Melcombe Regis railway station

Melcombe Regis
The railway station, photographed in June 1912
General information
Location	Melcombe Regis, Dorset England
Platforms	1
Other information
Status	Disused
History
Original company	Weymouth and Portland Railway
Pre-grouping	Great Western Railway
Post-grouping	Great Western Railway British Railways (Southern Region)
Key dates
30 May 1909 (1909-05-30)	Opened
3 March 1952	Closed to passengers
12 September 1959 (1959-09-12)	Closed

Melcombe Regis was a station on the Portland Branch Railway in the English county of Dorset. Opened in April 1909, it was sited at the north end of the bridge over Radipole Lake. The station was built to enable Portland branch passengers to go to Weymouth without the need for the branch train to reverse to enter Weymouth railway station. The branch junction was to the north of Weymouth station and faced Dorchester. The station was closed officially, along with the branch, on 3 March 1952. However, the station continued to be used for overflow from the adjacent Weymouth station, particularly on summer Saturdays: regularly until 12 September 1959 and irregularly for a while after that.

Operated by the Great Western Railway, the station was placed in the Western Region when the railways were nationalised in 1948.

Goods trains continued to pass the site on their way to the Admiralty sites on Portland until 1965.

The site today

Site of the railway station, seen in 2016

The last remains were removed in 2000 and the site is now under the relief road at the north end of Swannery Bridge near a car park.

Preceding station		Disused railways		Following station
Terminus Line and station closed Through trains Radipole or Weymouth (via reversal)		GWR and LSWR Portland Branch Railway		Westham Halt Line and station closed

Further reading

• Butt, R. V. J. (October 1995). The Directory of Railway Stations: details every public and private passenger station, halt, platform and stopping place, past and present (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-508-7. OCLC 60251199. OL 11956311M.
• Jowett, Alan (2000). Jowett's Nationalised Railway Atlas (1st ed.). Penryn, Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. ISBN 978-0-906899-99-1. OCLC 228266687.
• Jowett, Alan (March 1989). Jowett's Railway Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland: From Pre-Grouping to the Present Day (1st ed.). Sparkford: Patrick Stephens Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85260-086-0. OCLC 22311137.

References

• Subterranean Britannica
• British Railway Journal, Volume 8 Number 69. [1]
• Station on navigable O.S. map located near Weymouth main station north of Radipole Lake