Berks and Hants - Why?

[whole diary]

[grahame]

The line from Reading via Newbury and Hungerford is known as the "Berks and Hants" ... yet it doesn't go into Hampshire as far as I can tell (i think it's about 4 miles off).   How did it get the "Berks and Hants" name, then - was it originally intended to run a bit further south?

[Chris from Nailsea]

Wikipedia has an explanation:

The Berks and Hants Railway consisted of two railway lines built by the Great Western Railway (GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)) in an attempt to keep the London and South Western Railway (LSWR^▸ (London South Western Railway)) out of the area that it considered to be its territory in England.
The two lines were from Reading, Berkshire ("Berks"), the longer one to Hungerford in the same county, and the other to Basingstoke, Hampshire ("Hants"). A later Berks and Hants Extension Railway continued the Hungerford line to Devizes, Wiltshire. In more recent times the term "Berks and Hants" has been used to the whole line from Reading to Cogload Junction which does not run through Hampshire at all but includes part of the old Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway and the newer Castle Cary Cut-Off.

[inspector_blakey]

And for a bonus mark, why on earth was the Reading - Hungerford section of the Berks and Hants referred to as the "Toot and bunny" back in the days of steam (no, I have no idea either)?

[moonrakerz]

  (\_/)
 (='.'=)
 (")_(")


Here's the bunny !

[grahame]

Ah - so it was *both* lines through Reading West ... the penny starts to drop.  Thanks.

[Zoe]

In terms of engineer's line references only the section from Southcote Junction to about 2 miles west of Woodborough is Berks and Hants Line (BHL), from there you are then onto Stert and Westbury Line (SWY) to Westbury, then Weymouth Line (WEY) to Castle Cary, joining Frome Avoiding Line (FRA) to avoid going through Frome.  At Castle Cary you are then onto Castle Cary and Langport Line (CCL) before rejoining the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) (MLN) at Cogload Junction.