Talk:Portsmouth Direct line

Where does the information for an article such as this come from?
I sometimes wonder where the information for an article such as this comes from! I take issue with almost every fact in the opening remarks.

First and foremost, the word "Line", when used by the British railways, nearly always refers to the services which run on particular sections of a railway; and are often used to describe such services. This means that it is to the timetable for that route that we should turn for the stations served by it. If one does that, the the first three stops for this service are Clapham Junction, Woking and Guildford: trains do not stop at the others listed. There are other stations which the train passes, but these are served by suburban services over the same set of tracks.

In much the same vein, the note that Woking is the station "for the South Western Main Line" (SWML) makes it sound as if it is an interchange point, but since the Portsmouth trains do not stop there *, that would not be possible. Again the SWML travels over the same tracks. The article stated that ... The Portsmouth Direct Line ... was built between 1853 and 1857 and was electrified in 1933. The dates are incorrect for the openings: I have now included a history of the route in that respect. Here is where the difference between "Line" as a title for the route, and "line" as a description of the railway, comes into the picture. As for electrification, that took place for the Portsmouth line workings (and with a three other lines) on 4 July 1937: four years later than suggested.
 * sorry - that is incorrect, they do - but the basic point remains.

The line also provides a faster way for trains to reach Guildford from London, as they could run via Woking instead of taking the Effingham Junction route. The route suggested can only be slower - it is a suburban service, unlike the fast trains on the Portsmouth Line!!!

It would be great if facts were checked first!! Peter Shearan 15:17, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

The Woking line may be slightly longer but in my experience it's always been the route for the faster trains to Portsmouth; the Effingham junction route seems to be used for suburban trains that run as far as Guildford. Or so it was in BR days. They tended to be decribed as "Guildford via Cobham" as opposed to "Guildford via Woking" at Waterloo. Britmax 19:35, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Denvilles halt
moved talk back to original article. Bastique ▼  parlervoir 16:11, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

there MUST be more information that can be added to the battle of havant section. if you do know anything, just click edit! Lenny 07:03, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Portsmouth part
Would the line between Havant\Fareham and Portsmouth count as a seperate line? Simply south 20:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Its not has a separate National Rail number (see Network Rail route SW 110), and AFAIK in common parlance Portsmouth direct is used to describe the service from waterloo to Portsmouth harbour. Historically I've a feeling it was a joint LBSCR and LSWR line ie with the West Coastway (of which oyu could argue pompey is a branch). Pickle 20:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Missing branch lines
Has someone overlooked the East Southsea branch? Mitchell and Smith, 'Southern Main Lines: Woking to Portsmouth, Middleton Press 1985 reproduces a map from the Railway Magazine that depicts East Southsea with the legend 'Fratton to Southsea: July 1, 1885, Closed November 1926'. Also the Hayling Island branch isn't shown either here or on the West Coastway page (the latter mentions but doesn't depict it). Caliston 19:36, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Just having had a look at the map, there are probably many more closed branches that should be added: Longmoor Military Railway at Liss, link lines to the docks at Portsmouth, etc
 * Feel free to update the map accordingly!
 * EdJogg 20:12, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * You're both right, this is one of thoses lines that hasn't received my treatment of being vastly detailed. A job for the future when i've some time ;) Pickle 03:17, 14 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I've added the East Southsea branch. Not sure if the junction is correct though. It may need to be altered to show the junction above Fratton and the line looping down - i.e. junction is in the UP direction, Mjroots (talk) 09:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

"Line" not "Services"
The Portsmouth Direct Line has an existence independent of South West Trains, even if that company now holds the operating franchise. The PDL is not a SWT service.--SilasW (talk) 17:50, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Page upgrade
Referring to several comments above about shortcomings in the page, I have attempted a comprehensive enhancement to it. There is more to do, cross checking with other reference books and also looking for more information about the early halts, and if possible adding more train service information. If someone else is on top of steam traction details that would be helpful -- it's not an area I have much background on. There's a nice illustration of a LSWR train and LBSCR train side by side at Portsmouth Harbour ready for the off in a book I have -- pity it's copyright.

Other branches missing from the map? Well yes; the snag with that is that if you add them all, the map gets very complex and someone coming here who doesn't really know about the line would find it difficult to get a quick and clear view. It's obviously a matter of opinion, but my vote would be to keep the overview map as it is. I will try to do some "Development" maps showing the area when the Godalming stub and Brighton to Portsmouth were open to illustrate the piecemeal construction of the line, but I will put those further down so as not to distract from the main map.

I should also mention that someone is playing games with the book citations; this person has changed them all and introduced several errors. They have done it to numerous other articles of mine, and if I revert them they simply revert them back, using an automated script. I am not interested in an edit war with them and life is too short, but please accept my apologies if the citations aren't quite right. Afterbrunel (talk) 13:42, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
 * What are these errors that were introduced into the book citations? -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:13, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I wrote a "cit" instead of "cite". But beyond that, what errors?  I corrected...
 * A ref had a bad isbn. "ISBN 7153 4188 X" is only 9 digits, ISBN's are 10 or 13 digits.
 * Added a url to a magazine article: url=https://sremg.org.uk/RlyMag/DirectPortsmouthRly.pdf
 * Twice Added all authors to a book -> A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain and History of the Southern Railway
 * Fix the title of a book (missing comma)
 * Added the OCLC number to the book, A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain
 * I didn't use an automated script. All were done manually, thus I can introduce errors just like Afterbrunel did in creating them.  All infomation, except for the URL, came from WorldCat.  The magazine ref still has problems.  The one ref is being used for two different articles coming from different magazine editions. I expect an apology for you going overboard.  Bgwhite (talk) 04:59, 29 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The purpose of editing Wikipedia articles is to try to improve them for readers seeking information, not for pursuing personal agendas.
 * This article has been in great need of improvement for some time, as the previous comments indicate; as I said, I have made an attempt to improve it, but there is much to do, and help is needed.
 * When I attribute written source material I try to replicate what the book or magazine itself has used. Authors' names are invariably -first name- -last name-. Bibliographies (alphabetical lists of sources) in books often use the last name first; this is usually because the attribution in the body of the book is to an author's surname. This does not apply in Wikipedia. Naturally opinions differ, but courtesy (and a Wikipedia guideline) require that the dominant style in an existing Wikipedia article should not be changed. There were no attributions (except a dead link to a website) prior to this, and the attributions I have written are all in my preferred style, but they have all been changed to someone else's preferred style, without discussion.
 * The two edits I referred to before were by Yobot and BGWhite. In the section of History where they indicated the changes they had made, they said respectively "Do general fixes and cleanup. - using AWB" and "First railway to Gosport: WP:CHECKWIKI error fixes using AWB". AWB "is a semi-automated MediaWiki editor".
 * I am not going to discuss missing commas. The altered attributions to sources make it difficult to verify that the content is in fact supported in them; in particular there is a reference to a different edition of H P White's book from the one I used, and which I have here. I do not know who "Donald Gordan" is; he is not named in my copy of the book. The content I used may or may not be the same in that edition; I have no way of checking that, and I do not propose to buy another edition of a book I already have to do so. Unless the cross-check (that my text was supported in that different edition) was made, this change should not have been made without at the least consulting me.
 * The magazine article was printed in two successive editions of the magazine quoted; that is to say, it was a single article printed in two parts. I have them here, and their dates were mentioned in my attribution. I do not know why it was thought necessary to reduce the reference to an entire year.
 * Finally Wikipedia is supposedly a collaborative venture. Open minded discussion on a way forward is always welcome. Afterbrunel (talk) 09:21, 1 October 2014 (UTC)


 * , lets first work on getting the references right.
 * For the "Donald Gordan" book, A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain volume 2, I acquired the information from here. This is where an ISBN or OCLC number comes in real handy as it easily identifies what book and edition you used.  What does the book you have say?
 * For the magazine reference, how about separating it into two references, but each have the same URL?
 * What other differences do you see. Could you specifically say what it is. Bgwhite (talk) 20:31, 3 October 2014 (UTC)