Historic Question - Timetable for Didcot-Newbury (DN&SR)

[Helvellyn]

The Southern were heavily represented on the Railway Executive who ran the railway in wartime, and it's said that when Didcot to Newbury was doubled first, and then on to Woodhay, first station down the Southampton line, the Southern stopped further progress because they didn't want a GWR double track line at Southampton ...

Regarding current travel patterns, there is maybe some demand from the area to Oxford, to Reading, and to London. Only the first would make any use of a Didcot-Newbury line, which were not through routed to Oxford, and would be difficult to compete with road travel on the parallel modernised A34. Few houses are walking distance from the old stations, so you would need to get the car out anyway. That sort of "against the grain" rail line just doesn't work nowadays.

To stray slightly off topic didn't the Southern's lightly used Meon Valley line also get some wartime upgrades? Linking the significant army camps of Surrey (Aldershot, et al) with Gosport/Portsmouth must have generated a far bit of traffic. Although closure for this route came a lot sooner than the Didcot-Newbury-Winchester line.

 

[DerekC]

To stray slightly off topic didn't the Southern's lightly used Meon Valley line also get some wartime upgrades? Linking the significant army camps of Surrey (Aldershot, et al) with Gosport/Portsmouth must have generated a far bit of traffic. Although closure for this route came a lot sooner than the Didcot-Newbury-Winchester line.

Not as far as I am aware. The line stayed single with passing loops in all the same places and no upgrades are mentioned in the excellent 3-volume book by Kevin Robertson published in 2012/13. The only thing the line was famous for in relation to WWII was the meeting between Churchill, Eisenhower and the Prime Ministers of Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, held in Churchill's train at Droxford on 4th June 1944.

Update - not quite true. An additional siding was put in at Mislingford for use in storage of tanks prior to D-Day.

 

[Calthrop]

The book to read is George Behrend's "Gone With Regret", about the GWR. A prominent railway (and elsewhere) author, Behrend lived at Burghclere, on the Southampton line, and wrote about experiencing it from his childhood in the 1920s through to closure. Even in the 'golden days' he said the booking office takings at the (fully staffed) station for the day were often just sixpence. And that was the OLD sixpence.

Irrelevant tangential "aside" -- Behrend was a childhood friend of Richard (Watership Down) Adams, who lived just down the line, in the Newbury area. Mentioned in Adams's autobiography of the earlier decades of his life.

 

[Taunton]

Irrelevant tangential "aside" -- Behrend was a childhood friend of Richard (Watership Down) Adams, who lived just down the line, in the Newbury area. Mentioned in Adams's autobiography of the earlier decades of his life.

Not surprising. Watership Down itself is walking distance from Burghclere, where Behrend lived, and which was its nearest station. Both were also at Oxford together.

 

[Calthrop]

There's a rail-related incident in Watership Down: from the geographical context, plainly not on the Didcot -- Newbury -- Winchester line, but the ex-LSWR London -- Salisbury -- west main line, in the Whitchurch / Overton area. A number of the rabbit characters have an encounter with an express train; which is alarming and, for some of the "baddies", lethal. The text makes it clear that the train is steam-hauled: which -- if one were to descend to rather ridiculous nitpicking -- would indicate that the book's months of exciting action for the characters take place no later than 1964 .

 

[Taunton]

The text makes it clear that the train is steam-hauled: which -- if one were to descend to rather ridiculous nitpicking -- would indicate that the book's months of exciting action for the characters take place no later than 1964

Even more nitpicking is that steam operations on Waterloo-Salisbury semi-fasts lasted until the last day of Southern steam in July 1967. Salisbury shed was in the last group to close.

 

[Calthrop]

Even more nitpicking is that steam operations on Waterloo-Salisbury semi-fasts lasted until the last day of Southern steam in July 1967. Salisbury shed was in the last group to close.

Thanks ! For a member of the "last full generation" to know and love BR regular-service steam, I've always been embarrassingly poorly-clued-up. Potential date of lapine adventures duly re-calculated...