at Templecombe. The line had originally been promoted by a local line, the Dorset Central Railway, which had made a connection with the L&SWR at Templecombe in 1862. At the same time, the line amalgamated with the Somerset Central Railway to form the Somerset & Dorset Railway, at this stage only aspiring to connect Poole with Highbridge and Burnham on the Bristol Channel. However the little company completed its extension to Bath in 1874, there connecting with the Midland railway, and instantly forming an important through route to the Midlands and the North, avoiding dependence on the Great Western Railway.

However the capital expenditure in building the Bath extension ruined the S&DR and it leased its line to the L&SWR and Midland Railway companies in 1876; they operated the line as the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway, with the Midland company providing the engine power and rolling stock, and the L&SWR providing infrastructure and operations staff.

The Joint line connected with other L&SWR routes at Poole and Bournemouth, and that was the most important passenger flow, with a lower usage of the Templecombe connection with the Salisbury - Exeter line. However freight traffic interchange at Templecombe was considerable.

Read more about this topic:  Southern Railway Routes West Of Salisbury, Independent Railways

Famous quotes containing the words somerset, joint and/or railway:

    If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.
    —W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1966)

    No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.
    Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)

    Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.
    Angela Carter (1940–1992)