Rocketman54

THE MARSHWOOD VALE LINE 

Part of a minor secondary route in south west Dorset, The Marshwood Vale Line links the ex-LSWR’s Waterloo-Weymouth and West of England (London-Exeter) main lines. A link which, in reality, could have existed but never actually happened and which has always made travelling to the west by rail for locations between the New Forest and Dorchester awkward. Originally the LSWR had planned to drive their main line from London to Exeter by way of Dorchester but instead abandoned this plan in favour of the more direct W/E main line route via Yeovil. This resulted in a westward misalignment of the down platform at Dorchester resulting in the track curving away south towards Weymouth immediately east of the station. Until relatively recently up trains had to pass by and then reverse into the platform! In my version of reality, Bridport and its neighbouring harbour at West Bay, some 17 miles west of Dorchester, developed into a much more prominent town and busy docks including a cross-channel ferry terminal. This encouraged the LSWR to extend to Bridport from Dorchester whilst the GWR also arrived via a branch from a junction with their Castle Cary-Weymouth mainline at Maiden Newton (at least this last did happen). This made the W/E and south coast main lines tantalisingly close for the LSWR. Normally bitter rivals, the GWR and a cash-strapped LSWR agreed to jointly develop a route leaving the GWR line north of Bridport to eventually join the W/E main line  above Axminster. A separate extension north to Chard Junction connected with the GW branch to Taunton. The GWR exercised its financial muscle and took control of infrastructure and operations, intentionally limiting LSWR ambitions by constructing a single-track line except for a few miles west of Beaminster. The incentive for the GWR was the acquisition of running powers for the valuable freight traffic from Bridport to Exeter over the LSWR W/E main line and the ability to run north through to Taunton via an upgraded Chard branch. For the LSWR, linking their two main lines brought many benefits including stock movements, boat trains (they owned the Bridport channel ferry), passenger services from the south coast to the west and increasingly lucrative traffic between the numerous MOD and Naval bases in the region. It also meant that London-Exeter services could be re-routed in the case of temporary line closures. Utlimately, the LSWR or, rather, its descendants, won out as freight from Bridport docks declined and both the ex-GWR lines from Taunton and Maiden Newton closed in the mid-60s. Still proving both useful and viable, the Marshwood Vale Line remains open to this day, albeit typically rationalized. The main station on the route is Beaminster with another at Marshwood whilst a little halt at mid-point also found itself busy enough to develop into a wayside station -  Broadwindsor….