There was public demand for a station serving Upwey and Broadwey, and the GWR agreed to provide one if local subscriptions reached £150 toward the cost.

[4] The broad gauge system of the GWR posed difficulties in arranging through traffic to other lines, as goods had to be transshipped and passengers were faced with a change of train.

The directors decided to alter the track gauge and in a huge operation, the lines of the former Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth network were converted in June 1874.

In the 1873 session of Parliament, a bill was presented for a line from the west end of Upwey station on the GWR to Portesham and Abbotsbury.

The bill was opposed by Henry Fox-Strangways, 5th Earl of Ilchester who owned substantial property in the area, and the scheme was thrown out.

In view of the steep upward gradient of the main line there, which was in any case well above the level of the approach from Abbotsbury, this made the junction impracticable.

An extraordinary general meeting took place on 13 February 1880, at which it was asserted that the construction of the Weymouth-facing junction at Upwey was outside the company's powers.

However shortage of money was still the pressing problem, and Monk & Edwards were unable to continue the work without it, and in October 1880 they took legal action against the company to recover sums due to them: over £10,000, they claimed.

[4] A company without funds and with a judgment against it for default on paying its contractor was obviously going to find it difficult to resume construction work; and so it proved.

A small series of apparently willing contractors were found, only for them to leave the negotiation at the last minute, until a deal was struck with Green and Burleigh, a London company, were prepare to complete the work "for the remainder of the shares and debentures".

c. xii), authorising the altered junction arrangement at Upwey, and to issue £10,000 in preference shares and an additional £3,000 of debenture loan.

In April 1884 it was reported that Green and Burleigh were not progressing the work as fast as was hoped, and the directors write to them, expressing their disappointment.

At the annual general meeting on 19 March 1885 it was announced that the Great Western Railway had agreed to a loan of £10,000,[note 3] and also to the construction (by them) of an interchange station at "Broadwey Junction".

He found the line generally satisfactory, although a large number of minor technical points concerned with the signalling were commented upon.

The working arrangement was to be "one engine in steam" for the time being, until the junction station at Upwey was completed, passenger trains were to run through to Weymouth.

As it had been built partly from a public subscription, a Mr John Lipscombe wrote to the GWR asking for a refund of the money, but there is no record that it was given.

Note: the spellings of Broadwey were very inconsistent, even on official GWR notices, and Ordnance Survey maps of the period used Broadway for the settlement.

The hoped-for boom in extraction of iron ore and other minerals did not happen, but an unexpected rush of day tripper traffic took place in the spring and summer of 1886; on Easter Monday the afternoon train from Weymouth had been formed of two engines and 18 carriages.

If the train was to run, special arrangements had to be made the afternoon before to ensure that the junction signal box was open and ready.

Coryates Halt, between the two, was opened in May 1906 as part of a GWR scheme to run railmotors to compete with the rising threat of local buses.

An incline was constructed at Portesham to link local quarries on the hill near the Hardy Monument to the line although the actual traffic from this source proved disappointing.

[4] Major Marindin was the Board of Trade inspector and as well as calling attention to the hours of duty, he recommended that the sharpest part of the curve should be eased and relaid "with a chair road", (the existing track was flat-bottom rail spiked direct to the sleepers); to fit a check-rail and to increase slightly the slackness of gauge; and "to work passenger trains on the branch only with tank engines and as far as possible to avoid running six-wheel coupled engines upon it".

The end of the independent existence of the Abbotsbury Railway came suddenly, when a Board meeting on 19 November 1895 approved the terms of a sale to the GWR.

Upwey station was at 0m 35c, and gradients were more moderate from there passing Friar Waddon Milk Platform at 2m 00c and climbing at 1 in 228 and then a short length of 1 in 60 to Coryates Halt, 2m 79c.

In February 1936 the first GWR diesel railcar allocation to Weymouth took place, and in due course this type appeared on the Abbotsbury branch.