IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Alfred Street, BLANDFORD FORUM, DT11 7QS

This little postbox is emptied finally at 4:30pm on weekdays and at 11am on Saturdays.

View SE towards Broadstone, Poole and Bournemouth. 'Forum' was added to the name Blandford in 9/53, passenger services ceased 3/66, goods 1/69. The short Up Class H freight is headed by LMS Fowler 4F 0-6-0 No. 44167 (built 1926, withdrawn 1/64).

View southward, towards Bournemouth (Somerset & Dorset main line); line and station closed March 1966.

Seen from the 1.10pm from Bournemouth West, BR Standard 3 2-6-2T 82008 (built Swindon 6/52, withdrawn 2/64) is standing rather unexpectedly on the 'wrong road'. It may be that it has arrived on a terminating local train & has been shunted out of the way of my Bath-bound train. The scene is dominated by the tall signal box on the down platform. Blandford marked the end of the 8 mile double track section from Corfe Mullen. My train will shortly take the 16 mile single track section to Templecombe. The cast iron apparatus by the corner of the goods shed is the Whitaker tablet exchange apparatus used on the S&DJR, here to collect the tablet from southbound trains at the end of the single track section. Blandford closed to passengers on Monday 7th March 1966 together with the rest of the Somerset & Dorset. However freight traffic continued until 1969.

Almost certainly taken on a Saturday. The locomotive is one of a series of 11 locomotives of distinctively Midland Railway design built in 1914 specifically for the Somerset and Dorset Railway to haul heavy freights over this steeply graded line. They were regularly used on passenger trains to south coast resorts on summer Saturdays as they were able to haul heavy trains without an assisting engine. The station site has been completely built over.