Amesbury and Military Camp Light Railway

The Amesbury and Military Camp Light Railway (also known as the Bulford Camp Railway) was a branch line in Wiltshire, England, constructed under a light railway order dated 24 September 1898. It was opened for military traffic from Amesbury to the east-facing Newton Tony Junction (on the London and South Western Railway main line from Andover to Salisbury) on 1 October 1901. A west-facing junction, Amesbury Junction, where the branch burrowed under the main line, opened on 2 June 1902. The line closed in 1963.

Although the line did not open until the early 1900s, various other proposals had been put forward, but none had succeeded in being built. Before the Bulford Camp branch opened, all nearby railway routes had skirted Salisbury Plain, but none led through it.

This was a proposal by the London and South Western Railway which was designed, essentially, to poach traffic from the Great Western Railway. A Bill was deposited in Parliament in November 1882, for a line to branch away from the LSWR between Salisbury and Basingstoke at a point around two miles west of Grateley railway station. It would cross the plain via Amesbury and Shrewton to Westbury and then on to Bristol via either the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway or the North Somerset Railway. The Great Western Railway was bitterly opposed to this plan and succeeded in defeating it in 1883.

Having defeated the scheme of the LSWR, the Great Western Railway then put forward a scheme of its own. This proposed a route from Pewsey railway station on their main line, leading south over the Plain and then onward to Southampton. However, Southampton was considered to be within LSWR territory, and the encroachment was opposed in much the same way as the B&L&SWJR had been. Although a section between Pewsey and Salisbury was authorised on 16 January 1883, this was never built.

...
Wikipedia