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'Direct' Portsmouth Railway
150th Anniversary Celebrations - 13th April 2009
2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the opening of the 'Direct'
Portsmouth Railway between Farncombe in Surrey and Havant, which
allowed rail travellers between Portsmouth and London Waterloo to
make their journey by the most direct route via Guildford, rather
than via Eastleigh or Chichester. Although a common reference, the
name was never actually used as a line title.
Havant Railway Station was the scene for some of the Anniversary
Celebration Events on Easter Monday, 13 April. The station was
decorated in Victorian era style, with the Blendworth Brass
Band playing, and people in Victorian dress. The celebration steam
train - 70013 'Oliver Cromwell', provided by Steam Dreams, hauling
11 coaches - briefly stopping at Havant at 11.10 on its way to
Yeovil.
Local historian and Honorary Borough Alderman Ralph Cousins was
in attendance to explain the history of the station and to hand out
an historic explanatory leaflet (copy
available online here (PDF, 74kb) >>). A commemorative plaque was
unveiled by the Mayor of Havant, Councillor John Smith. A
special poster was produced for display at the station (copy
available online here (PDF, 573kb)>>). A copy of the Mayor's speech
used during the plaque unveiling ceremony
is here (
PDF
,
14
kb
) >>.
Until 1859 rail travellers were unable to
travel between Portsmouth and London via Guildford without
travelling on a stagecoach due to a dispute between London and
South Western Railway and the London, Brighton and South Coast
Railway companies, and in fact the rivalry between the two
companies led to the famous 'Battle of
Havant' in December 1858 where a train was chained across the
new junction at Havant. The dispute was shortly settled in the
Courts and the first train using the 'Direct Railway' between
Havant and Farncombe ran on 24th January 1859. Today this is still
the most direct route between Portsmouth and the capital with
trains from Havant doing the journey to London in 80 minutes.
The link about the Battle of Havant (above) is also available in
hard copy from the Buriton
Heritage Bank. Articles about the planning and building of
the 'Direct' Portsmouth Railway appeared in the March/April (812
kb
PDF
) and May/June (388
kb
,
PDF
) 1947 issues of 'Railway
Magazine'.