Market Day Specials.Starting 30 May, a Market Day train runs every Tuesday: 9.00 am off Swanage, 9.25 off Norden and 9.27 off Corfe Castle to bring you to Swanage Market at a special reduced return fare of £4 (£3 concessions). (This service runs daily from 25 July to 5 September). Swanage Railway Shop. Our friendly Shop Manager, Ralph Smith, is desperately short of volunteers to help man the Shop at Swanage Station. The Shop sells railway books, magazines, videos, model railway equipment and items for the children. There is always ‘Thomas’ merchandise in stock and many books are available at reduced prices! The Shop is manned all the year round by men and women working on a rota basis and is a real asset to the Railway. Anyone at all interested should speak to Ralph, please, on 01929 475204. Purbeck Railway CircleOn Sat 17 June we are off on our annual summer outing, this time across the Solent to visit the Isle of Wight Steam Railway. Non-members welcome to join us. Contact Mike Walshaw on 01929 421913. Infrastructure Support.Infrastructure support forms an increasingly important role within the Railway. The Infrastructure Group brings together the engineering departments undertaking civil and electrical engineering, track construction and maintenance, signalling and telecommunications and also the teams that maintain the stations and structures. Current tasks include the reconnection of the rails with Network Rail during June and the erection of a footbridge at Corfe Castle. Most work is carried out away from the public eye, but is essential for the safe operation of the Railway. We very keen to hear from anyone who would be able to support our small but growing team engaged in a wide variety of work. Tasks can be technical, DIY-based or others that are fun but not taxing. Supervision is always given and training too, where appropriate. You should be over 16, male or female. If you are at all interested, please contact Frank Roberts on 01929 421858. Summer GuestYou might have heard a strange ‘hoot’ from the Railway on Thursday, 13 April. It came from a summer guest locomotive that arrived on 11 April from the Churnet Valley Railway in Staffordshire. The loco is on hire for the summer period whilst two of our own regular locos, ‘M7’ 30053 and Standard Tank 80104, are away completing major overhauls. The visiting loco is ‘S160’ Class 2 8 0, No. 5197, built in the USA as one of the standard designs of steam loco designed for the US Army Transportation Corps in World War 2 for worldwide service. The loco weighs 125 tons and has a tractive effort, or ‘pull’ of 14 tons. Over 2000 were built in 4 years, 1942-45, by several American locomotive manufacturers. They were designed for good route-availability with a reasonably high power-to-weight ratio. They complied with the British and European loading gauges that determine the height and width of railway vehicles. The first 400 of the many S160s that were shipped across the Atlantic and landed at the west-coast ports of Britain in 1942-43 were put to work on Britain’s hard-pressed railways, pending their transfer to the Continent after the Invasion. 18 were lost at sea due enemy submarines and a collision with an iceberg! The Southern Railway had six on loan, based at Exmouth Junction shed and used on freight trains between Exeter, Salisbury and Southampton. A further 355 engines arrived and were stored in South Wales before crossing to France after D-Day. The engines loaned to Britain’s railways then crossed the Channel too. Everywhere they went, the S160s were well received and proved to be rugged and reliable workhorses and not fussy about how or with what they were fired. Coming back to our guest loco, 5197, it was built in 1945 and went directly from the USA to China and hauled coal trains there until the mid 1990s as Chinese State Railway’s No.463. The loco was rescued from being scrapped by the Chinese coal industry and was brought to the UK in 1995 and taken to the Llangollen Railway for restoration, entering service in 1999. It ran there for two years before being sold and moved to the Churnet Valley Railway. It has visited other lines, including Peak Rail and the Great Central Railway for a ‘Wartime Weekend’. Other S160s survive in preservation in the UK but as far as we know only 5197 is in working order at present. Come and see this loco in action on the Swanage Railway before it leaves us on 21 June. By the way, “U.S.A.” painted on its tender stands for UNITED STATES ARMY. Mike Walshaw If you are interested in joining the Railway to help in any way, particularly in Infrastructure Support, contact Volunteer Liaison Officer Mike Whitwam on 01202 430894, write to him at SRT, Station House, Swanage, BH19 1HB or leave a note for him at Swanage Station Booking Office. |