Bournemouth's rapid development in the late Victorian era as a residential town and holiday resort indirectly led to the decline of Wimborne station.

[4] In its final years, the station suffered from an air of neglect, although photographic evidence suggests that the main buildings were kept in a decent state of repair into the early 1960s.

That led to a rationalisation of Wimborne's track and signalling, although traffic was boosted from the late 1960s by the use of the down yard by TrainEx, a company fitting out exhibition trains.

Thereafter traffic to Wimborne consisted mostly of coal and similar wagon loads, with the continued use of the line for an RAOC fuel depot just beyond West Moors keeping trains running through until the summer of 1974.

The track north of Wimborne was lifted from October 1974, back to a point immediately south of Leigh Arch, the dangerously narrow and low bridge over what was then still the busy A31 road.

For just over another 30 months, the occasional goods train disturbed the peace of Wimborne's decaying station although, by then, the main reason for the line's survival was the use of the yard by TrainEx.