Swanage Railway marks 50th anniversary of line closure
The last British Rail train ran on the branch line on New Year’s Day 1972
A retired Dorset railwayman who signalled the last British Rail train from Wareham to Swanage on the evening of New Year’s Day 1972 has welcomed a special train marking the 50th anniversary of the event.
Bob Richards was on the platform at Corfe Castle station on 1 January 2022 where he greeted the train’s driver Peter Frost, who was a teenage passenger on that last British Rail train.
Bob said: "It was really great to see Peter driving the special train into Corfe Castle on the 50th anniversary of the last British Rail train because I remember him as a child growing up in the village and being very keen on the branch line and its trains.
"It doesn’t seem like 50 years ago since British Rail closed the line to Swanage.
"We thought the line would be saved and come back to life but when the tracks were lifted in seven weeks during the summer of 1972 everyone thought that was the end.
"It is incredible what Peter and the other dedicated Swanage Railway volunteers have achieved over the past 45 years in bringing the line back from the dead – relaying the tracks, building new stations, developing in the infrastructure to maintain the railway and link up with the national railway network.
"You have to admire the grit and determination of several generations of Swanage Railway volunteers in not taking no for an answer and for battling on, and winning, against the odds."
Opened in 1885, the ten-mile Swanage branch line was controversially closed by British Rail in 1972.
After three years of campaigning by railway enthusiasts and community volunteers – and following a referendum among Swanage residents in 1975 – the town council gave the fledgling Swanage Railway Society a one-year lease of the disused terminal station.