The pretty Victorian seaside town of Swanage is situated on the Isle of Purbeck on the Dorset coast. It is noted for the excellent heritage railway that is based at the town’s former Southern Railway station. The railway holds numerous events throughout the year as well as running a regular service between Swanage and Nordon using both steam and diesel trains where intending passengers can use the park & ride facility.

This DVD programme covers two interesting happenings that took place during 2023. The first is what was called ‘Project Wareham’ where the main line was linked to the Swanage heritage line at Worgret Junction so that trains could run directly from the main line into Swanage as they did in the past before the line was closed. Trial services ran in 2017 and 2023 via the mainline connection at Worgret Junction using a class 117 heritage diesel multiple unit. In 2023 they operated for 90 days from April to September. At the end of the trial Swanage Railway withdrew plans for the service to operate in the future, although successful it did not deliver commercially. The independent transport videos cameras took a ride on the service in April 2023 on board the class 117 DMU multiple unit comprising of W51388/W59486/W51356 from Wareham Station to Swanage and return to Wareham. Whilst in Swanage we see the train arriving and departing on another journey as well as some morebus ‘Breezer’ branded buses in service. Following the journey to Wareham we see the train departing back to Swanage.

The second part of our programme features a farewell rail tour organised by The Branch Line Society for the BR Class 43 HST. An HST set using power cars 43007 and 43008 operated from Leeds to Swanage as the ‘Pines Express’. It then ran an excursion to Bournemouth and back as ‘The Bournemouth Belle’. It returned to Leeds at the end of the day. Our cameras were on hand to see the arrival and departure at Swanage and later in the day passing through Nordon and its departure from Wareham station. Whilst filming we also see ‘Bulleid’ light Pacific 34070 ‘Manston’ that was built in 1947 in service and the superbly restored London South Western Railway Adams T3, 563 that was built at Nine Elms in 1893 and is seen in steam prior to it first passenger journeys in October 2023. We complete our programme with some shots of another light Pacific, West Country Class 34028 ‘Eddystone’ that was built in 1946.

Produced by - Independent Transport Videos
Duration - TBA minutes
Region - 0 (worldwide) PAL
Aspect Ratio - 16:9 Widescreen
DVD only
Released - April 2025