the other way to templecombe

(Copyright Steve Sainsbury - Salisbury 14.4.1986)

You can still get to Templecombe via rail if you use the excellent Salisbury to Exeter route. This is a line that almost vanished in the mad sixties, it was reduced to practically a llong siding with many local stations closed including Templecombe. It had dreadful problems with timekeeping thanks to the long stretches of single track.

Get real. This is a main line, wonderfully engineered and serving many towns en route. It was deliberately run down because the idiot Beeching thought that one main line to the west (the ex GWR route) would suffice in the Oil Age. Many useful branches were closed depriving seaside towns of modern transport. With the loss of the S&D even more useful track, diversionary routes and alternatives were lost - for a while! Yeovil lost its incredible useful shuttle service between the three Yeovil stations. I remember walking between Yeovil Junction and Pen Mill in the 80s - an absolute nightmare!

But things are happening. Stations have been reopened, new stretches of double track have appeared and services are improving. But the line has a long way to go before it matches, then surpasses, its glory days.

Here's a new website that will champion the route. We at the S&D obviously have a big interest in this route as we will connect with it in the future.

templecombe - and an agm

(Photo courtesy Jim Type, copyright C L Caddy Collection)

A superb shot of Templecombe.

Arrangements at Templecombe were a little odd to say the least! Most trains off the S&D made important connections at Templecombe, but the junction was somewhat unusual. There was a Lower Platform at Templecombe, which served the S&D exclusively. But the busy Salisbury-Exeter main line ran above the S&D, and to make connections S&D trains needed to be piloted up to the exchange platform, then reverse out and reverse again if heading southwards.

Templecombe was the classic closure too far. It was a VERY busy station right up to the early sixties, but run down of the main line - including, incredibly, singling - matched the run down and closure of the S&D. The WHOLE station, not just the lower platform, closed on 6 March 1966 with the S&D.

However, this was not the end of the story. Templecombe reopened in 1983 and has been an incredible success ever since. Of course at the moment it's still a shadow of its former self, but when the S&D reopens it will not only regain its former importance but will probably quickly surpass it. Not only the S&D is about to flourish, but so is the Salisbury-Exeter route which is being redoubled and may well be electrified in the not too distant future - in fact I suspect parts of the route will be quadruple track eventually. The junction may well be remodelled, but of course with modern multiple units the previous manouevres will be much easier to manage. An escalator between Templecombe Lower platform and the main station - solar powered of course - could also make interchange easier.

Now to our AGM. Scheduled originally for this November we realised that there simply wasn't time to bring it all together. So it will now be in January, full details will be on this blog within a few days, but it will be held in Templecombe so that attendees can come by train.

wimborne

(All pics courtesy Jim Type, copyright C L Caddy Collection)

Wimborne was the original southern end of the S&D, and at one time was the busiest station in Dorset. It is currently closed completely, and has been since 1977 (1964 to passengers!) Not quite sure what the planners were thinking of in the Silly Sixties when Ringwood, Blandford, Wimborne and Fordingbridge all lost their passenger and freight services! All of these stations should be open again in the not too distant future.

The original connection may seem odd to us now, but the honeypot of Bournemouth didn't really exist before 1870, around which time a direct route from Brockenhurst was built, leaving the original line, nicknamed 'Castleman's Corkscrew' thanks to its rather singular course, as a secondary, albeit double track to the end, route. At around the same time the S&D south of Bailey Gate acquired a direct route into Poole and Bournemouth. The S&D line to Wimborne then became a minor branch line, closing to passengers as early as 1933. Wimborne's final passenger services, to Salisbury, Brockenhurst and Poole all closed in 1964, with freight continuing from Poole until 1977.

From the 21st century this loss may seem insane, but remember in the sixties they hadn't quite twigged that oil was a finite resource and seriously expected roads to last well into the 21st century and perhaps even the 22nd!

Back in the real world our task will be to get these large towns back on the network ASAP. The recent ATOC report had the Ringwood line right at the top of its reinstatement list, though shied clear of making the obvious next step to Wimborne. The New S&D will restore trains to Blandford as quickly as possible, and will also have the second connection to Wimborne, to give greater flexibility of services as well as tap into the traffic of this large town. A group to rebuild the Fordingbridge line is also likely to be launched very soon. So the railways in this part of Dorset are definitely stirring from the rather stupid hibernation they've been in since the mid sixties. About time too!

new kid on the block

Once trains ran south from Salisbury via Fordingbridge to West Moors and on to Bournemouth, another route that, at Broadstone, intermingled with the S&D.

And now it looks like the line is beginning to stir. With Fordingbridge crazily off the network and potential for commuter traffic into both Salisbury and Bournemouth, this surely is a line whose time will soon come?

For more info click here.

more broadstone

Broadstone was one of those strange junction stations (like Barnham, Melton Constable, Horsted Keynes etc) which brought very busy railway activity to a small place. These always had a rather odd atmosphere. At one time trains to Salisbury, Brockenhurst and the S&D ran northwards and eastwards from this location, in fact this was the case until 1964 but with closure of all these routes to passengers by 1966 things changed very quickly. The station lingered on in slowly decaying shape until 1977 when the last freight trains to Wimborne ran.

The station site today is encroached on by a sports centre, though I understand that it's easy enough to divert around it. I suspect Broadstone will once again become an important station in the future as there's been much housing and commercial development in the area, all potential future customers! The line to Ringwood from Brockenhurst is high on the list of rail revival plans, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to extend that back through Wimborne and down to Broadstone, with the line southwards to Poole obviously being restored as part of the S&D revival. Who knows, even the Salisbury line may make a comeback bearing in mind that it serves several currently thriving but road-dependent towns. In fact a 21st century Broadstone station will probably be far busier than it ever was in the 20th!

down ringwood way

(All photos © Derek Lunn.)

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The top shot is of the trackbed south of Broadstone looking towards Corfe Mullen. It shows a very minor incursion on the trackbed by a shed - hardly a problem but typical of the sort of chipping away of these essential transport links back when people didn't realise their value.

The two lower shots are of a fantastic bridge just north of Broadstone towards Wimborne. The trackbed looks very well preserved just waiting for the double track track to be relaid, and look at the superb brickwork in the long bridge/short tunnel - definitely built to last!

Derek has just taken on the Track Steward role for the stretch of line from Broadstone to Ringwood. This is one of the non-S&D routes we will restore, and will serve as an extremely useful route connecting Ringwood and Wimborne into Bournemouth, an essential commuter and freight route for the 21st century. Extending up towards West Moors and Fordingbridge, and on to Salisbury, will also be inevitable as time goes by. This will become a dense network of routes at the southern end of the S&D proper, with an additional route allowing trains to run from Bath and Templecombe direct to Wimborne, Ringwood and Brockenhurst created by a northern curve to the north of Broadstone connecting to Wimborne. Bournemouth will, at last, get proper transport to the north, routes that were destroyed between 1964 and 1966.

If you are keen on taking on a track steward role please email me at leysiner@aol.com - there are still long stretches of the line not currently covered. The role is not an onerous one, really just requiring you to keen an eye on a short stretch of the line.

turning around

Brookwood. 33 104 - 8/8/1977


Basingstoke. 50 043 - 28/10/1983


Okehampton. 4/12/1984


Salisbury. 50 021 - 11/8/1986

(All photos © Steve Sainsbury)

Once there was a great way to the West Country, using the Southern line from Waterloo via Basingstoke, Salisbury, Exeter and Okehampton. It was a busy and modern route, but the idiot Beeching decided that we only really needed one main line to the west and that was the ex-GWR route via Reading. At one time the Salisbury to Exeter route was - unbelievably - under threat of closure! Many of its branches were closed and in 1968 the route west of Okehampton - the priceless diversionary route avoiding the sea wall at Dawlish - was also, amazingly, closed. The branches beyond, to Bude, Padstow, Ilfracombe, Bideford, all closed without any consideration of future needs.

Of course the S&D intersected this route at Templecombe and a great deal of valuable exchange traffic took place here. But even Templecombe itself closed with the S&D on 7 March 1966. Many 'minor' stations on the Salisbury-Exeter route closed at the same time. Closure by stealth of the whole route was clearly on the agenda. The line was singled, creating huge delays, and the service became two-hourly. Freight vanished as did local trains.

This was the mindset of the 1960s and 1970s (still sometimes seen on our comments sections!).

How things have changed as we enter the last year of the first decade of the 21st century. Templecombe station reopened in 1982, perhaps being the first indicaton that the S&D would eventually return there, and now the section through Axminster has been doubled, allowing an hourly service on the line again. The line is now prioritised for electrification, and surely it is not now that long before stations such as Wilton are reopened and local trains reintroduced. The line will also be a very useful freight route. Future exchange traffic with the New S&D will bring even more trains and potential to the route. Beyond Exeter there are serious moves to put the link back to Plymouth in before the Dawlish section vanishes beneath the waves, and restoration to Ilfracombe and Bideford/Torrington (at the very least) can't be too far off.

Perhaps the Salisbury-Exeter route is a symbol of the whole network, its decline in the 60s, stagnation throughout the 70s - surely the worst ever decade for railways - hints of revival in the 80s, traffic building in the 90s and real moves to realise its potential in the 00s. It's great that this is one of the lines that the New S&D will feed into.

broadstone 1

As promised the first four pictures from my 1977 trip to Broadstone. This was the closest I got to the real original working S&D, eleven years after closure to passengers and eight after closure of the freight route to Blandford. Once Broadstone boasted several platforms with train services to Bath, Bournemouth, Salisbury and Brockenhurst. It presented a pretty sad scene when I was there in 1977, the weather didn't help!

If you want a sneak preview of the Broadstone shots then check out the Picasa album on the side bar.

more wimborne

Three more shots from Wimborne, 28.4.1977

As a future New S&D station Wimborne will finally once again benefit from a real train service. Before its lines started to be closed from 1964 Wimborne saw trains to Ringwood and Brockenhurst, to Bournemouth and Poole and to Salisbury via Fordingbridge. And with a change at Broadstone you could also have travelled up the S&D to Bath and beyond, or to Exeter with a further change at Templecombe. None of these lines should have closed, even in the pro-road 1960s, and show how extreme the Beeching cuts were. What were they thinking of?

I should be scanning my shots of Broadstone taken on the same day later today, so keep looking!