A Station That Made me a Rail Enthusiast

Fun fact about Hamworthy, the station used to be the junction for the original line to Poole. Heading towards London, the original route turned to the north calling at Wimborne Minster and Ringwood before rejoining the current route just before Brockenhurst. The reason being, what we now recognise as Bournemouth and its suburbs, simply didn't exist when the railway arrived. The original Poole Branch still exists, albeit nowadays used by freight trains

Hamworthy station is at the entrance to Turlin Moor, one of the most depraved and crime-ridden areas of Poole. Good job you didn't go exploring round there, as you'd have been mugged for sure. Hamworthy itself is quite nice.

That industrial site at Holton Heath is a former Royal Naval munitions factory and is a scheduled national monument site too. Probably the very good reason why there is little else in the neighbourhood.

Point to point to point, Moreton to Moreton in the marsh to Moreton (Merseyside)

You can tell how old I am! Our family used to get Holiday Runabout Tickets and ply all the lines from Weymouth to Brockenhurst and Lymington. We Generally stayed at my Grandmothers in Ringwood. We walked from Wool to Lulworth Cove once. At least once the train used Broadstone to Hamworthy Junction. Creekmoor Halt, Broadstone, Wimborne, West Moors, Ashley Heath Halt, Ringwood and Holmsley all gone. Two railways that sadly didn’t survive the closures were Lymington Junction to Hamworthy Junction ( and Holes Bay Junction) and Bournemouth West to Bath Green Park. Both would have been useful today even if Bournemouth West was closed.

Always good to revisit your roots.

Bournemouth was the station that made me realise I liked trains , every year onward from 2020 we do the Basingstoke - Bournemouth route , and up at Bournemouth trains use to separate , and I always begged my mum to watch it happen (spoiler : I never got to see it , I did see coupling though) early that doesn't happen for me anymore when we get that train , when I'm older I'm going to go find a couple of trains that split and watch it happen like I wanted when I was 10 (I'm 13 now)

I'm surprised when you were in Weymouth you didn't follow the route of the abandoned line to Weymouth Harbour - this is the one that ran through the streets with a top speed of 5MPH and had to have someone walking in front with a red flag. Though to be fair, I forgot all about it until we went last year and saw the abandoned tracks and signs telling us all about it

Wool!!! Wool villiage is really nice to walk around and some good places to visit as well. I use Wool station to get to Bovington and the The Tank Muesum (which is about 2ish miles from Wool Station) and that's a pretty nice walk as well! I took my Dad to Dorset one year and he loved Wool, so much so I had to convince him to leave the Black Bear Pub in the centre of the village... There was a Ska band playing outside and he wanted to stay all night, not that we needed to get back to Waterloo that night LOL

Moreton-in-Marsh is a more interesting station name and is actually the location I stayed in back in November, whilst exploring the Cotswolds

Holton Heath was built to serve a Royal Navy Cordire Depot in 1924. It's a legacy station that never closed. The wood is (forest) is the actual Holton Heath. The 442's used to have the delayed door issues too. Moreton is often used in TV drama as various locations. You're probably too young to remember class 33/73 towing 4-CEP's and 4-TC to Weymouth before the juice rail was extended.

The siding at Wool was used to load sand for transportation to the building works for the London Olympics.

Fun fact: The caravan site you mentioned, was the same caravan site that Top Gear visited, and they ended up burning down their caravan and someone else's caravan.

ahh love seeing a hamworthy station mention, my old local 😭 to be honest glad you went through the tunnel to hamworthy and not turlin moor! fun fact, locals called the tunnel/underpass under the station the "mickey mouse tunnel" - i have no idea why - im not sure if many people on the moor or around still call it that but i do and older people i know who are also from there do - just a bit of vaguely interesting local lore from probably one of the worst places in poole... still love hamworthy station though

That door jamming thing happened to a friend's daughter, who couldn't get off at her stop so ended up going all the way to Bristol. That was an unexpected drive for him, going all the way up there to pick her up! Fun fact about Moreton: Lawrence of Arabia is buried in the church yard there. 🙂

Dorchester South to Dorchester West but you're not allowed to touch the Weymouth-Dorchester line... is it time for another pointless journey?! 🤣

I've been camping to Weymouth many a time in the past. It's a nice place. It's where they had the sailing in the Olympics in 2012. Nice video Nick.

Quite a sight to see you exploring a forest in a video but once a gain another laid back great video, genuinely love the vibe in your videos down south especially when it has no music because it just feels calming.

Holton Heath station was originally built during WW1 to service a Cordite factory.

It's a beautiful place to end up in. And a great route you have took to Weymouth