THE days when Wimborne had a busy railway station are fast receding into history.

It is 50 years since the last regular scheduled services ran through the town, en route between Bournemouth, Brockenhurst and Salisbury.

An exhibition which closed this week will leave a valuable legacy for researchers into the history of the railways in the area.

Lost Tracks – Remembering East Dorset’s Railways, marked the half-century since Wimborne railway station fell victim to the Beeching cuts. The research conducted for the exhibition will remain a resource for schools and historians.

“Exhibitions like this have an impact beyond the exhibition itself,” said James Webb, assistant curator of the Priest’s House Museum, which shared the exhibition with nearby Allendale House.

“The research which has been done will remain at the museum. We get a lot of researchers, whether it’s those who are doing detailed research or those who go more into a general interest.”

The railway came to Wimborne in 1847, thanks to solicitor Charles Castleman, who had the line built and connected to the wider network. The Southampton to Dorchester line was nicknamed the Castleman Corkscrew after its meandering route.

Wimborne stood on the ‘Old Road’ – the line which ran from Brockenhurst to Wimborne and then on to Hamworthy Junction in one direction or Poole and Bournemouth at the other. The line was joined at West Moors by the Salisbury and Dorset Junction railway.

Wimborne’s station was no sleepy village halt. It had refreshment rooms, waiting rooms, toilets, a bookstall and a left luggage office. Further along the line, Bailey Gate station at Sturminster Marshall had a booking office and waiting room.

As well as transporting passengers to work, school and leisure trips, the railway was essential to the economy.

Verwood’s station was used by the potteries and brickworks, while Bailey Gate had extensive sidings serving one of the largest milk depots on the nation’s railway system.

But the railways were facing stiff competition as early as the 1920s. In an effort to compete with the road system, the rail companies opened halts at Ashley Heath in 1927 and Corfe Mullen in 1928. In the following years, railway journeys were increasingly targeted at excursion trippers, walkers, sports fans and shoppers.

The death knell for East Dorset’s railways came in 1963, when Dr Richard Beeching published his review of the network, recommending closure for 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles of railway line.

A committee meeting was held in Bournemouth in September 1963 into the hardships the closure might bring – but The Times reported that few people attended. In May 1964, regular passenger services stopped on the Old Road. The Somerset and Dorset railway service went in 1966. Freight services continued for some years afterwards, but the track was finally torn up in the 1970s.

But researchers have remained interested in the line. The Lost Tracks exhibition drew upon memories collected from former railway staff in the 1990s, as well new interviews.

Prof Colin Divall of the University of York and Peter Russell of the Somerset and Dorset Railway Heritage Trust were instrumental in putting the materials together, and Wimborne Railway Society was “extremely helpful”, said Mr Webb.

Original railway memorabilia was borrowed and displayed, while part of the Priest’s House Museum was turned into a recreation of a ticket and luggage office.

While the Priest’s House Museum dealt with the latter days of East Dorset’s railways, Allendale House – the former home of Charles Castleman – concentrated on the line’s origins and the heyday of the station.

Sarah Evans, trust manger with East Dorset Heritage Trust, said many people who remembered the railway line had enjoyed the exhibition.

“They’ve come in perhaps because it means such a lot to them and it’s been a real nostalgia fest,” she said.

“I live in Blandford, not far away from where the station would have been. For me to walk two minutes down the road, get on a train and go to Wimborne or Bournemouth – I can’t imagine what it would have been like. It takes me an hour if I drive to Bournemouth.”