Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway

The Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (WS&WR) obtained Parliamentary powers in 1845 to build a railway from near Chippenham to Salisbury and Weymouth. It opened the first part of the network but found it impossible to raise further money and sold its line to the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1850.

The GWR took over the construction, and had undertaken to build an adjacent line in connection; the network was complete in 1857. In the early years of the twentieth century the GWR wanted to shorten its route from London to the West of England, and built "cut-off" lines in succession to link part of the WS&WR network, so that by 1906 the express trains ran over the Westbury to Castle Cary section. In 1933 further improvements were made and that part of the line was established as part of the holiday line to the West.

The network was already a major trunk route for coal from South Wales coalfields to the Southern Counties, and for Channel Islands farm produce imported through Weymouth Harbour, as well as providing a boat train route, and carrying flows from Bristol to Portsmouth.

Much of the network is in operation today, but the Devizes and branches have closed.

The Great Western Railway (GWR) had opened its main line from London to Bristol in 1841, and the London and Southampton Railway had opened in 1840; and its successor the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) was extending westwards. The advantage to communities connected to the new railways was immediately apparent, and in contrast places remote from these lines felt strongly the disadvantage at which they were placed.

The areas of south west Wiltshire were prosperous from sheep farming and woollen manufacture, and quickly saw that they too needed a railway. The LSWR proposed a line from Basingstoke to Swindon, and at this time there was intense rivalry between them and the GWR to control territory: the railway that was first to have a line in an area had an enormous competitive advantage there, and could often use that line as a base to extend further. The GWR was building its lines on the broad gauge and the LSWR on what is now the standard gauge (referred to at the time as the narrow gauge), and they were anxious to ensure that any new independent railway should be on their own preferred track gauge; this rivalry is characterised as the gauge wars.

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