Fulfilling a local need, it was in financial difficulties throughout its independent life and was sold to the Great Western Railway (GWR) in 1905.
There was considerable local enthusiasm for the scheme and the provisional Newbury and Lambourn Tramway Company was formed in late 1873.
A 3 ft gauge single track would be laid at the side of the main road, with several short branches within Newbury.
[2][3][4] An attempt to get an authorising Act failed in the 1881 session due to objections over level crossings, but a revised scheme with a shorter route and fewer level crossings was submitted for the 1883 session, and obtained its authorising Act on 2 August 1883.
In this impasse, the company acquired another engineer, William Gregory, and a new Contractor, Jonathan Edwin Billups, who it seems[note 3] was prepared to undertake the work for £110,000, but he would accept £60,000 of that in shares and £33,000 in debenture stock, only requiring £18,000 in cash.
As a means of actually starting construction, this was attractive to the board, although by now they had not even the £18,000: of the £25,930 subscribed £10,000 had been spent on Parliamentary costs—an extension of time had been applied for and granted—and land acquisition, and a further £10,000 was considered to be committed.
[5] The actual construction work proceeded satisfactorily until in June 1890, when about two-thirds of the line was ballasted, a serious contractual dispute with Billups arose.
Authorisation for a further extension of time and further borrowing were given in the Lambourn Valley Railway Act 1892 (55 & 56 Vict.
Before opening to passengers, an inspection by the Board of trade inspector was required; Col. Yorke visited on 31 March 1898.
A coal train (not needing the official approval) may have run the following day, but the line opened fully to passengers and goods on 4 April 1898.
It is not clear what benefit this was expected to give them, but a hearing was held on 31 July 1903 and the Order was refused.
At this time the company had debts of over £27,000, but they rejected the offer outright, relying on optimistic ideas of improving income on the line and the Directors' willingness to fund necessary outgoing s personally.
[note 5] Col Yorke of the Board of Trade made an inspection on 7 May 1904, in which two railmotors were passed over the underbridges together; some brickwork repairs were pointed out, but the proposal was approved.
[8]The railmotors were put into service on 15 May 1904, and the goods train was discontinued four weeks later; porters were also dispensed with at the intermediate stations.
The company's locomotives and rolling stock were removed to Swindon and auctioned, and Archer-Houblon finally got his loan repaid.
In the final months of independent existence, the Company found that the hired railmotors were giving trouble; this was traced to the very hard water at Lambourn which was adversely affecting the small boilers in them.
Newbury racecourse had opened in 1905, and the area was a well-established centre for training and stud purposes and for bloodstock sales.
The GWR considered how economies might be made, and at length on 5 February 1937 an AEC diesel railcar, no 18 started operating on the branch.
Competing bus services were attractive, and at this period the heavy racehorse traffic became largely transferred to road.
While there were no immediate changes on the Lambourn line, the Sunday train was discontinued in September 1950; its primary function had been for milk, and this had reduced heavily in volume over the years.
At the end of 1951 however complete closure was considered, but due to "important developments" at Welford Park, the initiative was shelved.
The important developments were the construction of a new branch line from Welford Park to an RAF base, RAF Welford; the base was to be converted for the purposes of munitions, and when operational was to be operated by the United States Air Force from July 1954.
[11] Steam haulage was reintroduced on the branch trains in 1956 but by this time revenue on the line was in serious decline, and closure was proposed.
Goods services would continue to Welford Park, and the branch would remain open to that point for the USAF traffic.
The Lambourn line had a dedicated bay platform at the west end of the station on the up side.
Leaving the station, the branch single track ran alongside the main line for half a mile and then turned north.
Stations on the line were: The alignment on the branch was mainly straight with a number of local curves typically in the range 18 to 40 chains radius.
[16] Altogether the LVR owned three locomotives: Although produced by two different manufacturers, the three were generally similar: they were outside cylinder 0-6-0T locomotives with 3-foot-7-inch (1,090 mm) wheels, but Eadweade was slightly larger than the others: its wheelbase was 10 feet 6 inches (3.20 m) and it weighed 24 long tons (24 t) as opposed to 9 ft 6 in (2.90 m) and 23.5 long tons (23.9 t) for the other two.
For the opening of the line, four coaches were bought from Brown, Marshall & Co of Birmingham; they were paid for by Col. Archer Houblon, who sold them on to the LVR on a hire purchase basis.
[32] On 24 November 1904, the remainder of the railway's rolling stock was sold by auction at the GWR's yard in Swindon.