Bridport Railway
| Bridport Railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | 14.9 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 2140 mm, from 1907: 1435 mm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Bridport Railway was a railway company based in Dorset , England .
The company was founded on May 5, 1855 to build a railway line from Maiden Newton on the Wiltshire, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (now the Heart of Wessex Line ) to Bridport . The 14.9 kilometer route was opened on November 12, 1857. From July 1, 1858, the Great Western Railway (GWR) leased the line for 21 years. On April 21, 1873, the line was converted from 2.14 meter wide gauge to standard gauge . The lease contract with GWR was extended to July 1, 1882. In order to stimulate tourism in the region, the GWR extended the route to the port of Bridport in 1884 and renamed the terminus from Bridport Harbor to West Bay .
The Bridport Railway was taken over by the Great Western Railway with effect from July 23, 1901. The hope for the tourist boom was not fulfilled, during the First World War the passenger traffic was temporarily suspended. Passenger traffic on the section to West Bay was set on September 22, 1930 and the remaining freight traffic was abandoned in 1962. Freight traffic on the rest of the route ceased in 1965. Passenger traffic remained until 1975 as far as Bridport itself, which fell victim to the Beeching ax . This passenger transport was carried out with diesel multiple units mainly from the BR Class 122 series .
literature
- Christopher Awdry: Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies . Stephens, Wellingborough 1990, ISBN 1-85260-049-7 .
- BL Jackson & MJ Tattershall, The Bridport Railway . Oakwood Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0-85361-520-0