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The West of England Main Line is a British railway line from , Hampshire to Exeter St Davids in Devon, England. Passenger services run between London Waterloo station and Exeter. Despite its historic title, it is not today's principal route from London to the West of England: Exeter and everywhere further west is reached more quickly by First Great Western services from London Paddington. At , the line intersects with the Wessex Main Line. ==History== When all sections had been incorporated into the London and South Western Railway, they consisted of the following: * Basingstoke to Salisbury * * Basingstoke to Andover, opened 3 July 1854 * * Andover to Salisbury, opened 1 May 1857 * Branches: * * ''Basingstoke and Alton Light Railway'' opened June 1901, closed 30 May 1936 * * From Hurstbourne and Andover to Romsey and on to Eastleigh and Southampton: both closed. Link via Longparish opened 1 June 1885; closed 6 July 1931. * * At Andover, junction with the Midland and South Western Junction Railway to Cheltenham * * Bulford Camp branch * * Salisbury to Romsey, with a branch to Bournemouth * * At Salisbury, the Great Western Railway (GWR) line from Westbury and Bristol had its own terminus: the L&SWR continued the route southeast towards Southampton. This route today is the Wessex Main Line. *Between Salisbury and Exeter: * * Salisbury — Yeovil opened 2 May 1859 * * Yeovil — Exeter opened 19 July 1860 * Branches: * * To Yeovil Town joint station with the GWR * * To Chard joint station with the GWR * * To Lyme Regis from Axminster * * To Seaton from Seaton Junction (closed) * * To Sidmouth from Sidmouth Junction (also alternative route to Exmouth) * * To Exmouth from ''Exmouth Junction'' near Exeter The line was downgraded by being singled for long sections west of Salisbury by British Rail. This restricts the number of trains on this section, but passing loops have been added to alleviate this problem. Beyond Exeter, the line continued to Plymouth via Okehampton and Tavistock. This line is now closed, although the Dartmoor Railway heritage line is still existing as far as Okehampton, and the branch to Barnstaple which diverged off the route at Colebridge Junction is still in existence as the Tarka Line. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「West of England Main Line」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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