Return of regular train service to Swanage and Corfe Castle

[whole diary]

[bradshaw]

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

[grahame]

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.

[IndustryInsider]

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.

[ChrisB]

A bit more detail in this report from Rail Advent

selective

....tickets available to buy via mainline operator South Western Railway enabling passengers to include travel for Corfe Castle and Swanage to mainline tickets....The landmark trial will mark the first mainline ticketing facility for travel to Swanage in 51 years...

....will start on the 4th of April, continuing each week until the 10th of September....The first train departure will be at 11.19am at Wareham and the last train will leave Swanage heading to Wareham at 4.20pm, which provides visitors a good four hours to enjoy Swanage and Corfe Castle. On special events days, the timetable will be subject to change....

....The trains will be operated and staffed by West Coast Railways for Swanage Railway as one of the countries leading mainline charter and special train operators....Four services will operate each day out of Wareham each day and will be made up of a three-carriage heritage Class 117 diesel multiple unit which can also have a one-carriage heritage Class 121 diesel multiple unit added when capacity requires, providing 292 seats....

Tickets will be available to buy from Monday the 13th of March via Swanage Railways website.

And, presumably, as quoted, from SWR^» (South Western Railway - about) website & retail

[grahame]

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^» (South Western Railway - about) 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.

[Timmer]

Were many people using the DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) service to/from Wareham Graham?

[grahame]

Were many people using the DMU^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) 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.

[grahame]

From Rail Advent

The Swanage Railway has withdrawn its plans for a train service to connect Swanage with the mainline at Wareham.

Trial services ran in 2017 and 2023 and saw a train service connect Swanage and Wareham via the mainline connection at Worgret Junction.

Frank Roberts, chairman of the Swanage Railway Trust, says that whilst the trials were operationally a success, they did not deliver commercially.

Frank also said that any future service would need to be subsidised to allow it to be commercially viable.

[Timmer]

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 

[bradshaw]

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

[Ralph Ayres]

Though could they put on a service during special events?

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^» (South Western Railway - about) 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.

[Mark A]

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

[grahame]

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^» (South Western Railway - about) 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 ...

[didcotdean]

There has been a lot of public money spent on this, from being included in the NR^» (Network Rail - home page) resignalling so the branch wasn't severed, to the purchase of the DMUs^▸ (Diesel Multiple Unit) 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.