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Volunteers undertake £100,000 drainage system replacement at Swanage

Taking eight weeks to complete, the extensive work involves lifting the railway tracks, digging out the clay underneath to a depth of up to 6ft – together with the old post-war drainage system – and laying a new drainage system made of modern and more effective and efficient materials.

While trains are not operating to and from Swanage because of the civil engineering work, a diesel rail bus shuttle train service is still running at the other end of the relaid Purbeck Line – between Norden Park and Ride and Corfe Castle stations on Saturdays and Sundays until February 26.

Swanage Railway Company volunteer chairman Peter Sills said: "This is a major £100,000 investment in the infrastructure of the Swanage Railway so the trains can keep running well into the future because our tracks require a good drainage system to stay in the very best condition.

"When the first volunteers started to rebuild the Swanage Railway from nothing at a disused Swanage station in 1976, they inherited a derelict and blocked drainage system after British Rail ran down, closed and then demolished the branch line railway in 1972.

"We're using modern drainage system materials – such as permeable plastic membranes – which the Victorian designers of the Swanage branch line back in the early 1880s could never have dreamed of. The last time the Swanage station drainage system was upgraded was probably around 50 years ago during the days of British Railways," explained Peter.

Over the past two years, the Swanage Railway has invested more than £200,000 in relaying a mile of new track between the limits of Swanage station and Herston Halt on the outskirts of Swanage – track that was originally laid during the early days of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Full steam train services are due to resume between Norden Park and Ride, Corfe Castle, Harman's Cross, Herston Halt and Swanage on Saturday, March 3.

After 35 years of rebuilding work, the Swanage Railway now carries more than 200,000 passengers a year and has become the most visited paid-for attraction in Dorset.

It operates some 2800 trains a year, mostly steam-hauled, with those trains clocking up a total of almost 17,000 miles – that is two thirds of the way around the world.

Contributing around £10-million to the Purbeck economy, profits from the Swanage Railway's train services are ploughed back into the development and extension of the heritage railway and its facilities.