Great Western Coffee Shop

From April to September the Swanage Railway wil be running four trains a day on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. They will be using a restored Class 117 three car dmu with a Class 122 added if necessary. Crewing witll be by West Coast Railway. See website for detail.

https://www.swanagerailway.co.uk/news/view/trial-train-service-from-wareham-main-line-into-the-heart-of-purbeck-thanks-to-working-in-partnership

Wonderful news - to be clear that is a service from WAREHAM to Corfe Castle and Swanage. 

West Somerset Railway please take note.

Excellent.  Perhaps not quite as much appeal as the top and tailed 33s used when it ran last time five or so years ago, but most welcome nonetheless.

A bit more detail in this report  from Rail Advent (https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2023/03/trial-train-service-from-wareham-mainline-into-the-heart-of-the-isle-of-purbeck.html)

selective
And, presumably, as quoted, from SWR website & retail

I took the opportunity to try out this service yesterday - taking the electric train from Weymouth (where I had arrived ex Melksham on the through service), connecting into the diesel service to Swanage and then taking the steam train back up to Norden. Lovely to try out all the various modes and a great trip. Swanage warm, scenic, bustling, happy, sunny.  SWR running a few minutes late, not that it mattered, and a lack of staff to be seen (though tickets were checked).  Swanage railway on time, and volunteers ample and happy to engage with public.  The dmu old and knocked about in some ways to make it compliant, but looked in good condition and brought back many memories.  Lovely to see a consistent rake on the steam train and a realistic steam loco on the front of it (as opposed to an interloper).    Pleasant number of people around on the railway; Norden towards the end of the day was a quietish haven, but even there ended up chatting as I took photos of the leaving steam train.

(http://www.wellho.net/pix/wy20230527_15.jpg)

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Were many people using the DMU service to/from Wareham Graham?

Perhaps 30 or 40 each way.   Pleasantly middling between "empty" and "crowded".  Without being there all day I don't know, but I only arrived on the 13:05 from Wareham where I would expect the earlier service to have been busier, and I left on the tail of the day whereas, again, I would that thought earlier would have been busier.  Certainly, at Norden they were shutting up shop by that time suggesting we were into quieter times.

From Rail Advent (https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2024/03/swanage-railway-withdraws-plans-for-wareham-train-service.html)

Sigh, so so disappointing both this and the WSR connection at Taunton are not used but totally understandable as running train services is so darned expensive. Heritage railways are having a job keeping going as it is. Couple this with councils struggling financially too it’s a case of oooooz gonna pay for it? No one  :(

On the bright side, having the mainline connection does allow through running of railtours and mainline steam on to the railway.
Sad though the decision might be, it is financially sensible. Though could they put on a service during special events?

Many years ago the South Devon Railway ran through to Totnes but the costs were too great. The end result was Totnes Riverside, with the station building coming from Toller on the Bridport Branch

Sadly I suspect a Wareham service would be particularly problematic during special events. More trains running than on a normal operating day so more to go wrong, and the last thing you then need is to be worrying about getting the Wareham shuttle out and back on time so it doesn't delay SWR services.  I do hope the occasional practice of running an incoming special guest loco on a passenger train will continue though; rather less fraught with reliability problems as they tend to arrive the day before an event, as well as then allowing an overnight B&B stay ready for the main event.

RIP Wareham's two bay platforms (both long gone).

Also, the footpath crossing on the site of the removed level crossing at the east end of the station. It's open 06:00 - 01:00 seven days a week. That must be a bit of a rare arrangement.

Mark

As I understand it, the costs of such things as equipment (extra on the train) and hiring main line qualified and up to date drivers was unsustainable.  I don't know the details but from what I could see when I used the service it was hard to envision it being viable in that form. I did bump into Community Rail and SWR folks on one of the days I was there last year, so I'm sure the whole thing has been thoroughly looked into, although I suspect there may be a couple of "them's the rules", "more than my jobs work", and "can't change things - always done like that" types around in managers. And of course safety must come first.  Electric railways are even more dangerous ...

There has been a lot of public money spent on this, from being included in the NR resignalling so the branch wasn't severed, to the purchase of the DMUs etc. The trial services seem to have been organised around people coming to travel on the heritage railway, being of little practical use to locals without even considering the premium fares being charged.

Questionable really why it was attempted as not clear what it was really trying to achieve.