The Swanage Railway, also known as the Purbeck line, is a railway branch line between Wareham and Swanage in the county of Dorset, United Kingdom. The railway line opened in 1885 and is now operated as a heritage railway.
The independent company which built it was amalgamated with the larger London and South Western Railway in 1886. The passenger service was withdrawn in 1972, leaving a residual freight service over part of the line handling mineral traffic.
After the passenger closure, a heritage railway group revived part of the line; it too used the name Swanage Railway and now operates a line which follows the route of the former line from Wareham to Swanage with stops at Norden, Corfe Castle, Harman's Cross and Herston Halt. It provides a regular park-and-ride service, normally steam-hauled, from Norden to the sea at Swanage including Corfe Castle village and ruins of Corfe Castle. In 2023, regular trains ran through from Wareham (with National Rail connections) to Swanage.
Original railways
Early industry The Isle of Purbeck had extensive quarrying and ball clay activities before Victorian times; some of the clay was processed locally, but much of the mineral output was transported away for use elsewhere. Movement of heavy minerals was chiefly by coastal shipping, and in some cases simple tramways were built for movement within the quarries and to the various loading points situated within the natural Poole Harbour.R A Williams, The London and South Western Railway: volume 2: Growth and Consolidation, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1973,
By-passed by the main line The Southampton and Dorchester Railway opened its main line through Wareham in 1847; it was worked by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR), and amalgamated with the LSWR in 1848. The new line gave the area a through railway connection to London, but it did not come close enough to influence the mineral traffic, which for the time being was mostly conveyed by coastal shipping, as before.
The building of the main line railway through Wareham encouraged several schemes to connect Swanage or the mineral workings in Purbeck, but they failed to gain the support they needed.
Swanage Pier Tramway Stone was exported from Swanage by coastal shipping as before, having been quarried on, or mined in, the Isle of Purbeck. The actual loading of the vessels was primitive, and Captain Moorsom, chief engineer of the Southampton and Dorchester line, encouraged local promoters to found the Swanage Pier and Tramway Company, which obtained an authorising act of Parliament, the Swanage Pier Act 1859 (22 & 23 Vict. c. lxxvii), on 8 August 1859. John Mowlem was prominent in generating local support. The scheme involved about of line, running on to the pier at Swanage, from which coastal vessels would be loaded directly.
In fact, only a short section was built, from the pier to an area on the sea front called The Bankers where stone blocks were prepared for transit. Horse traction only was used.
A second jetty, forming a fork, was added to the pier in 1896, to cater for the growing pleasure steamer passenger business, and the truncated tramway was re-gauged in about 1900 to the track gauge of 2 ft 6 in (750 mm). It was used for bunkering the pleasure steamers, but it fell into disuse at the end of the 1920s.Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith, Branch Line to Swanage2, Middleton Press, Midhurst, 1992,
Connecting to the main line
A scheme for a branch line was successful: the Swanage Railway obtained an authorising act of Parliament, the (44 & 45 Vict. c. clix), on 18 July 1881, with share capital of £90,000 and permitted debenture borrowings of £30,000.E F Carter, An Historical Geography of the Railways of the British Isles, Cassell, London, 1959 It was built under the supervision of consulting civil engineer W. R. Galbraith.
The line was opened on 20 May 1885 and was operated from the start by the LSWR. The branch diverged from the main line at Worgret Junction, over west of Wareham station; the branch was in length and single track. An extension from Swanage station to the pier tramway had been authorised by the act, and would be built "if required by the LSWR", but the larger company did not activate this requirement and the pier line was not proceeded with.
The branch intersected the pre-existing Furzebrook Railway, a narrow gauge industrial tramway concerned with conveying ball clay to a river wharf, and the Middlebere Plateway which conveyed the mineral to Poole Harbour; however the proprietors of those lines were slow to arrange interchange facilities with the Swanage Railway. There was one intermediate station, at Corfe Castle. Gradients were undulating, with a ruling gradient of 1 in 76 or 1 in 80, falling for from Worgret Junction and then rising to a summit at Furzebrook; falling again to Corfe Castle and rising to a summit about halfway to Swanage, and then falling.
The first train service consisted of five passenger trains each way and a daily goods train; the latter was amalgamated with the passenger service by the operation of mixed trains from 1 August 1885.R W Kidner, The Railways of Purbeck, Oakwood Press, Lingfield, 1973
The Swanage Railway was amalgamated with the LSWR by the South Western Railway Act 1886 (49 & 50 Vict. c. cx) of 25 June 1886. This merely formalised the de facto position, as the LSWR had taken over Swanage Railway liabilities of £2,914 in 1881 and was effectively its paymaster from then.
The existing small Wareham station east of the level crossing was superseded by a larger station west of it, capable of acting as the junction interchange point. The new station was opened on 4 April 1887.
The twentieth century In the first decade of the twentieth century, taking holidays at seaside resorts became a major pastime, and through trains from London were instituted in this period. The train service was gradually augmented; in the winter of 1931 there were thirteen daily passenger trains on the branch. The ball clay and other mineral workings on the Isle of Purbeck had not been connected to the branch at first, but by this time rail connections were made and the minerals were transported away by rail.
The railways of Great Britain were subject to the Railways Act 1922 by which most of them were "grouped", and the LSWR became a constituent of the new Southern Railway.J N Faulkner and R A Williams, The LSWR in the Twentieth Century, David & Charles (Publishers) PLC, Newton Abbot, 1988, The Transport Act 1947 imposed further reorganisation, taking the railways into national ownership under British Railways in 1948.
In the period after 1945, the local trains on the branch were operated as push and pull trains. Through carriages from Weymouth trains were conveyed by some branch trains and if the branch engine was propelling the branch coaches, the attached main line coaches would be behind the locomotive, which was sandwiched.
In the 1960s, usage of rural branch lines declined rapidly as road transport for both goods and passengers improved. However, the line was not mentioned in the report The Reshaping of British Railways, published in 1963, which recommended the closure of many such lines.
From 1966, steam traction was eliminated from the area, and the branch passenger service was operated by a diesel-electric multiple-unit set of BR Class 205. In 1969, a through train from London was operated on summer Saturdays, worked by a diesel locomotive.
In May 1967, the government announced passenger services to Swanage would end after a review of unprofitable branch lines. In late 1967, British Railways issued a notice that the Swanage line was to be closed by September 1968. However, due to opposition focused on the problems in providing a replacement bus service during the summer months, the closure was deferred. A Department of the Environment Inspector ruled that the line should remain open, but that decision was later overturned by the Secretary of State for the Environment.
The line closed to passenger services from 3 January 1972, this was standard phrasing which meant no trains ran on the 'from' date. Because there was no winter Sunday service, the last trains actually ran on 1 January. Composed of two three-carriage 1957 British Railways diesel-electric multiple units No. 1110 and No. 1124, the last train left Wareham at 9.45pm bound for Swanage.
With 500 passengers on board, who had each purchased a specially printed British Rail Edmondson card ticket costing 50 pence for an adult and 25 pence for a child, the last train departed a gas-lit Swanage station platform at 10.15pm before passing through Corfe Castle at 10.24pm and pulling into Wareham at 10.40pm.
Furzebrook At Furzebrook, the railway crossed the mineral tramway belonging to Pike Brothers, known as the Furzebrook Railway; the tramway was used for the transport of ball clay. No connection was made at first, and the Furzebrook line used the track gauge of 2 ft 8½ in (825 mm), but a transfer siding was later installed.
Norden The Middlebere Plateway connected for transshipment purposes with the branch line at Norden; the plateway was operated by Benjamin Fayle and his successors. The location was used during World War II for separate War Department sidings in connection with rail mounted artillery guns.
After passenger closure When the line closed to passengers, freight continued to operate from Furzebrook Sidings, where Pike Brothers dispatched clay.
In 1978, further sidings were installed at Furzebrook for the loading of crude oil from the Wytch Farm oilfield; the wells were distant, oil being brought to the site by pipeline. The sidings were adjacent to the clay trans-shipment site on the branch.
Preservation In May 1972, the Swanage Railway Society was formed with the objective of restoring an all-the-year-round community railway service linking to the main line at Wareham, which would be 'subsidised' by the operation of steam-hauled heritage trains during the holidays.
However, during the summer of 1972, BR hired contractors to lift the track between Swanage and Furzebrook sidings. Protests were orchestrated by the Society and an agreement between the Society and BR followed, leading to all the ballast being left in situ plus an extra of track at Furzebrook. The track from Furzebrook to the main-line junction at Worgret remained in use for ball clay traffic, later also serving the oilfield at Wytch Farm. BR had intended to sell the Swanage station site to a property developer, but, after the intervention of Evelyn King, the MP for South Dorset, at the Society's request, it was offered to Swanage Town Council (STC).
At first, neither the Dorset County Council (DCC) nor the STC backed the Society's plans to restore the railway. DCC planned to build a by-pass for Corfe Castle on the railway land, while STC started to demolish Swanage station. To break the impasse, the Railway Society formed two daughter organisations: the Swanage and Wareham Railway Group, composed of local residents prepared to lobby the local authorities, and the Southern Steam Group, to collect historic railway rolling stock and establish a museum of steam and railway technology. In 1975, after many interventions by local residents, the STC finally granted the Society limited facilities on the Swanage station site. In 1975, DCC acquired the railway land between the end of the line at Furzebrook and Northbrook Road bridge in Swanage, and undertook to "give further consideration" to routes for a Corfe Castle by-pass. The Society piloted a successful application by the Southern Steam Group to the Charity Commissioners for charitable status, and subsequently both the Society and the residents' group joined the new Southern Steam Trust.
Restoration