The volunteers who, as teenagers, began working to restore the Swanage Railway in 1976 have gathered to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary.

The Railway, on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, is holding several events to mark its half-century, including a Winter Warm-up last month and a visit from the Inspiration exhibition train this week.

Last Saturday and Sunday, it held its annual Community Weekend, at which members of the public had the opportunity to go behind the scenes of the heritage line.

The original volunteers, now aged sixty-something, shared memories and stories at the event at Corfe Castle station on Saturday (14 February).

Fifty years ago to the day – on Saturday 14 February, 1976 – the original volunteers entered the disused Swanage station and began restoration and rebuilding work.

The town council had allowed the newly-formed Swanage Railway Society access to the buildings, which were boarded up.

Swanage Railway’s historic first locomotive – a small 1930s petrol shunting loco – was also present. It arrived at Swanage station, which had no tracks at the time, in June 1976. The loco arrived with a large sheet on its back with the words ‘First loco for Swanage Railway’ painted on it.

Back in 1976, Peter Frost was a teenager who lived in Corfe Castle, where his parents ran the
Greyhound pub. As a child, he had played at Corfe Castle station. Young Peter knew the railway workers who worked on the Wareham-to-Swanage branch line, a ten-mile stretch which closed in January 1972. He watched the track being lifted that summer.

“On the morning of Saturday, 14 February, 1976, I hopped on my Honda 250 motor cycle and
travelled the five miles to Swanage station when I joined a group of people on the platform
where there was an exciting buzz as well as a feeling of expectation and determination. …

“Every weekend was an adventure – restoring buildings and rolling stock at Swanage station, preparing the ground to lay track or planning transport arrangements to get a team of people to retrieve track from redundant sites and regular trips to Barry Island, in south Wales, to select and prepare for transport the locomotives we hoped to purchase and restore for use on the rebuilt Swanage Railway. …

“Most people thought we were a bunch of train-spotting nutters and that we would never rebuild the railway. Even the railwaymen who worked on the Swanage branch thought that to rebuild the line was impossible.”

Peter Frost, who still volunteers as a locomotive driver