What was the MSWJR?
The Midland & South Western Junction Railway (known locally as the ‘Tiddly Dyke’) cut north to south through the middle of the Great Western system in much the same way as the Somerset & Dorset did in the west of the GWR. Both linked the Midland Railway to the South Coast, but the MSWJR linked Cheltenham with Southampton, proving much more useful in wartime than the S&D. The MSWJR was always a backwater railway. It started, piecemeal, as the Swindon, Marlborough & Andover Railway, with its own station in Swindon Old Town, but using the GWR branch line between Marlborough and Savernake Low Level. The GWR went out of its way to make this as difficult as possible, forcing the SMAR to build a diversion which paralleled the GWR branch for much of the way. Section by section, the line was extended, adopting the Midland & South Western Junction title in 1884, and eventually linking the Midland at Cheltenham with the London & South Western at Andover by way of Cirencester and Swindon. Indeed, it was so close to the heart of the GWR that it passed over the GWR main line just yards west of Swindon works. The MSWJR was swallowed up by the GWR at the Grouping in 1923 and apart from proving its usefulness in another world war it remained a backwater, closing completely in 1961, before Beeching’s infamous report.