Upwey Wishing Well Halt railway station

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Upwey Wishing Well Halt was a railway station serving the northern part of the village of Upwey, now a suburb of Weymouth in the county of Dorset in England. It was on what is now known as the Heart of Wessex Line. Opened by the GWR in 1905, it was part of a scheme by the railway company to counter road competition, particularly from Weymouth's buses. Served by local Weymouth to Dorchester rail motor trains, the station had GWR pagoda shelters and wooden platforms. The platforms were later replaced with brick built structures but the pagodas remained until road competition saw the closure of the halt in the 1950s. The site remained popular with railway photographers as from the former access paths and the A354 overbridge good pictures could be had of steam locomotives working hard on the climb from Weymouth up to Bincombe Tunnel. A remarkable thing about the site is that the underbridge to the south of the platforms carries the same road as the overbridge to the north; the A354 negotiates a hairpin bend to the east of the line on the climb over Ridgeway Hill.

Not much now remains of the platforms as they were partly removed during works for the 1988 electrification.

  Preceding station     National Rail     Following station  
Monkton and Came Halt   Heart of Wessex Line
Line Open Station Closed
  Upwey

[edit] Further reading

  • R.V.J.Butt, (1995). The Directory of Railway Stations. Patrick Stephens Ltd.  ISBN 1 85260 508 1
  • J.H. Lucking ,. Railways of Dorset. Railway Correspondence and Travel Society 1968.  ISBN(no ISBN)