New uses for old railways
of the last 25 years or more and reverse a limited number of the Beeching cuts to passenger trains. In the meanwhile, it is good to acknowledge the combination of local-authority and voluntary effort that has enabled such a large proportion of the Old Road both to survive for recreational use and to be widely remembered and commemorated.
A NOTE ON SOURCES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
224 •
It will be readily apparent that my interest in the Old Road extends well beyond the purely professional. As a small boy I travelled on part of the line just before the passenger trains finished, and for some years thereafter I delighted in spotting the few remaining goods trains as they ambled across the fields about half a mile away from where I lived. As a teenager I took the opportunity to explore in great detail the surviving infrastructure in and around Wimborne, and as a university student returned home for the occasion in May 1977 of being on the last ever (special) passenger train out of the town. Much of this paper therefore draws on my own contemporary notes and recollections as well as the referenced sources; unless otherwise acknowledged, the photographs are also mine. My knowledge of the Old Road is far from complete however, and for this paper I have been helped in various ways by Michael Bailey, Grahame Boyes, Philip Brown, Peter Russell, Peter Trewin and James Webb, to all of whom I am very grateful.