Broadstone railway station

Broadstone was a railway station in the northern part of the Borough of Poole in the county of Dorset in England. It opened in 1872 under the name of New Poole Junction and closed to passengers in 1966 and to goods in 1969. Between these dates there were several changes of name for a station which at its height provided a suburb of Poole with four substantial platforms and a goods yard. A prominent feature of the station was the large footbridge needed to span the four running lines.Opened as New Poole Junction in 1872, as part of the Southampton and Dorchester Railway, the station was the junction for the new line into Poole that superseded the old station at Lower Hamworthy. When the line was extended to Bournemouth West Broadstone became the junction for the trains to the Bournemouth station. Then the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway constructed a cutoff line to avoid the need to reverse in Wimborne and Broadstone became the meeting point of two lines, although the construction of further cutoffs to improve access to Bournemouth reduced its importance.Decline and closureThe first line through Broadstone to close was the Old Road from Ringwood, closed in 1964. The line to Hamworthy Junction was lifted in 1966. This same year, the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway lost its passenger services. This left Broadstone the junction of two goods lines, one to serve a goods depot at Blandford via a stub of the SDJR and one which passed through Wimborne to serve the RAOC fuel depot at West Moors. The Blandford Forum freight line closed and was lifted in 1969. The goods traffic to Wimborne maintained a track running through the site until 1977 after which the track was lifted and the land sold for redevelopment.