Blandford Up Siding

[RailWest]

At Blandford there used to be an Up Siding south of East Street which trailed back past the Up Home signal and was worked by a GF released from the SB. (It has been suggested that this was used in connection with the water tower.) The trailing connection into that siding from the Up Main was roughly opposite the start of the erstwhile Camp railway and lasted until early BR days.

 

Until recently the earliest diagram which I had seen was dated 1913 and showed just a single siding with a short trap-road at its exit. However a 1900 drawing has come to light recently which shows two parallel sidings, with the later trap-point being a double-slip connecting the two sidings, and subsequent careful examination of the 1913 drawing shows traces of that.

 

So is any other evidence known about this second (outer) siding and why two sidings were needed at that location?

 

Chris

Edited January 24, 2021 by RailWest

[down the sdjr]

Hi Railwest, I have no proof, but I thought the sidings might have something to do with the line being single Northbound from Blandford. Maybe for goods trains to allow passenger stock priority. It must  have got quite busy at times with Blandford being a bottleneck.

Just a guess.

[bécasse]

The second siding doesn't seem to appear on the turn of the century 25" OS map which suggests that its existence was ephemeral, and that in turn suggests that it was laid in for a specific time-limited reason. It wouldn't appear to have been a particularly convenient location from a revenue traffic point of view which again might point to an engineering related purpose.

 

To my mind the most obvious possibility would be in connection with a campaign to upgrade the single track north from Blandford to make it fit for heavier traffic (rather than undertaking the customary sporadic renewals of worn out pw).