Update 2024 – Wimborne and East Dorset Railways

Our best intentions for a reasonably regular update to the website have gone a bit awry. Put it down to other commitments and perhaps age!

Most of our activity during and since 2023 has been on completing and posting papers on the History page, which now has the longest menu. We added an Overview at the head of the History drop-down menu, leading to a list of ‘Emerging Papers’ with activity summaries on each and direct hyperlinks to PDFs. The status of these in late 2024 is as set out below. [Note: completed papers that have been posted are not included in this update, unless there has been a later version or significant additions.]

The formerly separate pages intended for Chronology, Mapping, Photos (including Photo Features), Operations, and Incidents have been subsumed under the History page, accessed directly from its drop-down menu.

The detailed Chronology sub-page was completed during 2023, showing the opening and closing dates of all lines in and around the study area, for both passenger and goods services, and with a derailed map.

An Incidents sub-page is developing, with an introduction by Colin Divall to the subject and the first two of numerous cases that we will be publishing in due course.

The Modelling sub-page is in place, with a summary of each location that has been or is being modelled. We hope to add to this.

**Wimborne S&DR Loco Depot:** Our paper on the development of Wimborne Junction includes some unravelling of the history of the adjacent loco depot and its three sequential turntables (much still to be learnt!). This is the final table, looking west towards the S&D curve, circa 1900, with ‘Scottie’ 0-6-0 goods No.39 on the shed road. Unknown photographer; courtesy S&DRT

**Peak Network:** This sub-regional railway network for the Poole-Bournemouth area shows the line/company names with opening and closing dates for each. It’s a peak-period map for 1921, so not a comprehensive representation of all lines, stations and halts that ever existed. © Drawn by Richard Harman for W&EDRS

History papers

• Wimborne: the Blandford connection, c.1859-1866. This piece of research by Colin Divall reached a sufficient conclusion to publish it in Pines Express, the journal of the Somerset & Dorset Railway Trust (Issue No.309, Summer 2023). We’ve now added a revised version to the papers listed under the History Page Overview. As with other papers, new information may require yet another revision in due course. It deals essentially with the period when the Dorset Central Railway established its new line to Blandford, the junction arrangements at Wimborne were decided, and the S&D loco depot was first opened. View PDF

• An Illegal Beeching Closure. Colin Divall’s paper on the closure of the Broadstone Junction to Hamworthy Junction section of the ‘Old Road’ has benefitted from recent (Summer 2024) sight of original train registers from Broadstone signal box. Colin has prepared an addendum note on workings over the section, especially during the years of run-down, following the singling in 1932. This note will probably be available in the South Western Circular.

• Southampton & Dorchester Railway station building designs. We’ve added a minor revision of this already-published 2008 paper by Philip Brown, with extra illustrations, to the Overview list. As well as covering Wimborne Station within our study area, it includes those nearby at Christchurch Road (later Holmsley), Ringwood and Wareham, all designed by William Moorsom, original engineer to the railway. View PDF

• Uddens Sidings. Among the listing of ‘Advanced Studies’ on this page, we anticipated a paper entitled: ‘Uddens as a Railway Place’ and outlined its scope. This paper has made slow progress, still needing more research and sourcing of illustrations, but it’s now further advanced and we should publish it here in 2025. It’s another example of focusing intensively on a specific railway location to extract the best knowledge. It sets the historical social and economic context of the locality, the railway here being established inside the Uddens Estate, whose owner Edward Greathed sat on the original promoting committee of the Southampton & Dorchester Railway. This was a predominantly rural landowners’ railway, dependent on the goodwill of several large estates through which it passed. These owners had significant influence on the railway’s exact alignment and siting of stations and sidings, the latter often for their own private benefit.

**Lytchett Crossing:** In this view looking eastwards towards Poole, West Country Pacific No.34012 Launceston, is hauling the Saturdays-only 1.20 p.m. ex-Weymouth train,via Broadstone and Wimborne, not Bournemouth. The recorded date was 21st July 1957, although this was a Sunday, so perhaps 20^th July 1957. Photo: W. Newman; B. Jackson Collection

**Uddens Sidings:** This rare eastward view is recorded as on 4th August 1957, although this was a Sunday; from at least 1948 there were no Sunday goods trains on the Old Road. Class Q1 0-6-0 No.33021 is heading a Down goods, probably for Poole, as it has cement hoppers for the depot there, and possibly onward to Bournemouth East goods depot, given the head code. To the left is the rarely-seen Uddens Estate Siding and its connection to the Up line. This private siding was originally for the benefit of Edward Greathed, owner of Uddens Park and a provisional committee member of the Southampton & Dorchester Railway, but it later had more general use, including for local forestry traffic. To the right, beyond the hut, can just be seen the track of the 1943 Ministry of Supply siding, which at this time was morphing into the Uddens Abattoir Siding. Photo: © Alan Thorpe

Other 2024 news

We keep track of any new publications covering aspects of East Dorset’s railways. In Autumn 2024, one of our research associates, Graham Bowring, published his tome on L&SWR signalling entitled Signalling Along the South Western: The LSWR through to Southern and BR periods (Strathwood Publishing, Bedford). In its 384 pages, it includes significant coverage of the situation at Wimborne, as well as references to Verwood, Broadstone and Ringwood. The book retails at £49.96, but at the time of writing Somerset & Dorset Railway Trust members can get a 10% discount and Signalling Record Society members can buy it for £36.