Swanage Railway

 As promised, a slightly off topic post now regarding Swanage steam railway last week.

Here is the view of Swanage station today. It was closed in 1972 despite still making a small profit, as it did not fit into the government's criteria of which lines to keep open. The bus depot area on the right used to be the freight/engine storage yard - now long gone.

On the Wednesday and Thursday of my trip, the timetable was operating at every 45 minutes with one working from the DMU. Here, BubbleCar Class 121 55028 was attached to Class 108 51933+56504 and operated the scheduled DMU services on Weds and Thurs. Below is long shot of Swanage station with the DMUs loading passengers. Platform 1 (on the right) was originally for local services, with the mainline services to Waterloo departing from platform 2, where the DMUs are in the photo.

Only the stone engine shed remains of the storage yard - luckily all of the stone buildings were left standing following the line's closure although demolision work did start on the actual station.

Class M7 "53" was the steam loco on the services from Wednesday to Friday, and is pictured in the above shot running around to take up the other end of the train. The shot directly on the right shows "53" arriving in Swanage station on Thursday morning.  

Swanage signal box overlooks Class 33 "33111" - "Hot Dog" as it stands out of service at Swanage, having some sort of work done to it on the other side.

The Swanage railway actually has 3 Class 33s - 33111 pictured earlier, and here is "Swordfish" 33103 shunting some truck equipment around. They've also got 33034 being used for spares at Norden. A fourth will visit for the Diesel weekend from 6th May. Pictured on the turn table is SR 4-6-2 "West Country" Class no. 34028 Eddystone.

Finally, just small plug for the Swanage Railway's Diesel Gala - 6th - 8th May - hopefully the weather will be good!