sentences:  Initial hopes of cross-country traffic faded and the line carried sparse local produce and passengers until closing, as part of the Beeching Axe, to all traffic on 4 May 1964.The track was lifted the following year.A desire to link Salisbury (and beyond Salisbury, Bristol and the Midlands) with the Dorset coast led to two lines being proposed in the mid-1840s, both using a route from Salisbury to Wimborne via Downton and Fordingbridge.