Station Name: RADIPOLE

[Source: Nick Catford]


Date opened: 1.7.1905
Location: On the south side of Spa Road
Company on opening: Great Western Railway
Date closed to passengers: 31.12.1983
Date closed completely: 31.12.1983
Company on closing: British Rail (Southern Region)
Present state:

Demolished - all evidence of the halt has gone at track level although the access gate on Spa Road is extant, as is the path to the down platform.

County: Dorset
OS Grid Ref: SY674811
Date of visit: March 1983 & 24.11.2012

Notes: Radipole Halt was opened by the GWR on 1 July 1905 to serve the northern suburbs of Weymouth which were developing at that time. It was part of a scheme by the railway company to counter road competition, particularly from Weymouth's buses. It was initially served by local rail-motors on the Weymouth to Dorchester South line and the Abbotsbury branch

It was sited in a deep cutting to the south of Spa Road bridge and comprised two timber platforms, each with a standard GWR pagoda waiting shelter in the centre. Access was by steeply inclined ramps to the north end of the platforms from Spa Road. There was also a ramp to the south end of the up platform from a footpath running along the top of the cutting behind Kings Road; this path was later taken out of use.

After closure of the Abbotsbury branch in 1962, Radipole Halt was still served by local trains between Weymouth and Dorchester South,and some main line services between Bristol Temple Meads and Weymouth also stopped: most of these services started at Westbury, Yeovil (Pen Mill) or Maiden Newton. The 1962 Bradshaw shows 18 daily down trains (the last calling just after midnight) but only two on Sundays, one late afternoon and the other mid evening. In the up direction there were also 18 weekday trains with three on Sundays, one mid afternoon and two in the evening.

The Halt remained little changed until 5 May 1969 when the 'Halt' suffix was dropped as part of British Rail's new corporate identity programme. The station signs were replaced with new smaller black on white signs; these were screwed to the original running-in boards which had been painted black. The only other upgrading at the time was painting the GWR pagoda shelters black. By 1978 the corrugated iron shelters had rusted so badly that they were replaced with bus shelters. New station lighting was also installed, but Radipole had to wait a few more years before the original running-in boards were replaced with new steel supports for the signs.

In 1983 British Rail announced that the wooden platforms had become ‘too unsafe for use to continue’ and, although not officially closed, trains
ceased to call at Radipole after 31 December 1983. At the time, the Department for Transport was considering a proposal to withdraw passenger services from the station, and British Rail had stated that heavy expenditure on repairs was not justified whilst the station's future was in doubt. Consent to closure was received in January 1984, and the official date of closure was 6 February 1984. The station was quickly demolished.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ABBOTSBURY RAILWAY
The Great Western Railway opened a mixed gauge line to Weymouth on 20 January 1857; this allowed trains from both Paddington (broad gauge) and Waterloo (standard gauge) to operate a service into the town. The Weymouth & Portland Railway Act was passed in 1862 authorising the extension of this line to Weymouth Quay; services would be provided jointly by the GWR and LSWR, and a freight-only line from Weymouth to Portland would be constructed which was operated solely by the GWR.  Both lines opened on 16 October 1865.

In 1872, a six-mile branch from the Weymouth line at Upwey to the village of Abbotsbury was proposed.  Abbotsbury was established in the eleventh century on the site of an existing religious community. It would have been one of the most important villages in the county, with the settlement laid out around a wide market area. After the decline of its monastery, Abbotsbury became the quiet village it is today. It is set amongst the hills behind Chesil Beach and the lagoon known as the Fleet, and is known worldwide for its Swannery and the Sub-tropical Gardens; the swan sanctuary is over 600 years old.

The reason for promoting the line was primarily for freight, anticipating the commercial development of shale oil deposits and stone at Portesham, as well as iron ore at Abbotsbury which would be shipped to South Wales for processing.  It was also suggested that the branch could be extended westwards to Axminster and Chard Junction, providing a direct line to Weymouth from the west for cross-channel traffic. A Bill was put before Parliament, but was withdrawn in 1873 as a result of staunch opposition by a prominent local landowner.  A second Bill was prepared and went before Parliament during the 1876/77 session.  This time the Bill was   successful, and the Abbotsbury Railway Company was incorporated under the Abbotsbury Railway Act on 6 August 1877 to construct various railway lines to and from Abbotsbury.

Construction was slower than had been hoped owing to the difficulty in raising promised capital.  This caused problems with the contractors, Monk and Edwards of Chester, and all work stopped in 1881 forcing the company to apply to Parliament for an extension of time; they also sought powers to make small changes to the route at Upwey and Portesham after a speculator bought land on the original route and then demanded extortionate terms. Parliamentary approval was received on 19 May 1882.

In February 1883 the local company reached an agreement with the GWR to work and maintain the line on its completion.  After new contractors Green and Burleigh had been appointed, work restarted in October that year.  This was not the end of the line’s difficulties, however, as the contractors were declared bankrupt at the end of 1884. The established consulting civil engineer George Barclay Bruce was given the job of finishing the line. Bruce had an excellent reputation as a railway engineer: he worked for many railway companies in Britain, Europe, Asia and South America and was knighted in 1888. The GWR advanced £10,000 towards the cost of completion and appointed a director to the Abbotsbury board. The branch station buildings were constructed by sub-contractor Edwin Snook of Upwey.

Some of the navvies working on one of the contracts were black men who had been aboard a ship which was wrecked. Instead of returning to the USA they found work in constructing the Abbotsbury branch. A curious cultural legacy of their time in Dorset was that the Negro spirituals that they taught the local people were still sung in the area’s public houses into the
twentieth century.

On 2 October 1885 progress in construction was sufficient to allow a trial trip to operate on the line for directors and shareholders. Colonel Rich inspected the line for the Board of Trade on 28 October 1885 and found it satisfactory. Therefore, after eight years, the short branch finally opened to freight and passenger traffic on 9 November 1885, but with little ceremony. Because the station at Upwey Junction was incomplete, a horse-drawn carriage conveyed passengers between Upwey station on the Abbotsbury branch and the original Upwey station on the Dorchester line, half-a-mile north of Upwey Junction. This arrangement continued until Upwey Junction opened on 19 April 1886, replacing the original station. Intermediate stations were at Broadway and Upwey, and a single-road engine shed was provided at the Abbotsbury terminus for the branch locomotive. From the start the line operated under 'one engine in steam'.  The 1887 Bradshaw shows five up trains and five down trains with an additional evening service in each direction on Wednesday, and two trains in each direction on Sundays.

An incline was constructed at Portesham to link local quarries on the hill near the Hardy Monument. Once the line had opened it was quickly apparent that the expectations for it could not be fulfilled. There was only a little shale oil and it was not of a quality worth extracting; the iron ore was confined to one small area with no more to be found, and the stone at Portesham had no chance of competing with the extensive quarries at Portland. The extension was soon found to be impractical and once it was established that the line was not going to bring wealth to the area, it settled down to handle purely local traffic, with brisk passenger business at holiday times. On Easter Monday 1886, such was the demand that a double-headed eighteen-coach train ran from the branch to Weymouth in the afternoon.  In summer months Abbotsbury Swannery attracted many visitors who reached it by rail.

An accident occurred on 23 January 1894 involving the derailment of an Armstrong tender 0-6-0 locomotive when the train was on the tight curve between Upwey Junction and Upwey stations; this revealed that the curve was sharper than had been indicated in the official plans. A check rail was fitted and a ban introduced on six-coupled locomotives that
nominally lasted until the remaining goods spur was reduced to a siding. This change of rules, ironically, meant that in later years these engines could be used by British Railways to service Upwey goods yard after the closure to passengers, even though the only part of the line operational at this point was the curve that had caused the problems. In the meantime this ban left the motive power duties on the line to other designs, notably the 0-4-2Ts which ran for many years. The '517' class gave way to the '14xx' class which were used for passenger and goods traffic until closure.

In August 1896 the company was vested in the Great Western Railway by virtue of the Great Western Railway (Additional Powers) Act of 7 August 1896. The engine shed at Abbotsbury was closed at the end of September 1894, shortly before the line was absorbed by the GWR. By the turn of the century the Sunday service had been withdrawn but it was reinstated in 1905 only to be withdrawn again a few years later. It was again reinstated in 1933, lasting until at least 1938. The 1902 Bradshaw shows five trains in each direction on weekdays. As with many branch lines, more convenient road transport and the introduction of motor cars and rural bus services would eventually lead to an irreversible decline in passenger numbers.

Early in the twentieth century the GWR reduced maintenance and wage costs by installing ground-frames to replace signal boxes. In 1905, GWR steam rail-motors were tried on the line. In conjunction with the new rail-motor service, Radipole Halt was opened on the main line between Weymouth and Upwey Junction on 1 July 1905 and Coryates Halt was added
to the branch between Broadway and Portesham on 1 May 1906. The rail-motors were intended to stimulate traffic on branch lines, where small and cheap platforms could be built to serve small traffic sources. Unfortunately the lightweight rail-motors could not cope with pulling trailers on hilly lines. After a few years, they were converted into auto-coaches, and the power units were scrapped. Push-and-pull auto trains offered most of the benefits of rail-motor, but because they were operated by 'proper' locomotives they were much more flexible in operation and easier to maintain. The locomotive remained coupled to the carriages and pulled them to Abbotsbury and then pushed them back to Weymouth.

There was a reduction in services during WW1, initially down to four trains a day, but in 1917 this was further reduced to three.  With the high demand for oil during the war there was renewed interest in the shale oil deposits. A siding was laid at Corton (near Portesham) to allow the shale to be loaded onto wagons by German prisoners of war, who were brought each day from their camp near Dorchester.  In January 1918 there was a proposal to close the line and lift the rails for re-use in France, but this never happened. The Corton shale siding was out of use by September 1921. After the war the branch settled back to a quieter existence with diminishing passenger revenue after the war as the popularity of motor cars increased. This decline continued when a local bus service was established in 1925.

There was a brief respite for the line during WW2 due to the activity of military installations on Chesil Beach and around the area. Despite stiff competition from road transport, both cars and buses, the 1949 Bradshaw shows an improved service with seven up six down trains with an additional service on Saturdays. The working timetable for 26 September 1949 shows
the 9.50am down service and the 10.25am and 5.35pm up services as suspended. It also shows an 11.20am Monday - Friday down freight service returning to Weymouth as a mixed service at 1.20pm. Friar Waddon milk platform is also shown. This small platform at the two-mile point of the branch, between Upwey and Coryates, opened in summer 1932, was used to serve the local dairies and even had a Sunday train to get the milk to markets early on Monday morning in the days before domestic refrigeration was common. The platform closed with the line.  Additional traffic was brought to the branch in 1935 when camping coaches were placed at Portesham and Abbotsbury stations; Upwey received one the following year. Track improvements were carried out in 1937/8 when standard GWR bullhead rail replaced the original flat-bottomed rails which had been spiked directly to the sleepers.

By 1949 road transport had lured most of the passengers from the Abbotsbury branch, with an average of approximately five passengers on each of the winter trains, and between eight and nine on the trains in summer. In 1950 seven up and seven down trains operated, with an additional Saturday service in both directions. The 10.25am and 1.40pm Saturday-only trains from Abbotsbury ran into Melcombe Regis instead of Weymouth and then continued to Easton.

When the railways were nationalised on 1 January 1948 the new British Railways Western Region largely corresponded to the extent of the former Great Western Railway lines. However on 2 April 1950 there was a major revision of regional boundaries, one effect of which was to transfer the whole of the main line from Sparkford (just south of together with the Abbotsbury,
Bridport and Easton branches to the Southern Region. However the Castle Cary) to Weymouth, existing operating arrangements were continued, with the Western Region providing the passenger train services and showing them in its regional timetable. The Southern Region passenger timetable for winter 1951/2, for example, did not include the Abbotsbury branch.

The Easton branch was particularly vulnerable to bus competition as it was paralleled by a main road for most of the way to Portland. Apart from the Bridport - West Bay route, the Easton branch was the first Dorset line to close to passenger traffic (on 3 March 1952) but it was retained for goods traffic.  The Abbotsbury branch was also vulnerable to competition from buses, the more so because of the indirectness of a journey to Weymouth and the inconvenient siting of the station at Abbotsbury, some distance short of the village. A further disincentive to use the trains was that they made leisurely progress along the line, limited to 40mph, but with a 25mph restriction west of Portesham and 10mph ¼-mile east of Abbotsbury.

Towards the end of the line's existence GWR diesel railcars were used to reduce costs, but they could not prevent its inevitable closure. As the branch never lived up to expectations for goods traffic, despite local protests and an improved service it closed completely on 1 December 1952, with only a short section between Upwey Junction and Upwey (originally
Broadway, then Broadwey) remaining open for another nine years to serve the goods depot at Upwey.  It was built there because the position of Upwey Junction station on the embankment leading to Bincombe Tunnel had always made that station unsuitable for handling goods traffic. 

West of Upwey, the track was lifted in 1955. The last passenger train to travel on any part of the Abbotsbury branch was the REC ‘South Dorset Rail Tour’ on 7 June 1958 which visited Upwey goods depot. The line to Upwey closed to goods traffic on 1 January 1962, and the remaining track was lifted in 1965.  Radipole (The ‘Halt’ suffix was dropped in 1969) on the main line remained open until 31 December 1983 when the cost of repairs to the platform could not be justified.

Today just over a mile of the Abbotsbury branch can be walked, from the western edge of Portesham to the site of Abbotsbury station.

Tickets from Michael Stewart, Bradshaw from Chris Hind and BR WR timetable Chris Totty. Route map drawn by Alan Young.

Sources:

Further reading :

See also: Abbotsbury, Portesham, Coryates Halt, Upwey
& Upwey Junction



One of Churchward’s GWR steam rail-motors is seen in the down platform at Radipole Halt before 1910.
Copyright photo from John Alsop collection


1924 1:2,500 OS map. Radipole Halt is shown in a deep cutting with access paths toeach platform from Spa Road. There is also a path to the south end of the up platform from a footpath running along the top of the cutting.

A northbound auto-train, probably bound for Abbotsbury, leaves Radipole Halt in the early years of the 20th century.  The loco is 4803, a GWR 0-4-2t built at Swindon works in September 1932. Renumbered 1403 in 1948, it was withdrawn in November 1957 from 82F, Weymouth shed and cut up at Swindon works in January 1958. These 14xx class locos were a common sight with their auto-coaches on GWR branch lines, sometimes working sandwiched between two auto-coaches.
Photo from John Mann collection

Radipole Halt, looking north from the path to the south end of the up platform in 1950.
Photo from John Mann collection

A northbound servivce waits at Radipole Halt c1959.
Photo by Arthur Crippen

Radipole Halt looking south from the path to the north end of the up platform from Spa Road c1960s.
Photo from John Mann collection

An ex-GWR Large Prairie tank running light through Radipole Halt in August 1960. This class 4 loco was at home on freights or nippy suburban passenger workings.
Photo from John Mann collection


A southbound train from London to Weymouth steams through Radipole Halt in April 1966. 75079 entered service in January 1956 at 72A, Exmouth Junction shed. Built at Swindon works to the popular Riddles Standard Class 4 design, it was the last of a class of 66. This loco moved to Basingstoke shed in June 1956 and on to 71A, Eastleigh shed on 1 April 1963, from where it was withdrawn in November 1966 to pass into preservation. It currently resides on the Watercress Line in Hampshire where it is undergoing a five-year restoration programme costing £180,000.
Photo by Brian Robbins

RCTS ‘Farewell to Southern Steam’ railtour at Radipole Halt on 18 June 1967. The tour ran from London Waterloo to Weymouth via Fareham returning to Waterloo via Southampton. It called at Radipole Halt in both directions. Seen at the front is 34023 which entered service as 21C123 and was named Blackmoor Vale in February 1946. Built at Brighton works to Bullied's West Country design, it was renumbered in 1948 to 34023 and in April 1950, it had its name slightly changed to Blackmore Vale. Withdrawn in July 1967 from Nine Elms shed, it has survived into preservation. It resides on the Bluebell Railway in Sussex and, after full restoration, it is their flagship locomotive. At the rear is 34108 which was built at Brighton works and entered service in April 1950. This Bullied West Country Pacific was rebuilt at Eastleigh works without its air smoothed casing in April 1961 and lasted in service until the end of June, 1967. Just after this picture was taken it was withdrawn from Salisbury shed and cut up in October. Both of these locos have had their nameplates removed, indicating impending withdrawal, although 34023 was to last another 12 months.
Photo from Ashurst Dave's Flickr Photostream

Radipole seen from the access ramp to the down platform in March 1974. As part of British Rail's new corporate identity the station signs have been replaced with small signs on the old boards and the waiting shelters have been painted a drab black. Gas- lighting was not renewed at this time. The station lost its 'Halt' suffix on 5 May 1969.
Photo by Alan Young

The up platform at Radipole in March 1964.
Photo by Alan Young

Radipole station looking north in March 1983. The station lighting and signs have now been upgraded, and since 1978 the old GWR pagoda shelters have been replaced with modern bus shelters. Trains stopped calling at Radipole nine months after this picture was taken - because of the poor condition of the platforms - and the station was officially closed on 6 February 1984.
P
hoto by Nick Catford

Radipole being demolished a few weeks after closure.

Looking south at the site of Radipole station from Spa Road bridge in November 2012.
P
hoto by Nick Catford

Click here for more pictures of Radiople station


 

 

 

[Source: Nick Catford]




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