| | Swanage Railway Rail Ale Festival, 19-21 May.The Swanage Railway and CAMRA (East Dorset Branch) are pleased to announce the First Swanage Rail Ale Festival at Norden Park and Ride from Friday 19th May to Sunday 21st May. This milestone event, sponsored by The Isle of Purbeck Brewery of Studland, will include over 50 Real Ales and Ciders. It also helps celebrate the 121st Birthday of the Swanage Railway. Open 11.00 am to 11.00 pm on Friday and Saturday and 11.00 am to 3.00 pm on Sunday; admission FREE. You can travel to the Festival by train from Swanage, Herston, Harmans Cross or Corfe Castle, by bus from Poole, Bournemouth or Wareham (changing to Swanage Railway trains at Swanage Station) or by car to Norden or to Harmans Cross Station and then by train. The Railway will operate a special 40-minute interval train service, with Friday and Saturday evening services as well. Swanage Railway Fete, Mon 29 May. Also in May, on Bank Holiday Monday, is the Railway's Annual Garden Fete – please note the change from August. There will be the usual ‘fun of the fair’ for all the family: games; cakes, jams, bric-a-brac and book stalls; silent auction; tombola, etc. in the lovely grounds of the Purbeck House Hotel in High Street, Swanage, starting at 2.00 pm. This is a particularly appropriate venue as Purbeck House originally was the home of George Burt, the Victorian entrepreneur and promoter of the original Swanage Railway 121 years ago. So come and have fun and help to raise funds in ‘his’ garden to keep ‘his’ railway going! If you can help on the day or have any good quality bric-a-brac, CDs, videos etc or small gifts as suitable prizes for children's games, please contact either Mike Stollery (421492) or Ruth Newton (422785) beforehand. We shall be running our Peak Service with a steam train every 40 minutes from Norden, Corfe Castle and Harmans Cross, so come to town by rail. The ‘Travelling Tavern’ train will run on Friday evening 26 May and the ‘Wessex Belle’ Dining Train on Saturday 27 May and there will be an evening diesel train service as well.
For dates, bookings and train times call at the Station, phone 01929 425800 or visit our website at www.swanagerailway.co.uk. Purbeck Railway CircleOur next meeting is on Friday 19 May when David Ventry gives a slide show on ‘Railway Oddities’. David is an inveterate photographer who spots anything which is odd, unusual or, best of all, unique and memorable, so we look forward to a very interesting evening. We meet in the Catholic Church Hall, Rempstone Road, Swanage, at 7.00 for 7.30 pm. All welcome.
Michael Walshaw, Secretary PRC, Station House, Swanage, BH19 1HB, phone 01929 421913. New Diesel Loco on Swanage Metals.On Sunday, 26th March, during our Members’ Weekend, the sound of an English Electric diesel-electric engine was heard again for the first time since the last BR 'Hampshire' Class Diesel-Electric Multiple Unit train left Corfe Castle for Wareham on the chilly night of Saturday, 1st January 1972 – the end of the Swanage branch. Bringing back that distinctive throaty growl to Corfe Castle was 72-ton Class 20 diesel locomotive No.D8188, with its 1,000 horsepower engine. D8188 was built by Vulcan Foundry at Newton-le-Willows for BR in 1967 and spent its first day in service with us hauling a brake-van special for Swanage Railway Trust Members between Norden, Corfe Castle and Harmans Cross. The locomotive also took part in our great Branchline Weekend of 1 and 2 April, when five locos were in action, hauling passenger and goods trains. The accompanying photo by Andrew P.M. Wright taken on 26 March shows the crew and the locomotive’s owner, David Coombs, of the Weymouth-based Somerset and Dorset Locomotive Company. From left to right we have Ian McDavid (Driver), David Coombs (Owner), Matt McManus (Secondman) and Rob Davies (Shunter). For a major stunt sequence in the hit 1995 James Bond film ‘Goldeneye’, D8188 was disguised to look like a Soviet locomotive, where it collides with a tank, the dramatic scene being filmed on the Nene Valley Railway. Swanage Railway General Manager, Nick Brown, said: “Although the Class 20s never ran on the Swanage Branch, there is one aspect of the locomotive that has a link to the Purbeck Line and will be familiar to anyone who remembers the final five years of the Swanage branch line and the sound of the trains during that period. The Class 20s diesel engine is of the same design – just slightly more powerful – as the engines that powered the three-coach ‘Hampshire’ Class diesel trains that ran the train service between Wareham, Corfe Castle and Swanage between 1966 and the end of the line in 1972. The throaty growl is the same and so hearing it will be a nostalgic sound for many people.” If you are interested in helping us in any way 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. |