21 September 2023 – Preserving the Mid Hants Railway 1973 to 1985 by Keith Brown, Stationmaster, Medstead and Four Marks

Over the Alps from Alton!  You have to be well into your eighth decade to be able to remember taking that mysterious cross-country route west from Alton, over the Hampshire Highlands.  The noisy and abrupt Southern Region three-car diesel-electric units throbbed up the seemingly endless climb to Medstead, then careered on down the other side beyond the 660 foot summit, stopping at the remote country station of Ropley before reaching Alresford - an imposing Victorian station building, with its ancient surviving 1860s signal box.  Trains would pass here, before the westbound train bumped and jolted onwards to Winchester Junction, where you would spot a signalman leaning out of a half hidden cabin to retrieve the branch single line token from the driver.  Then, released onto the fast BR mainline tracks, your train would roar along to Winchester and Eastleigh, and stations towards Southampton Terminus.

If you were young in the sixties, you will remember living in the shadow of Dr Beeching, dealing with the “reshaping” of British Railways - especially closing branch lines.  But the Mid Hants line survived early threats of closure.  Indeed, the introduction of the Hampshire diesel units in 1957 had fostered a surge of passenger traffic over the line which seemed too well-established to be closed.  Not only that, the line was extremely valuable as a diversionary route for London trains too and from Bournemouth/Southampton during the period of the Bournemouth Line electrification works closures (1966/1967).  Only at the end of the sixties period of country line closures did the Mid Hants succumb, in early 1973, despite the intensive efforts of many to prevent closure.

The line was originally built through a relatively remote hilly farming area in the 1860s, and a black and white photograph of a push-and-pull two car train with a Drummond M7 tank locomotive, arriving at Alresford in far distant days, was chosen by C Hamilton Ellis to epitomise the atmosphere of the English country branch line in his British Railway History Part 2 - 1877to 1947, published by George Allen and Unwin in 1959.  While some would be inspired by the photographic poetry of Hamilton Ellis’ book illustration, closure of the line in February 1973 galvanised many local, and not so local, people into action.  The Mid Hants Preservation Society was formed and the Winchester and Alton Railway company registered.  A famous long-term resident of Alresford, one John Arlott, the Basingstoke-born poet, writer and radio test cricket commenter, as well as being a supporter, was even persuaded to introduced a short film promotion of the line’s proposed preservation.  In the spring of 1975 a full page spread of a first share issue was published in the Daily Telegraph.  It flopped spectacularly.  Were potential punters put off by the proposal to run a weekday commuter service, with interchange with BR at Winchester Junction, in the middle of nowhere?  Later that year a more modest issue succeeding in raising enough to enable purchase of the surviving track between Alresford and Ropley, as well as the track bed and land back to Alton.  A Light Railway Order (LRO) was granted by the Department of Transport whilst the track bed west of Alresford was temporarily forgotten about.

Gangs of volunteers got to work.  How many young people seem to have been  involved  back then!  BR Mark I carriages and the first locos were delivered to Alresford just before BR pulled up the remaining track from Alton.  The S15 Loco Society arrived, and a certain John Bunch too, with his N Class, the first mainline loco to work on the line from reopening in 1977.  There were small tank engines too, including Errol Lonsdale from the failed Longmoor scheme.  The station buildings at Alresford and Ropley were restored with loving care - Ropley was still occupied by tenants at the time.  Amazingly  in April 1977 “Steam Returns to Hampshire”, appeared in the Railway Magazine, and services ran again from Alresford to Ropley.  The public flocked in, the ticket office tills jingled, and the preservationists now cast their eyes on the missing seven miles to Alton.  Track relaying started east of Ropley and within six years the route was reinstated to Medstead and Four Marks (1983) increasing the preserved length to six miles, all uphill at between one in sixty, one in eighty.  So the need was for powerful locos, and the first Southern Pacific engines dragged out of Barry Scrapyard were restored for service.  Visiting locos also came - the Drummond T9 in 1983.  And to complete the job there were further appeals, and a second LRO applied for.  An amazing feat of reconstruction, with mechanical track laying appliances, resulted in the relaid and restored railway joining with BR at Alton by the summer of 1985.  That was only the beginning for the Mid Hants, as triumphs and tribulations aplenty followed in the years to come: expensive and unexpected relaying of the Alton section following discovery of dud rail and near insolvency in 1992.  But there has been much magnificent restoration, and expansive weekend galas galore with visiting locos, not forgetting the ever popular dining trains: the Watercress Belle and the Countryman or the Real Ale Trains also known as the RAT.

Keith Brown became a volunteer soon after leaving university and has been Station Master at Medstead and Four Marks for many years.  He is also the historical archivist of the railway and is therefore superbly qualified to give an expert overview of the development both at Medstead and more generally.  Just to mention Medstead, the summit of the line, in Keith’s time there the original single storey station buildings have been rebuilt, a new signal box acquired and full traditional signalling restored, a footbridge has been built for the public to safely walk across the tracks, as well as the re-creation of a complete country station goods yard.  It all looks authentically original, but in 1977 all was in ruins as shown by Keith’s photographs!  The same goes for the substantial development at the other stations.  All this adds up to put the Mid Hants “Watercress Line” in the top bracket of what we now call heritage lines, and is a fantastic tribute to Keith and his colleagues.  But today one worries about the increasing age of those who run our heritage lines.  Fifty years on from the 1970s, some are having to swap carrying heavy rail-lifting equipment for Zimmer frames.  And there is the difficult, and very uncertain national financial outlook.  As never before, the Mid Hants needs your support, so go and visit and enjoy what Keith and his colleagues have so carefully preserved – a living breathing heritage railway.  (New volunteers welcomed!)