West of England Main Line

The West of England Main Line is a British railway line that runs from , Hampshire to Exeter St Davids in Devon, England. Passenger services run between London Waterloo station and Exeter. Despite its historic title, this is not today's principal route from London to the West of England: Exeter and beyond are reached more quickly by the Great Western Main Line from London Paddington.

History

When all routes had been incorporated into the London and South Western Railway, this section of the network consisted of the various sections and stations listed below.

• Basingstoke to Salisbury
• Basingstoke to Andover opened 3 July 1854
• Andover to Salisbury opened 1 May 1857

• Intermediate branches were built to serve the following places between Basingstoke and Salisbury.
• Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway opened June 1901, closed all traffic 30 May 1936
• Two branches, from Hurstbourne and Andover to Romsey and onto Eastleigh and Southampton: both closed. Link via Longparish opened 1 June 1885; closed all traffic 6 July 1931.
• At Andover was the junction with the Midland and South Western Junction Railway to Cheltenham
• The Bulford Camp branch
• Salisbury to Romsey, with a branch from this line to Bournemouth
• In Salisbury, the Great Western Railway (GWR) line from Westbury and Bristol had its own terminus: the L&SWR continued the route southeastwards towards Southampton. This route today is the Wessex Main Line route.

• Between Salisbury and Exeter on the main......
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