SideTracked no more - Moot Lane Traditional Geocache
SideTracked no more - Moot Lane
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Size: 
(small)
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Located where Moot Lane crossed The Salisbury and Dorset Railway just south of Downton.
It's rather an odd location. As you drive along the road it rises up as though crossing the old bridge over the railway, but when you look down at the course of the old railway you can see that there is no bridge. If the bridge was demolished after the closure of the railway, why was the gap filled leaving the road going up and over. Would it not have been easier to remove the embankments up to the bridge, leaving the road flat?
Close by Beeching in 1964, just 2 years short of its century it has now been closed for half the time it was open.
The line ran from Alderbury, to the south east of Salisbury on the LSWR Salisbury to Southampton line, following the Avon valley through Downton and Fordingbridge, to West Moors, located to the east of Wimborne on the LSWR Southampton and Dorchester line. Built by an independent company, it was always operated by the LSWR, before being absorbed in 1883. Traffic was always light and there had already been proposals to close the line prior to the Beeching axe, so it was no surprise when the end came.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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