At the moment there is a fair bit of work being carried out to provide major improvements to the railway line between Weymouth, Dorchester and Yeovil. Scheduled to take 16 days, the line between Yeovil Pen Mill and Weymouth closed to Great Western Railway services on November 18th. Additionally, on Monday November 22nd South Western Railway trains from Weymouth to Wool were replaced by buses and from Tuesday November 23rd to Friday November 26th buses replaced trains between Weymouth and Dorchester South.

Work is being carried out across eight sites with the main focus being between Yetminster and Maiden Newton which will see four miles of track being replaced. Line improvements between Weymouth, Dorchester South and Wool is designed to keep trains on time and reduce delays.

Since September 2021, engineering trains have been visiting the area delivering materials for use in the upgrade work and Yoshi and I have ventured out in the hope of catching sight of some of these when they ran at sensible ( and some not quite so sensible ) hours.

We’ve had a few late nights waiting at Yeovil Pen Mill, and our perseverance has been rewarded with an interesting array of Class 66’s from EWS, Colas Rail, Freightliner and EWS. On at least one occasion we gave up hope of seeing all the scheduled movements into the work zone as driver shortages imposed unavoidable delays in proceedings.

All engineering work involved in this project is due to be completed by the end of December 3rd 2021.