File:The other railway at Basingstoke (geograph 5708149).jpg

English: The other railway at Basingstoke
Basingstoke Station was opened by the London & Southampton Railway, later absorbed into the London & South Western Railway and then the Southern Railway, on 10 June 1839. On 1 November 1848 the Great Western Railway opened a branch to Basingstoke from its main line at Reading. The two stations lay side by side with separate booking offices and were divided by a railing in which there was a gate where tickets of passengers changing from one railway to the other could be checked. At the beginning of 1932, as a cost-saving exercise, the Great Western booking office was closed and one of the station's two platforms was absorbed into the Southern Railway station. This photo is taken from a train standing at that platform and, as can be seen, the Great Western building was not demolished but intending passengers from the north side of town could reach the Southern booking office through the subway seen at the nearer end of the building. Further to the right, the interloper into Southern territory was commemorated by a hotel opened towards the end of the 19th century when travel by road still involved horses as the principal motive power, hence the hotel's fading advertisement for "Livery and Bait Stables". A rail traveller could have a bed for the night and meals before continuing his journey on a hired horse (livery) or, if he had brought his own horse, it too could be provided with bed and feed (bait).