This coming weekend, the Swanage Railway will host a ‘Winter Warm Up’ event, featuring a mix of steam and diesel passenger trains to the Isle of Purbeck.

The two heritage diesel locomotive to be featured in the ‘Winter Warm Up’ will be:

• 1960 ex-British Railways Class 33 diesel-electric No. D6515 ‘Lt Jenny Lewis RN’, which hauled London to Swanage trains during the summer of 1966. British Rail renumbered it No. 33 012 in the early 1970s, and it was the last to run between Poole, Broadstone and Wimborne in 1977, after the last section of the former main line between Brockenhurst, Ringwood, West Moors, Wimborne, Broadstone and Poole closed to trains.
• 1960 ex-British Railways Class 33 diesel-electric No. 33 111, which was the last Class 33 locomotive to haul a train composed of a 4TC ‘push-pull’ set to Swanage in September 1971, as part of the ‘Dorset Venturer’ rail enthusiasts’ tour of the county.

Two steam locomotives will be in action:

• The newly-restored Victorian London and South Western Railway T3 no. 563, built in 1893, which was donated to the Swanage Railway Trust by the National Railway Museum in 2017.
• Bulleid Pacific No. 34028 ‘Eddystone’ – similar Bulleid Pacifics hauled trains from London to Corfe Castle and Swanage from the 1940s to the end of steam trains in southern England in summer 1967.

The locomotives will operate to an intensive timetable (and subject to availability and short-notice change) between Norden, Corfe Castle, Harman’s Cross and Swanage between 9.45am and 5.10pm.

The event will also include a re-creation of a nostalgic freight train of wagons and box vans of the type that ran across southern England, including the Swanage branch in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s.

The goods shed, museum and ‘have-a-go’ signal box museum at Corfe Castle station will be open over the weekend. Swanage station shop and booking hall refreshment kiosk will also be open, subject to volunteer availability.

Gavin Johns is a volunteer signaller on the heritage line, and volunteer chair of the Swanage Railway Company which runs the trains for the Swanage Railway Trust. He said, “The ‘Winter Warm Up’ will be wonderful and nostalgic weekend celebrating the best of steam and diesel trains with the star being the Swanage Railway Trust’s unique and newly restored Victorian T3 class London and South Western Railway steam locomotive No. 563 built in 1893.

“Freight trains, like the one we will be re-creating during our weekend ‘Winter Warm Up’ event, used to run across the south of England for decades delivering goods and farm produce.

“British Railways stopped running freight trains to Corfe Castle and Swanage in 1965, a year before steam trains were replaced by diesel trains on the Swanage branch and six years before the line was controversially closed and demolished.”