Or my latest futile attempt to write a timeline. 
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The Meon Valley Steam Spectacular- September 2011
The Meon Valley Railway would like to invite you to its 2011 Autumn Steam Gala. Running from Friday 16th to Sunday 18th, the Steam Gala will feature all the engines which are currently working as well as guest locomotives. An intensive service will run all day from Alton to Fareham. In addition, visitors can also travel on the Mid Hants Railway which runs from Alton to Winchester Junction.
Guest locomotives in the event will be:
Ticket prices:
Your ticket entitles you to free travel on the Meon Valley Railway all day as well as granting you access to the Railway Shed at Mislingford. Additionally, your ticket will also grant free rides on the Mid Hants Railway between Alton and Medstead-Four Marks. (A Mid Hants Railway ticket must be purchased to travel all the way to Winchester Junction)
Branchlines in the Middle Hants
Taken from Branchlines to Alton
Of the four lines that used to fan out from Alton; the Basingstoke Light Railway, the Mid Hants Railway, the Meon Valley Railway and Alton-Woking Railway, only the first has not survived until the present day. The fact that two of these lines are preserved railways makes Alton station one of the busiest in the country, with perhaps only Porthmadog (the juncture of the Welsh Highland and Ffestinog Railways) surpassing it.
None of this seemed very likely when the first railways arrived at Alton in 1852, courtesy of the London South-Western Railway. Even when the Alton, Alresford and Winchester Railway Company was authorized to extend the railway to Winchester via Ropley and Alresford in 1865, Alton remained a small backwater Britain’s railway network. It was only in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century that things began to accelerate and Alton’s future became clearer. In 1898, the LSWR began work on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway, the first such railway authorized until the Light Railways Act (1896). In many ways, the Basingstoke Light Railway was more a pawn in the railway politics of the era; the LSWR wished to head off an attempt by the Great Western to build a railway to Portsmouth. Serving a mainly rural population and two towns with an already serviceable (if indirect) rail link, the railway soon began to lose large sums of money, around £4000 per year by the war years. This lack of financial success coupled with a staff shortage on the LSWR due to the war, led to the management deciding to close the railway in late 1916. Soon after, the track was lifted and taken by the army to France. There was one final twist to the Basingstoke Light Railway’s short existence. In the aftermath of the war, local residents were eager to see their railway reinstated but the newly created Southern Railway [1] was reluctant to relay the line. Following a legal battle however, the local community got its way and the Southern Railway reopened in the line in August 1924. However no station masters were provided at the intermediate stations (Cliddesden, Herriard and Bentworth & Lasham) and within twelve years, all services on the railway had been cut.
In the time between the opening of the Basingstoke Light Railway and its first closure in 1916, a new railway had also been constructed, running from Alton to Fareham. Like the BLR, the Meon Valley Railway was intended in part to head off the Great Western Railway’s [2] attempts to build a line from the West Country to Portsmouth. In contrast to the “on the cheap” Basingstoke line however, the Meon Valley Railway was built on a grand scale. The line was built to mainline standards, although it was for the moment only single-track, and as a result, the railway possessed a number of impressive examples of civil engineering. These included two large tunnels; both between Privett and West Meon, but by far the most impressive was the Weston Viaduct that crossed the River Meon just outside West Meon. Apart from attempting to head off the GWR, it seems that the LSWR hoped that they could use the Meon Valley Railway as both a tourist line (to serve what was hoped to be the major tourist resort at Stokes Bay) and as a major military trunk line in the event of war.
Unfortunately, the LSWR made virtually no effort to stimulate either the growth of a tourist resort at Stokes Bay or to develop the Meon Valley as an alternate (and faster) route down to the southern coast. Express and fast passenger services along the line were cut back almost from the day the railway opened and within twelve years, they had been completely stopped. The arrival of the Southern Railway only hastened the decline of the railway, with the only regular services being local passenger trains hauled by M7 tank engines. At this point it was clear that the Meon Valley Railway was running on borrowed time as it was prohibitively expensive to maintain the expensive main line infrastructure and it served two modest market towns, which had another connection to each other as well. In spite of these difficulties, the railway continued to struggle on through the war years until finally in 1955; British Railway grew tired of paying for the little used line and decided to close it to passengers. Freight services would continue between Fareham and Droxford, and Alton and Farringdon for the time being.
In 1962, the Droxford-Fareham section was shut completely and in 1968, the northern section was lost as well. In the years immediately after the closure of Droxford, Mr. Charles Ashby used the line for experiments with a Sadler Rail Coach, which was eventually intended to run on the Cowes-Newport line on the Isle of Wight. For not entirely clear reasons, Ashby also moved a Terrier tank engine to Droxford in the mid 1960s, which was abandoned when Ashby’s rail car was destroyed by vandals. [3] By this point, the station had another set of residents; the Southern Locomotive Preservation Society, which departed quickly ‘acquired’ the Terrier and also brought a USA ‘Yankee’ tank to the site. It was this group that would eventually resurrect the Meon Valley Railway.
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Taken from the memoirs of Daniel Barker, chairman of the Southern Locomotive Preservation Society
Of course things were precarious in the early years. A series of safety slip ups nearly caused a serious fire at the site in 1970, which would have made the whole society untenable. [4] British Railways were hardly the most helpful neighbors either, we seriously debated moving when they decided to cut the link between us and the Fareham line, but in the end we decided to continue. [5] They also refused to allow us to extend the line to Knowle Halt on our own initiative, meaning that in spite of the fact we could have done it in the early 1970s, we had to wait until the Big Seven [6] arrived after 1996 to get to Knowle Halt.
Footnotes:
[1]: The Southern Railway (for those who don’t know) was one of four railway companies created in 1923 by the Railways Act of 1921. The other three were the London North-Eastern Railway (home of the A4 Pacifics and Flying Scotsman), the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (the only railway in history to build a steam engine that looks like a bathtub), and the Great Western Railway (which has the most preserved engines is memory serves).
[2]: It is questionable where the LSWR should have gone to these lengths, as their link to Southampton would still have been quicker than the GWR route (Great Way Round indeed in this case)
[3]: This is the first PoD. In OTL, the Terrier ended up on static display as a pub sign on Hayling Island before moving to the Isle of Wight Steam Railway.
[4]: This is the second PoD. In OTL, the fire would cause serious damage to Droxford and lead to the society deciding to abandon it.
[5]: This is the third PoD. BR still tears up the track connection but the knock-on effect of the 1970 fire leads to the SLPS deciding to keep going instead of moving.
[6]: The Big Seven are: (New) Southern Railways, Great Western Railways, London and North-Eastern Railway, London and West Coast Railway, Northern Irish Railways, Great North of Britain Railways and Welsh Railways. As you can see, the privatization of BR goes rather differently in this timeline.
*
Mostly just OTL back story, although the PoDs have been marked clearly.
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The Meon Valley Steam Spectacular- September 2011
The Meon Valley Railway would like to invite you to its 2011 Autumn Steam Gala. Running from Friday 16th to Sunday 18th, the Steam Gala will feature all the engines which are currently working as well as guest locomotives. An intensive service will run all day from Alton to Fareham. In addition, visitors can also travel on the Mid Hants Railway which runs from Alton to Winchester Junction.
Guest locomotives in the event will be:
- No. 4485 A4 Merlin
- No. 35005 Rebuilt Merchant Navy Canadian Pacific
- No. 828 Urie S15
- No. 104 E2 tank engine
Ticket prices:
- Adult: £20
- Child (2-15 years old): £12
- Family ticket (2 adults, 2 children): £50
Your ticket entitles you to free travel on the Meon Valley Railway all day as well as granting you access to the Railway Shed at Mislingford. Additionally, your ticket will also grant free rides on the Mid Hants Railway between Alton and Medstead-Four Marks. (A Mid Hants Railway ticket must be purchased to travel all the way to Winchester Junction)
Branchlines in the Middle Hants
Taken from Branchlines to Alton
Of the four lines that used to fan out from Alton; the Basingstoke Light Railway, the Mid Hants Railway, the Meon Valley Railway and Alton-Woking Railway, only the first has not survived until the present day. The fact that two of these lines are preserved railways makes Alton station one of the busiest in the country, with perhaps only Porthmadog (the juncture of the Welsh Highland and Ffestinog Railways) surpassing it.
None of this seemed very likely when the first railways arrived at Alton in 1852, courtesy of the London South-Western Railway. Even when the Alton, Alresford and Winchester Railway Company was authorized to extend the railway to Winchester via Ropley and Alresford in 1865, Alton remained a small backwater Britain’s railway network. It was only in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century that things began to accelerate and Alton’s future became clearer. In 1898, the LSWR began work on the Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway, the first such railway authorized until the Light Railways Act (1896). In many ways, the Basingstoke Light Railway was more a pawn in the railway politics of the era; the LSWR wished to head off an attempt by the Great Western to build a railway to Portsmouth. Serving a mainly rural population and two towns with an already serviceable (if indirect) rail link, the railway soon began to lose large sums of money, around £4000 per year by the war years. This lack of financial success coupled with a staff shortage on the LSWR due to the war, led to the management deciding to close the railway in late 1916. Soon after, the track was lifted and taken by the army to France. There was one final twist to the Basingstoke Light Railway’s short existence. In the aftermath of the war, local residents were eager to see their railway reinstated but the newly created Southern Railway [1] was reluctant to relay the line. Following a legal battle however, the local community got its way and the Southern Railway reopened in the line in August 1924. However no station masters were provided at the intermediate stations (Cliddesden, Herriard and Bentworth & Lasham) and within twelve years, all services on the railway had been cut.
In the time between the opening of the Basingstoke Light Railway and its first closure in 1916, a new railway had also been constructed, running from Alton to Fareham. Like the BLR, the Meon Valley Railway was intended in part to head off the Great Western Railway’s [2] attempts to build a line from the West Country to Portsmouth. In contrast to the “on the cheap” Basingstoke line however, the Meon Valley Railway was built on a grand scale. The line was built to mainline standards, although it was for the moment only single-track, and as a result, the railway possessed a number of impressive examples of civil engineering. These included two large tunnels; both between Privett and West Meon, but by far the most impressive was the Weston Viaduct that crossed the River Meon just outside West Meon. Apart from attempting to head off the GWR, it seems that the LSWR hoped that they could use the Meon Valley Railway as both a tourist line (to serve what was hoped to be the major tourist resort at Stokes Bay) and as a major military trunk line in the event of war.
Unfortunately, the LSWR made virtually no effort to stimulate either the growth of a tourist resort at Stokes Bay or to develop the Meon Valley as an alternate (and faster) route down to the southern coast. Express and fast passenger services along the line were cut back almost from the day the railway opened and within twelve years, they had been completely stopped. The arrival of the Southern Railway only hastened the decline of the railway, with the only regular services being local passenger trains hauled by M7 tank engines. At this point it was clear that the Meon Valley Railway was running on borrowed time as it was prohibitively expensive to maintain the expensive main line infrastructure and it served two modest market towns, which had another connection to each other as well. In spite of these difficulties, the railway continued to struggle on through the war years until finally in 1955; British Railway grew tired of paying for the little used line and decided to close it to passengers. Freight services would continue between Fareham and Droxford, and Alton and Farringdon for the time being.
In 1962, the Droxford-Fareham section was shut completely and in 1968, the northern section was lost as well. In the years immediately after the closure of Droxford, Mr. Charles Ashby used the line for experiments with a Sadler Rail Coach, which was eventually intended to run on the Cowes-Newport line on the Isle of Wight. For not entirely clear reasons, Ashby also moved a Terrier tank engine to Droxford in the mid 1960s, which was abandoned when Ashby’s rail car was destroyed by vandals. [3] By this point, the station had another set of residents; the Southern Locomotive Preservation Society, which departed quickly ‘acquired’ the Terrier and also brought a USA ‘Yankee’ tank to the site. It was this group that would eventually resurrect the Meon Valley Railway.
*
Taken from the memoirs of Daniel Barker, chairman of the Southern Locomotive Preservation Society
Of course things were precarious in the early years. A series of safety slip ups nearly caused a serious fire at the site in 1970, which would have made the whole society untenable. [4] British Railways were hardly the most helpful neighbors either, we seriously debated moving when they decided to cut the link between us and the Fareham line, but in the end we decided to continue. [5] They also refused to allow us to extend the line to Knowle Halt on our own initiative, meaning that in spite of the fact we could have done it in the early 1970s, we had to wait until the Big Seven [6] arrived after 1996 to get to Knowle Halt.
Footnotes:
[1]: The Southern Railway (for those who don’t know) was one of four railway companies created in 1923 by the Railways Act of 1921. The other three were the London North-Eastern Railway (home of the A4 Pacifics and Flying Scotsman), the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (the only railway in history to build a steam engine that looks like a bathtub), and the Great Western Railway (which has the most preserved engines is memory serves).
[2]: It is questionable where the LSWR should have gone to these lengths, as their link to Southampton would still have been quicker than the GWR route (Great Way Round indeed in this case)
[3]: This is the first PoD. In OTL, the Terrier ended up on static display as a pub sign on Hayling Island before moving to the Isle of Wight Steam Railway.
[4]: This is the second PoD. In OTL, the fire would cause serious damage to Droxford and lead to the society deciding to abandon it.
[5]: This is the third PoD. BR still tears up the track connection but the knock-on effect of the 1970 fire leads to the SLPS deciding to keep going instead of moving.
[6]: The Big Seven are: (New) Southern Railways, Great Western Railways, London and North-Eastern Railway, London and West Coast Railway, Northern Irish Railways, Great North of Britain Railways and Welsh Railways. As you can see, the privatization of BR goes rather differently in this timeline.
*
Mostly just OTL back story, although the PoDs have been marked clearly.