A group of Swanage Railway volunteers has launched an appeal to raise £40,000 to help towards completing the half-a-million-pound restoration of London and South Western Railway T3 class locomotive No. 563.

Since the National Railway Museum donated the steam locomotive to the Swanage Railway Trust in 2017, the volunteers have been working to restore the loco.

Its restoration is nearly complete, and a supporter has pledged to match donations given during June up to a cap of £4,000.

563 is the last survivor of its class, and had travelled more than 1.5 million miles between being built in 1893 and the Southern Railway Company withdrawing it from service by in August, 1945.

The loco was rescued from scrap to help to help celebrate the centenary of London’s Waterloo station in 1948, but has not hauled a train in the seventy-five years since then.

The Trust, which issued its latest update on the restoration last week, hopes to have the eighty-one-tonne loco back in steam and hauling trains at Swanage during autumn this year, in time to celebrate both the centenary of the Southern Railway and the 185th anniversary of the formation of the London and South Western Railway.

Specialist contractors at the Flour Mill workshops in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, are working on the restoration

To make a donation or start a standing order, and to find out more about the history and renovation of the T3 loco, visit the 563 Locomotive Group’s website.

563 Locomotive Group chairman Nathan Au said: “It’s a race against time but, hopefully, we can do it with public help. We are very grateful to a generous and committed supporter of the locomotive’s restoration, who wishes to remain anonymous, for match-funding all donations received by the end of June up to a limit of £4,000.

“The boiler of the T3 has been restored and steamed at the Flour Mill locomotive workshops in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, and the boiler will be steamed there again in the next few weeks now that the boiler has been installed in the frames of the locomotive which has been painted to a very high standard.

“All being well, we are hoping to transport the restored T3 locomotive to Swanage station during the late summer where the locomotive will be reunited with its restored and splendidly painted coal and water tender.

“There will then follow a period of locomotive testing, commissioning and footplate crew training before No. 563 triumphantly hauls its first passenger train since 1948 in the autumn,” added Nathan who is a volunteer driver on the Swanage Railway.”

563 Locomotive Group treasurer Steve Doughty explained: “The T3 is a direct link to the Swanage Railway’s past – back to the early days of the London and South Western Railway in the 1880s and 1890s when holidaymakers first visited Purbeck by train

“The ambitious and historic restoration of the T3 is thanks for the consistent generosity of our many supporters who recognise just how unique and historically important this project is.

“Now, we have launched an appeal to raise £40,000 needed to complete the restoration of the unique Victorian T3 which has an incredibly rich history to tell and is the only surviving tender engine designed by the renowned locomotive engineer William Adams.

“The T3 class of steam locomotive hauled trains from London down to Corfe Castle and Swanage from the 1890s to the 1930s so the restoration back to full working order of No. 563 gives us the opportunity to show our visitors what the railway was like during Dorset’s industrial and social development in the 19th century,” added Mr Doughty.

Swanage Railway Trust chairman Gavin Johns, who is also a volunteer on the popular Dorset heritage line, said: “We are working hard to ensure the engine’s preservation for future generations to enjoy and the best way to do that is by seeing No. 563 brought back to life so it can haul trains for the first time in 75 years.”