On preparing to serve Portsmouth, a rival port to Southampton, it changed its name to the London and South Western Railway in June 1839.

Its original termini, at Nine Elms in London and at Southampton Docks, proved inconvenient and the line was extended to better-situated main stations at both ends.

During the Napoleonic Wars, there had been concern about the safety of shipping traffic approaching London from the west (via the English Channel), and a number of canal schemes were put forward.

At the same time, much of the packet traffic—urgent messages and small packages from and to foreign locations—used Falmouth as its port of entry and exit, and it was conveyed to and from London by road: a slow and inconvenient journey.

A private meeting of interested parties was held on 26 February 1831, and a committee of investigation was appointed, and £400 voted for initial expenses, and the services of Francis Giles were secured as engineer.

A reduction in the price of coal to persons living near the line was forecast, as well as passenger traffic and the import of produce and materials through Southampton docks.

[4] Giles re-surveyed in 1833, revising some income estimates, and the prospectus now proposed a capital of £1 million, the docks development having been made separate once again.

The route was to pass near Battersea, Wandsworth, Wimbledon, Surbiton, Woking Common, Basing, Basingstoke and Winchester, to the shore at Southampton.

[4][5][6][7] The route took a northerly curve through Basingstoke; this was to be the launching point for the branch to Bath and Bristol via Newbury and Devizes, for which authority was still to be sought.

Considerable support had been generated for this line, even from the South of Ireland, and an act of Parliament giving authority was sought in the 1835 session.

[3] However, the Great Western Railway (GWR) had also formed a proposal in the same session for its line between London and Bristol, and the two schemes were in direct opposition.

[3][8] Considerable fierce enmity was generated between the two companies during the parliamentary battle, and MacDermot, writing from the GWR point of view, says that "This was the beginning of a long and bitter hostility to their (the L&SR's) great neighbour.

He was effectively managing the host of small contractors—by now considered to be an unsatisfactory method of pursuing the works—but at the same time he was also acting as engineer for the Southampton Docks Bill and surveying a line from Bishopstoke to Portsmouth.

[3][4] The directors needed urgently to dispel doubt about the income of the company, and three men acquainted with the estimation of traffic were asked to submit forecasts.

Chaplin's steady business acumen proved a great asset to the company, and he was appointed temporary deputy chairman for two weeks in 1840 after the resignation of Easthope until Garnett took over.

Parliamentary authority to increase the capital by what is nowadays known as a rights issue was obtained on 30 June 1837 in the London and South Western Railway Deviations Act 1837 (7 Will.

[12] Epsom races were held in the second week of operation, and the company advertised the intention of running eight trains to Kingston on Derby Day.

Finding resistance useless, the officials sent for the Metropolitan Police, and at twelve o'clock a notice was posted on the booking office window announcing that no more trains would run that day.

[3] Then on 10 June 1839, the line was formally opened from Shapley Heath to Basingstoke and from Winchester to Northam Road, just short of the Southampton terminus.

The fine building frontage designed by Tite included offices; Wishaw described the station: The entrance to the booking-office is in the middle of this front, under an arcade which extends along the principal part of its length.

He might leave it by road and frequently dip his hand for Turnpike tolls, or for 3d choose the steamer Citizen, or the opposing Bridegroom, to reach the capital by river, cursing his choice when the rival vessel arrived and cleared the other queue while his own waited half an hour.

By 1848 about 1,250,000 used Nine Elms annually, including 300,000 from the [later] Richmond line, among whom lawyers and others daily suffered the rail and river trip between that town and Hungerford and Temple piers.

The first rails ordered were of a flat-bottom wrought iron design, 3+1⁄2 in (89 mm) deep, and "of parallel form" as opposed to the fish-bellied pattern that had been popular previously.

Tunnels on the line were at: H P White, A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain—Volume 2—Southern England, Phoenix House Ltd, London, 1961, pages 110 - 116.