London and Birmingham Railway bill fared in the 1832 session. Williams suggests that this delay enabled the London and Birmingham Railway to be the first (main line) railway out of London and that it made the implementation of the Great Western Railway easier also. Giles re-surveyed in 1833, revising some income estimates, and the prospectus now proposed a capital of £1 million, the docks development having been made separate once again. The Bill received the Royal Assent on 25 July 1834. No track gauge was specified. At Nine Elms engines would not cross Nine Elms Lane, but horses would draw the wagons to the river wharf, which had a frontage. The route was to pass near Battersea, Wandsworth, Wimbledon, Surbiton, Woking Common, Basing, Basingstoke and Winchester, to the shore at Southampton. The railway was now to be called the London and Southampton Railway. The Bristol branch defeated The route took a northerly curve through Basingstoke; this was to be the launching point for the branch to Bath and Bristol via Newbury and Devizes, for which authority was still to be sought. Considerable support had been generated for this line, even from the South of Ireland, and Parliamentary authority was sought in the 1835 session. However, the Great Western Railway (GWR) had also formed a proposal in the same session for its line between London and Bristol, and the two schemes were in direct opposition. Each side fiercely criticised the plans of the other side, and numerous expert witnesses were called. The Committee stage lasted 46 days, but at the end Parliament found for the Great Western scheme, the Royal Assent being granted on 31 August 1835, and the London and Southampton Railway's branch to Bristol was no more. Considerable fierce enmity was generated between the two companies during the parliamentary battle, and MacDermot, writing from the GWR point of view, says that "This was the beginning of a long and bitter hostility to their (the L&SR's) great neighbour." Construction Construction started on 6 October 1834, with Francis Giles as engineer. His method was to employ a number of small contractors working concurrently, the railway company supplying the materials. Fay states that the contractors completed the easier parts of the work first and then demanded higher prices for the more difficult parts. Giles was subject to heavy criticism for the slow progress resulting from this cause, and for his serious underestimation