Swanage Railway
United Kingdom · Europe
About
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 The passenger service was withdrawn in 1972, leaving a residual freight service over part of the line handling mineral traffic.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 9.5-mile (15.3 km) 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.
Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.