Alton line
railway line in southeast England
The Alton line is a railway line in Hampshire and Surrey, England, operated by South Western Railway; it is a relatively long branch of the South West Main Line.
The branch leaves the main line at Pirbright Junction to the west of Brookwood station, Surrey, then turns to the south-west. The route crosses and recrosses the Surrey/Hampshire border, serving the towns of Aldershot and Farnham, before reaching its present-day terminus at Alton in East Hampshire. The line originally continued west to Winchester; the section between Alton and New Alresford is preserved as the heritage Watercress line.
The Alton line was electrified (750 V DC third rail) during the late inter-war years by Southern Railway. Steam trains connected to the Mid Hants Watercress Railway (by way of rolling stock supply or special excursion) operate on the line.
Route
Infrastructure
The Alton line is a standard-gauge railway line in South East England. It runs for 17 miles 29 chains (27.9 km) from the South West Main Line at Pirbright Junction in Surrey to Alton in Hampshire. The line is electrified using the 750 V DC third-rail system and is double track between Pirbright Junction and Farnham. Between Farnham and Alton, there is an 8 mi (13 km) single-track section, although trains may pass at Bentley station.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4736891. Authority coordinates are 51.166, -0.966. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alton line” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.