DISUSED Weymouth Harbour Tramway

This is the long disused Weymouth Quay or Harbour Tramway. Built in 1865, it used to run services from London Waterloo on the South Western Main Line to Weymouth Quay with passengers for the Channel Island Ferries. The last scheduled passenger service was in 1987. The last trains to use the line were rail-tours back in 1994 and 1999. The line was officially placed into temporarily out of use status for many years. However, this expired in 2015. in 2016, Network Rail proposed to close the line permanently which was agreed by Weymouth Council. There were reports that Weymouth Council were to purchase the line from Network Rail for £50,000, but this did not go ahead.

Ironically since 2016, the signals on the line were upgraded with new signal post telephones and the signals lights were repaired. The section near the mainline which was heavily overgrown was cleared from debris and overgrowth.

Although the line status is 'in use', it's unlikely to see any rail traffic in the near future as the tramway track has had no maintenance for several decades and the condition of the trackbed under the road is unknown. Several attempts for railtours to traverse the line have been refused due to this. There is also the Health & Safety of a train running on a road. Network Rail have said they are open for any talks of potential use of the tramway if a viable option is put forward, until then it will remain disused.

This is a very unique railway, there are videos of trains running on this line on YouTube. These are some good examples:
Class 73's on Weymouth Quay Tramway, ...
Weymouth Quay Railtour Window View 73...


Thanks to southwest455 in helping with this video! :)

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