Screen Archive South East is a public sector moving image archive serving the South East of England. The archive's collections of magic lantern slides, films, videos and associated materials capture the many varied aspects of life, work and creativity from the early days of screen history to the present day and serve as a rich and invaluable historical resource.
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Midhurst Railway
Journey along the once delightful rural line between Petersfield and Midhurst in this nostalgic film from the mid-fifties
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Overview
Setting off from Petersfield, on the Portsmouth mainline, we branch away to Midhurst, with Drummond M7s working push-pull trains throughout the film. There are views of the stations at Rogate and Elsted as we follow the course of the River Rother. After crossing Ramshill Bridge we repeat the entire journey from Petersfield to Midhurst and back again. We end with the RCTS Hampshireman Railtour, which covered this route before continuing west across the Meon Valley.
As the caption in this film reads, the RCTS Hampshireman Railtour took place on the 6th February 1955. Its course took it from London Waterloo to Guildford and onwards to Horsham. From Horsham the tour travelled along the Midhurst line, as seen in this film, towards Petersfield, where, after a change of engines, the tour continued along a convoluted route to Fareham before turning up into the Meon Valley towards Alton, Farnham, Farnborough and eventually Waterloo. This was the last time a passenger train travelled the length of the Meon Valley line as it was closed to passengers the following day. Much of the route taken has long since disappeared following the Beeching cuts of the early 1960s.
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