Odd footpath level crossing in Wareham, Dorset

Date filmed: 26/09/2023
Videos filmed at: 12:53 | 13:05

Route: South West Main Line
Wareham Station

Crossing type: Foot Path Crossing with Miniature Stop Lights (FPC-MSL)

Location: Northport, Wareham
Trains featured:
Intro's - 0:00
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Activation 1 (0:37):
444 006 (South Western Railway) - 2:18
1W21 London Waterloo ➡ Wareham (Cancelled to Weymouth) | 8 minutes late
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Activation 2 (3:35):
444 006 (South Western Railway) - 4:24
1W60 Wareham ➡ London Waterloo (Cancelled from Weymouth) | 20 minutes late

A rather unique foot level crossing found beside Wareham Station in Wareham, Dorset. Up until the 2010's, it was a more normal foot level crossing without any gates, but it still had alarms and these fairly unique-looking Miniature Stop Light modules. In 2023, it seems as though only one alarm works, however, and you may notice by the slow 'strobe effect' that the lights have since been retrofitted with LED bulbs in the last few years. It was around that time (2010) that it was considered a solution was needed here, (no) thanks to the excessively high misuse and trespass rates at this location (some incidents were even released publicly by Network Rail themselves). As there isn't the space to construct a new ramped footbridge or underpass, permanently closing the level crossing was widely disputed by locals. Any form of foot level crossing with barriers and alarms could still probably have also been quite high-risk however.

As an (at-least temporary) solution, large black fences and electric gates were installed, the gates of which are closed by an on-site crossing attendant not too long before the red lights show when a train is due, announced by a rather horrid-sounding alarm sound (on one side it's significantly louder than on the other). These also sound when the gates are opened, rather oddly. As this is still the case in 2023, the facilities for the crossing attendant have been upgraded to a proper building as opposed to a tiny portacabin. The crossing is manned for pretty much all the time 7 days a week, except for 5 hours during between 1am and 6am. This is quite a memorable crossing with quite an odd set-up, but it is a cunning solution given the abnormally high-risk posed by its users and the lack of options to find a solution.

Two activations feature in this video. They feature a single train which had to terminate here at Wareham due to a serious incident further down the line towards Weymouth. The red lights came on a full eight minutes before the train departed for the second time (probably due to the lack of preparation for this scenario off the back of a shunt-move between the two platforms), which would've attracted all sorts of impatience had the gates not been there. The lights even turned red before the attendant shut the gates. This train eventually departed 20 minutes late and gave a very loud blast of the horn just after passing me.

Train details sourced from:
Real Time Trains: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/sear...
Open Train Times: https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps
Traksy: https://traksy.uk/live

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