Southern Railway routes west of Salisbury
From Salisbury the main line continued broadly west, passing no major population centre until reaching Exeter.
When it eventually did so, it descended by a steep and curved connection into the B&ER station, running a few miles northward on that line and then diverging to the west, to Crediton.
This company had opened its main line from London to Bristol in 1838, and developed alliances that extended its influence to Exeter.
On 17 January 1847, the first LSWR goods train, headed by the locomotive Rhinoceros entered the Salisbury station, at Milford at the south-eastern edge of the city.
This event was hugely significant to the city, bringing the possibility of industrial development, so that "Salisbury might become the Manchester of the South".
[6][7] Under the guidance of W J Chaplin, Company Chairman from 1843, the LSWR had been dealing with the demands of Southampton and Portsmouth, and it had neglected the clamour for railway connection from towns and cities to the west.
[1] When the S&YR had been authorised and the Coastal Scheme abandoned, the course of the LSWR route to Exeter was clear, and they now easily got an Act for the line on 21 July 1856.
[note 3] The main line from Salisbury to Exeter Queen Street was single throughout, with intermediate crossing stations at Wilton, Dinton, Tisbury, Semley, Gillingham, Templecombe, Milborne Port, Sherborne, Yeovil Junction, Sutton Bingham, Crewkerne, Chard Road, Axminster, Colyton, Honiton, Feniton, Whimple, and Broad Clyst.
[1] The route traversed difficult terrain, with most river valleys running transverse to its direction, so that gradients were significant, 1 in 80 being typical.
[1] The siding accommodation at Hendford was very cramped, and to facilitate goods exchange traffic, the GWR built a short goods branch line to Yeovil Junction from the Weymouth line; it was officially referred to as the Clifton Maybank Siding, and it opened on 13 June 1864.
However an agreement was made with the broad gauge companies on 14 March 1860 to extend the line from Queen Street down to the St Davids station; the B&ER would lay mixed gauge at the station and on to Cowley Bridge Junction, where the Crediton line diverged.
The line descended to St Davids at the exceptionally steep gradient of 1 in 37, with a 184-yard tunnel, and special precautions were taken in operation on this incline.
When the Taw Vale Extension Railway (TVER) was promoted and obtained its Act of Parliament for construction in 1846, the LSWR bought shares in the adjacent Exeter and Crediton Railway (E&CR), and in 1847 the LSWR concluded a lease of the TVER which itself leased the E&CR.
The LSWR extended the Bideford line to Torrington, after local pressure to fulfil an earlier undertaking, opening in 1872.
Seeking further westward expansion, the LSWR encouraged an independent company, the Devon and Cornwall Railway, to promote a line from Coleford Junction, north-west of Crediton, to Lydford (at first spelt Lidford,) round the northern edge of Dartmoor.
At Lydford the line made a junction with the South Devon & Tavistock Railway, a broad gauge company that had reached there in 1865, and running powers were obtained to continue to Plymouth.
This reliance on a competing company's line—one which had never been intended as a main line—was unsatisfactory, and the LSWR encouraged the formation of an independent company, the Plymouth, Devonport and South Western Junction Railway (PD&SWJR), which was formed to build an independent line from Lydford to Plymouth.
The PD&SWJR obtained its authorising Act on 25 August 1883 for a line from Lydford passing to the west of Tavistock, then down the valley of the River Tamar to reach Plymouth.
In 1889 the idea of a central station in Plymouth was abandoned in favour of running to Devonport and converting Friary to a passenger terminus.
The challenging terrain between Salisbury and Exeter made it difficult for the main line as constructed to serve several important towns near its path.
The B&ER laid mixed gauge track for the purpose, having reached there in 1857 connecting with the GWR at Pen Mill.
Constructed and worked by the Axminster & Lyme Regis Light Railway, it was absorbed by the LSWR on 1 January 1907.
The Sidmouth Railway got its Act of Parliament on 29 June 1871 and opened its line on 6 July 1874 from Feniton, with intermediate stations at Tipton and Ottery St Mary.
The North Devon and Cornwall Junction Light Railway opened on 27 July 1925, after narrow gauge mineral tramways built to serve the china clay industry were upgraded.
The Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway formed a most important connecting line for the LSWR, intersecting at Templecombe.
However the capital expenditure in building the Bath extension ruined the S&DR, and it leased its line to the LSWR and Midland Railway companies in 1876; they operated the line as the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway, with the Midland company providing the engine power and rolling stock, and the LSWR providing infrastructure and operations staff.
In the nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth, Parliament had fostered competition between railway companies, seeing most cooperative alliances as anti-competitive.
