Back in the 1960s\u00a0(thanks to nationalisation) thousands of miles of\u00a0railway tracks\u00a0across Britain were ripped up and\u00a0thousands of railways stations were shut down. One victim of the\u00a0mass closures was the North Dorset Railway in Shillingstone. But, decades later, volunteers have been working hard to bring it back to life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A huge project\u00a0to reinstate the North Dorset Railway line began in 2005. Over 20 years, hundreds of local volunteers from the North Dorset Railway Trust (NDRT) helped to repair the platforms at Shillingstone station, relay half a mile of\u00a0track north of the station and restore the station building. It finally reopened as a visitor attraction in September, complete with a railway museum, a cafe, a cinema wagon and a souvenir and book shop, and it plans to start running heritage passenger services in late 2026. But there\u2019s still more work to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trustees are now in\u00a0talks with Dorset Council about the prospect of extending the line southwards. If the proposal\u00a0is approved,\u00a0it would create a total of 2km of working track.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a New Year message<\/a>, the NDRT\u2019s chairman Gavin Collins wrote: \u2018We are in a consultation phase with Dorset Council about extending south to Holloway Lane at the southern end of Shillingstone Village, and talking with them about acquiring some land for restoration and storage sheds, siding space for more rolling stock and a loading\/unloading area for road-rolling stock movements away from the station.<\/p>\n \u2018This includes shared use of the Trailway\/track bed to connect the station to this area and, if approved, would give nearly two kilometres of running line.\u2019<\/p>\n Collins added that there is also a longer term aim to extend the line further north towards Sturminster Newton but that discussions have been paused for now because \u2018the owners of the next section of track bed on the way are not interested in having the railway on their land\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n ICYMI:\u00a0Five abandoned train stations in England are being brought back to life<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Plus:\u00a0Manchester\u2019s Bee Network is getting its first trains in 2026<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n