SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1864.
LOCAL BILLS IN PARLIAMENT.
In years not far distant our columns teemed with lengthy announcements of new schemes for the development of the railway traffic of the county, and the battle of the gauges was contested with a pertinacity that proved the zeal of the rival partisans of the broad and narrow gauge. The Parliamentary contests that were fought for the purpose of connecting the town and port of Southampton with the northern emporiums of the trade and commerce of the country, as well as the western agricultural districts, and the important coal fields of Wales, form a history possessing great interest to all who are connected with the rise and progress of the town. The struggles that ensued year after year for powers to construct the Manchester and the Petersfield lines, ending, as they did, in the sad discomfiture of the promoters, were not sufficient, however, to prevent the same strenuous efforts being made in later times to carry out, by an independent company, the Andover and Redbridge Railway. Experience dearly bought has at length proved that the South-Western interest is omnipotent in this locality, and we imagine that it is scarcely possible for any other company to interfere with the districts through which their lines pass. Little did we dream, when the London and Southampton Railway Company was formed, how it would expand, until its iron road extended from London to Exeter, with branches and junctions in all directions, and having its capital augmented to something like twelve millions sterling. Commencing with the Dorchester line, it has absorbed all other lines and interests down to the Andover and Redbridge Railway, which is now completed under the auspices of that all-powerful company. Communication is also open between Botley and Bishop’s Waltham, and thence from Petersfield to Midhurst. The Netley line is rapidly progressing towards completion, and powers will afterwards be obtained to proceed onwards to Fareham, and so open up a new route to Portsmouth and the south coast. We miss this year the contemplated railway from Redbridge, through Marchwood, Dibden, and Fawley to Lepe, with the proposed steam ferry between the latter place and Gurnard Bay, and therefore suppose that this new entrance into the Isle of Wight has been abandoned for the present.