morning it's been a while  but today got the beast out  

good cycle i thought this should be like a maximum  height i think someone and now it's raining

let's go  

so beeching's last cut well we'll address that  towards the end of the video because there is a  

question for you however in the meantime  let's explore the bridport branch line

I was lead to believe

eighty percent of this was now recyclable  including this top arch so if you have a  

look on a map there is a semicircle where the the  branch starts at maiden newton, meaning uh new or  

um early so new new town anyway so this is almost  the the top end of that uh archway the curve and  

it's just here but there's nothing down either  side the pathway is closed from the station so  

you can't get from the station around this curve  and here you wouldn't get a cycle here anyway so  

let's press on and see if there's anything  else we can see um and we'll start telling  

you the story of beeching's last cut so in 1857  the railways reached Weymouth just to our east  

with the news of this lines construction bridport  railway company formed even before that main  

line had reached Weymouth and of course maiden  newton back here where this line would connect  

i had no intention on driving sections of this  

line because i thought quite  a lot of it was cyclable so  

about 10 miles i think i thought i could do that  and back on a bike but so far we're now at toller  

station toller disused station and there is no  cycle path whatsoever apart from extremely narrow  

roads which again we'll come to a bit later in  the video but for the meantime here's toller

interesting feature of the bridge above toller  are these um bridge abutments uh the the toppers  

very similar to things like the uh great central  railway and there's six of them on this bridge  

so i wonder if it was inspired  by some of these earlier designs

so there i was moaning about  the lack of cyclable track bed  

and i've just found this path ahead of me however  please keep off new path surface bedding in  

so this is great but i have really have come at  the wrong time the thoughts there and obviously  

in future it will be an excellent route for  cycles uh walkers walkers cyclists cycles

so this is powerstock nature reserve now i  stopped here because i thought i might be able to  

cycle maybe the rest of the  route but again just ahead of me  

wow ahead of me is another sign saying  you can't go on the route so that's fine  

but ahead of me is also an extremely deep  flood in the road which is strange because  

the river there behind me is lower than the flood  so i feel like a bit of a post 10 coming on here  

maybe i should um maybe try post 10 before  we get back on the abandoned railway trail

yeah so closed the pathway back towards toller  and power stock all fenced off barbed wired  

you name it i don't know if you can get into the  actual nature reserve we'll have a quick look at  

before we go but we're also quite excited to see  the lake under the bridge go down a bit post 10

to confirm my suspicions that a lot of this isn't  open yet i've just stopped to this over bridge as  

I travelled over down past that monumental hill  fort rather ropey drive if ever there was and yeah  

another lovely little overbridge and yeah farm  track not open to the public signs up just down  

there and again we've got these lovely toppers  on these bridge abutments um right we're nearly  

at power stock which is just down that way there  back in the car again on these really ropey roads

okay i've navigated our way around to power  stock originally opened at the beginning of the  

line 1857 as poor stock a couple years later  changed the name to Powerstock not sure why

so power stock looks amazing um owners  of the house obviously don't mind you're  

looking because they've left the low fence  which is wonderful thank you very much  

owners of power stock house now i've come a little  bit further to the east back towards maiden newton  

on account of um i want to waffle a little bit  about that station and i find myself already  

on a huge embankment now this embankment delayed  the opening of the line because it was due to open  

1857 with the opening of the line of the Weymouth  line so huge embankment and this is one of quite a  

few along here and driving these roads you kind  of wonder how exactly they did that without the  

use of any tunnels or significant viaducts  well here's one reason huge embankments  

they sold power stock station 1962 but it  remained open the platform was still there  

and you could get on and off but the station  itself became a private residence now i don't  

know many stations like that i'm sure you guys  do and you'll tell me in the comments below  

for the meantime let's savor  uh the joy that is power stock  

and again thank the owners for letting us be  able to view it from a uh a sensible distance

so just over there is all the industrial estates  of bridport or the industrial sort of retail and  

commercial sites that uh pave their way into  the main road now and it's called sort of  

ironic because they're on top of the track bed of  where it came into bridport station the terminus  

of the station until of course 1883. so in  1883 gwr said well this is such a success  

we need to head on down a bit further to the  coast and make this more of a tourism line  

so i think gwr were very clever at that whether  they actually meant it was a success or whether  

they said really we need a little bit more revenue  so let's head to the beach and they did that now  

i don't think the area was well known as west bay  but they decided to call the new end of the line  

the extension the 1884 extension they decided to  call that west bay because it sounded wonderful  

and sunny and beachy rather than the harbour  that actually was the failing harbour at the time  

so bridport was no longer the terminus of the line  and they brought a further station which will pass  

in a drive over capacity because now under  the road and then they built west bay west  

bay there's a little treat in store for us  so we're gonna go and take a look at that now  

before we head into the co-op which was  at bridport station to grab a quick sanity

so we're just coming up to the windy  west bay and already from here a couple  

of hundred yards away looks very beautiful  despite the fed it closed in 1930 cutbacks  

meant that yeah the station down here  and the line down here the tourism  

obviously didn't prove as profitable as  first thought about 60 years previous

despite that however the community  rallied around and they said well  

you cannot easily get to maiden newton it's  the roads are a disaster as we've seen they  

gathered around and the council said the dorset  county council at the time said okay well we will  

subsidize this and so the line actually continued  despite beeching's recommendation it be closed  

until again in the early 70s when it was  said to be losing 54 000 pounds a year  

despite those subsidies so what was to  happen to uh the bridport branchline well  

it was closed under the beaching act the transport  act of 1962 which pretty much makes it one of the  

last beach enclosures despite the fact that the  last train ran and left from bridport in 1975.  

now I can uh I can't think of any other branch  line that was closed under the beaching act or any  

of the railway that was closed under the beaching  act closed later than this one I'm not 100 sure  

if that is the case but perhaps this  branch on is the last beaching cut

I think it should be a stipulation that every  disused railway video we do ends with a beach  

or by the sea because it's really beautiful  here sat now up on the cliff looking over  

the old harbour very beautiful and of course back  that way to west bay i hope you've enjoyed this  

every disused station I think it reduces station  number 43 I'll put that there if it's not another  

few stations ticked off we will join you again  next Sunday 5 p.m so if you haven't already  

subscribed because a lot of you don't you just  watch videos and get on with your life don't blame  

you but you could do us a favour by clicking  subscribe by the way we'll see you next week

you