VOLUNTEERS have marked a landmark anniversary of the last British Rail steam trains on the Swanage line.

It was 50 years ago that the final timetabled steam-hauled passenger trains operated over the branch.

A diesel-electric multiple unit took over the following day.

The man who drove the last steam train in 1966 – Bournemouth-based ‘Johnny’ Walker – later had the honour of taking the controls of the last BR train from Swanage before the line was ripped up in 1972. It has since been rebuilt.

Swanage Railway Trust chairman Gavin Johns said: “After No. 76010 made the last steam run from Swanage to Wareham on the evening of Sunday, 4 September, 1966, the train returned to Bournemouth where the locomotive went back to the engine shed and had its fire dropped for the last time. No.76010 was stored at Bournemouth shed for a few weeks before being sold for scrap. It was towed to a scrapyard in Newport, South Wales, where it was cut up.”

He added: “The end of regular timetabled steam trains between Wareham and Swanage in 1966 marked the rapid decline of the ten-mile branch line.

“The introduction of diesel trains meant the many tracks at Swanage required for steam operation were no longer needed so, in 1967, the station’s signal box was closed and demolished – with the signalling removed and the tracks reduced to just one.

“By September, 1972 – just six years after the end of British Rail steam trains between Wareham and Swanage – the line had been closed and demolished with the rails being melted down for scrap and the wooden track sleepers sold off to farmers for fencing.”

Swanage Railway Company chairman Trevor Parsons added: “A lot has happened since the sad events of September, 1966, and the end of regular steam trains on the Swanage branch line.

“Few people thought that the line would ever be rebuilt after it was closed in 1972 but now – 50 years after the last regular British Rail steam trains ran through Corfe Castle to Swanage – it’s as though the branch line was never demolished.

“Since 1976, the Swanage Railway has been rebuilt from nothing and the first steam trains returned to Swanage in 1980 when volunteers operated trains over a few hundred yards of second-hand track to just beyond the station’s disused Victorian engine shed.”