Bridport Railway
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The Bridport Railway was a railway branch line that operated in the county of Dorset in England. It connected Bridport with the main line network at Maiden Newton, and opened on 12 November 1857. It was extended to West Bay in 1884, but the extension was not well used and it closed to passengers in 1930.
The remaining branch closed in 1975.
During the 1840s a number of railway schemes had been proposed, that would have put Bridport on a main line from London to Exeter. This included the Bridport and Exeter Railway, and schemes to extend the London and South Western Railway to Exeter from Dorchester. As late as 1853 there was a firm proposal to build such a line, but it fell through and the present-day route via Yeovil was adopted instead.
Dismayed at being abandoned from the main line system, businessmen in Bridport observed that the Great Western Railway (GWR) was making plans to extend its partly built line, the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (WS&WR) from Castle Cary to Weymouth and they resolved to build a branch line to connect their town to that line. (The incorporating Act of the WS&WR had originally authorised a branch to Bridport).
Accordingly, on 5 May 1855 they obtained the authorising Act of Parliament to build a 9¼ mile branch line to a junction with the GWR at Maiden Newton. It is said to be the last broad gauge line in Dorset.
The line opened on 12 November 1857, the GWR line having opened throughout earlier that year. There was one intermediate station at Poorstock, renamed Powerstock in 1860. It was constructed in the broad gauge and worked by the GWR.
It had an unusual type of permanent way described by Captain Tyler of the Board of Trade:
It has been laid with MacDonnell's patent permanent way, consisting of bridge rails weighing 51 lbs and longitudinal rolled iron sleepers weighing 60 lbs to the lineal yard, which are secured to each other by screw bolts and nuts. The gauge is preserved by angle iron cross-ties, nine feet apart; and a strip of wood has been inserted between the rails and sleepers to prevent rigidity. This description of permanent way has been already tried on the Bristol & Exeter Railway, and with such success as to induce the Company to lay down an additional portion of it.
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Wikipedia