CORFE MULLEN JUNCTION

The completed Somerset & Dorset Line, between Bath (Green Park) and Wimborne Junction was opened for public traffic in July 1874, although the Dorset Central Railway had opened it’s Wimborne Junction-Blandford section of line on 1st November 1860, thereby taking the railway to the east of Corfe Mullen village. However, it was a further eleven years, December 1885, before the name Corfe Mullen appeared on any railway map. This resulted from the opening a new single line section from Corfe Mullen Junction, as it become know, to Broadstone by the Midland Railway and London and South Western Railway - now the joint owners of the S & D (as it affectionately became known). The name Corfe Mullen was to remain on the railway map, in one shape or another for the next 108 years.
A new signal box, named Corfe Mullen Junction, was opened in 1905, complete with a twenty four lever frame, to control the junction and points between the double line from Blandford and the single lines to Broadstone and Wimborne Junction. Prior to the opening of the junction box there had been gate boxes, both here and at Bailey Gate crossing, which signalled trains running on the then single lines which commenced at Bailey Gate Station.
The first alteration at Corfe Mullen Junction occurred in July 1920 when the Corfe Mullen Junction-Wimborne section closed for passenger traffic; all through trains now running direct to Broadstone, although the section remained open to freight traffic. Thirteen years later, June 1933, saw the section finally closed except for a mile long stub to Carter’s siding near Corfe Mullen. This ultimate section closing on 19th September 1959. The Somerset & Dorset Joint line closed to all passenger traffic on 6th March 1966, but the section between Broadstone and Blandford remained opened, for goods and milk traffic, until 7th May 1968, when this final section was reduced to siding status and Corfe Mullen Junction box closed, some nine months before total closure on 6th January 1969.

The Model

CORFE MULLEN (Broadstone Junction)

CORFE MULLEN (Broadstone Junction), as the name implies, is based on Corfe Mullen Junction and uses the junction layout of the early 1930s, after the direct line to Broadstone had been opened, but before the spur to Wimborne had been closed. Certain other features of the location have been included, e.g. level crossing, crossing keepers house, but that is about all, the rest is pure fiction - a case of what might have been, for operation is based on the following never having taken place:-
[1] The Somerset & Dorset was never closed.
[2] The spur to Wimborne, together with the associated LSWR line between Brockenhurst and Holes Bay/Hamworthy never closed.
[3] both the resulting single lines from Broadstone and Wimborne became double at Corfe Mullen Junction
If that wasn’t fiction enough, we’ve hopefully built the layout to enable us to operate trains from two different time periods, late 1950s/early 1960s (i.e. steam era) or early 1990s (i.e. diesel era), but not at the same time!