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
Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines 1931, New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) ordered the two companies to join their southern New Jersey lines into one company. The "Consolidation Agreement" decreed that the Pennsylvania Railroad had two-thirds ownership, and the Reading Company had one-third ownership. But the post-war rise of the automobile and the Atlantic City Expressway, built in the 1960s, not only caused people to abandon the railroad for their cars, but also to abandon Atlantic City for more exotic vacation destinations (e.g. Florida). By the late 1960s, the surviving former Camden and Atlantic City Main Line was reduced to a commuter service funded