by the Great Western Railway, but it failed to generate enough investment to pay to reach Southampton, and its Winchester extremity forced it to rely on the LSWR. Many of the lines on the district seemed to be on a north-east to south-west trajectory, leading from London to points on the Hampshire or Dorset coast. From time to time, lines running directly from north to south were put forward. The topography in that direction was difficult, consisting of high ground between deep broad valleys. At the same time the chalk geology led to poor agricultural land and a low population density. In 1884 the Great Western Railway and the LSWR had agreed on territorial boundaries: neither would encourage the building of new lines that encroached on the established area of the other. When in the same year a Basingstoke to Alton Railway was proposed independently, it received no support from the LSWR, on which it would be dependent at each end, and the scheme foundered. The London Brighton and South Coast Railway made a similar agreement, and schemes for new railways from Portsmouth northward, pressed for by Portsmouth interests, ran into the same obstacle. In 1896 a Portsmouth, Basingstoke and Godalming Railway Bill came to Parliament. It failed, but the LSWR board decided that they needed to respond to the pressure for such a line, in case some rival might do so instead. The Basingstoke connection might invite the LBSCR (at Portsmouth) to link up with the GWR (at Basingstoke). On 25 June 1896 the LSWR Board approved two new schemes: a Basingstoke to Alton line, and a line from Alton down the Meon Valley to Fareham. Reason to build the line The line was designed to run through a thinly populated agricultural area. Although it connected neatly on a map to the (proposed) Meon Valley Railway, it would be a 20 mph light railway, with several 10 mph open level crossings, and it was unlikely to form part of a trunk route. Dean, etc, wrote that "It has been said that the LSWR planned the Light Railway as a "blocking line", to keep the GWR out of its territory. There is no evidence that this was so." Kelly, writing in 1900 was quite sure that the line was built as a spoiler against a Great Western Railway connection to Portsmouth: Some little time ago the Great Western had a