Reading–Basingstoke line Reading–Basingstoke line The Reading–Basingstoke line is a short railway link between the South Western Main Line and the Great Western Main Line, constructed by the Great Western Railway between 1846 and 1848. The line is served by Great Western Railway local services between Reading and Basingstoke, which stop at the intermediate stations Reading West, Mortimer and Bramley. The line is also an important through route for longer distance passenger and freight services: CrossCountry services from Bournemouth and Southampton to Birmingham and the North of England and freight trains between Southampton Docks and the Midlands use the line. The section of
B&O Railroad Bridge and Baltimore Railroad. The winner, the rival Pennsylvania Railroad, gave the B&O until 1884 to build its own southwest line into the city before cutting off access. The new route required a new bridge over the Schuylkill to replace the use of the PW&B's Gray's Ferry Bridge, and so the B&O built a four-span iron through truss bridge with a center swing span to allow boats to pass. It opened on July 11, 1886. (The cost of building the new route, especially the Howard Street Tunnel on the connecting Baltimore Belt Line, led to the B&O's first bankruptcy.) In 1910,