The Government’s Restoring your Railway programme has stimulated some interesting proposals for restoring Beeching era cuts, alongside many ideas that are plain flights of fancy. One that definitely falls in the former category is restoration of passenger services on the Fawley branch near Southampton, known locally as the Waterside line. The track remains in situ and part of the branch is still used for freight services, while present and proposed housing densities mean there is a potential traffic base that would make many other Restoring your Railway initiatives blush by comparison.
The line runs for nine miles along the waterfront on the western side of Southampton Water opposite the city, joining the Bournemouth to Southampton section of the South Western main line at Totton Junction. Passenger services were withdrawn in 1966, but the line survived with freight, serving both Fawley oil refinery and Marchwood military port. The oil traffic was lost in 2016, it proving cheaper to move it by road, but the military port at Marchwood still generates the occasional trainload, hauled by GB Railfreight on ‘Q’ paths.
But in years to come military usage of the port could be eclipsed by new commercial traf…
