page_title: LSWR suburban lines
section_title: On to Windsor, and a Hounslow loop
hierarchical_section_title: LSWR suburban lines / Early extensions, to 1850 / On to Windsor, and a Hounslow loop
caption_attribution_description: English: Richmond Railway Bridge on LSWR England Original caption&#58; “The Richmond, Windsor, and Staines Railway – The Bridge at Richmond”
context_page_description: The London and Southampton Railway opened its main line progressively from 1838 and a year later changed its name to the London and South Western Railway. It was immediately successful, especially for passenger traffic, and the company quickly extended south-west and west to Gosport, Dorchester and Salisbury. At the same time it energetically and prospectively developed or acquired branch or loop lines in the territory to Windsor, Wokingham, Epsom and Guildford and beyond.
  The "suburban area" is taken in this article to include the LSWR lines in what is now Greater London, Surrey and small parts of Berkshire extending to Twickenham, Ascot and Windsor in the north, and Epsom and Leatherhead in the south, as well as suburban development on the main line as far as Weybridge and the Chertsey loop. When the lines were promoted, places served on these lines were recorded such as in the Victoria County History of Surrey in 1910-1912 as rural villages, London suburbs or towns.
context_section_description: This period in 1846 was the time of the railway mania, when all manner of railway schemes were being promoted with the promise, often unfulfilled, of making subscribers rich. The LSWR was not to be left behind, and now was pressing the Richmond line westwards, but was beset with multiple independent schemes competing for the same territory. These included, an 1846 'Windsor, Slough and Staines Atmospheric Railway' company which would probably have used broad gauge. However it was induced by the 'Richmond and Staines Junction Railway' company to form a joint venture, the Windsor, Staines and South Western Railway company (WS&SWR), rebuffing the overtures of an atmospheric railway. The new company was friendly to the LSWR and had Joseph Locke as its engineer.
  The Company obtained a No. 1 Act on 25 June 1847.  With capital of £500,000 it built the line from a junction with the Richmond railway slightly east of Richmond station, passing to the north of the original terminus and crossing the Thames, and running through Twickenham and Staines to a terminus at uninhabited 'Black Potts' on the Thames 1,100 yards (1 km) north-west of Datchet, a bridge to Windsor on the opposite bank, not yet authorised. However it did authorise the Company to conclude an agreement with the Commissioners of Woods and Forests to pay £60,000 for improvements to Windsor Great Park; a thinly disguised enabling payment to build on through the Home Park to Windsor's historic centre. 
  The No. 1 Act also authorised the new line from Barnes, crossing the Thames and running through Brentford and Isleworth to Hounslow, and rejoining the above line.
  The Great Western Railway (GWR) sought its own Windsor railway, for the great prestige of serving Queen Victoria, and had secured approval from the Commissioners over their proposed approach. For a time it appeared that the GWR would succeed and the WS&SWR company, having paid the £60,000, would be refused. However at last both companies obtained approval to come to Windsor — on 26 June 1849 the second Act benefitting the WS&SWR permitted the Windsor and Eton Riverside station, not quite so convenient for Windsor as preferred. Very convenient to Eton, stringent conditions were imposed to prevent scholars at Eton College from immoral or unlawful use.
  Railway mania ended leaving few speculative investors, but the line from Richmond to Datchet was opened to the public on 22 August 1848. The extension to Windsor was delayed when the piers of the Thames bridge at Black Potts settled, and the line was opened belatedly on 1 December 1849, 8 weeks after the GWR had reached its own Windsor station. Even then it was to a cramped temporary station; opening of the lavish permanent station, with Royal waiting room and cavalry entrance, was seventeen months later, on 1 May 1851.
  Meanwhile, the Hounslow loop had been progressing more slowly, reaching (Smallberry Green), Isleworth east of its successor by 22 August 1849 and completed to the junction on the heath in Feltham parish on 1 February 1850.
  The WS&SWR merged by share transfer with the LSWR on 30 June 1850.
caption: Richmond Railway Bridge
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