Swanage Railway pioneer to name a hi-tech £4 million Virgin Voyager

Press Release from Andrew P.M. Wright - dated 6th Sept 2002
Official photographer & press officer, Swanage Railway.
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An eighty year old widow and Swanage Railway pioneer is to name a hi-tech £4 million Virgin Voyager on Sunday, September 8th, 2002, after it makes history by being the first train to travel between Wareham and Swanage for 30 years.

Helping Moyra Cross to name Richard Branson’s new cross-country train ‘Dorset Voyager’ at Swanage station around 12.40 pm will be 79 year old veteran steam train driver and fireman Stan Symes of Bournemouth who worked trains between Wareham, Corfe Castle and Swanage between 1940 and 1969.

Moyra and her husband Roger moved to Swanage from Richmond in Surrey in April, 1969, and as soon as they heard that the branch line from Wareham was under threat of closure, they started to campaign for its retention.

But, tragically, Roger will not be on Swanage platform on Sunday to watch his wife officially name the first train to run from Wareham to Swanage for 30 years because he died almost ten years ago.

"I was honoured and surprised when asked to name this new cross country train which has been designed to the highest European standards. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry - it’s going to be absolutely wonderful," explained Mrs Cross who volunteers in the Swanage Railway’s station shop at Swanage.

"My late husband Roger would have been very proud of the Swanage Railway and very proud of me. He did a lot for the Swanage Railway and I am sure that he will be with me in spirit on Sunday.

"The first train to run from Wareham to Swanage since British Rail close the line to Corfe Castle and Swanage in 1972 is the beginning of the end - not the end of the beginning," she added.

Mrs Cross still remembers standing on a windy street in Swanage in May, 1969, with fellow campaigners trying to persuade residents to sign a petition to prevent British Rail closing the ten mile branch line from Wareham that had opened in 1885.

"Roger and I were there as well as campaigners who have since died - Jill and Ernest Rutland as well as Don and Dorothy Gosling. It’s a great shame that they will not be at Swanage on Sunday to see that first train from Wareham come into the town because they have - together with many other people - enabled it to happen," explained Moyra.

"Rebuilding the Swanage Railway back up to the national railway network near Wareham has been a very long journey - I didn’t think it would take this long and sometimes I had doubts that it would ever happen.

"A lot of people said it would never happen and that rebuilding the railway line was impossible and a hopeless cause but we stuck to our guns and just kept on going. The Swanage Railway has been good for the town and has brought a lot of trade into Swanage," added Moyra, an honorary life member of the volunteer-run Swanage Railway Trust which manages the steam railway.

Moyra was a founder member of the Isle of Purbeck Preservation Group which was formed in 1969 to prevent the closure of the Swanage branch line - and she was a founder member of the Swanage to Wareham Railway Group which was formed as scrap contractors tore up the railway line in the summer of 1972.

"The lowest point in our campaign to save the railway was in the summer of 1972 when the tracks were torn up and Swanage and Corfe Castle stations boarded up. In the mid-1970s, we could not see the way ahead and we did not know where to start in rebuilding the railway from scratch - it was such a huge task," explained Moyra.

"Watching the first train run at Swanage from a temporary scaffolding platform and along a few hundred yards of tracks in the late 1970s was very exciting and since then the railway has never looked back.

"I can remember being in the garden of my home in Swanage with my husband Roger when we heard the whistle from the very first steam locomotive to run at Swanage station in the late 1970s. It’s sad that a lot of those railway founders are no longer with us and it’s important to remind people about the early days.

"Sunday will be a time for celebration but also commemoration - remembering those people who worked so hard for so many years to win permission from local councils to rebuild the railway and then to actually relay the line and bring in all the infrastructure to run the trains. It is thanks to those people that we can all enjoy the Swanage Railway of today.

"The Swanage Railway is proof of what foresight and determination can actually achieve. The lesson to be drawn is that if you really want something, never give up because you can achieve it in the end. We could so easily have given up so many times.

"I can still remember the elation when the council allowed us to gain access to the boarded up station buildings in Swanage in 1976. Roger and I spent the day sweeping out the station master’s house - there was dust, cobwebs and the lot. British Rail should never have closed the Swanage branch line and Sunday’s historic train run from Wareham is proof of that. When the railway was closed, Swanage was cut off and definitely suffered," added Moyra.

Veteran steam train driver and fireman Stan Symes, 79, of Bournemouth - who worked trains between Wareham, Corfe Castle and Swanage between 1940 and 1969 - said he was "pleased and surprised" to be asked to name the new Virgin Voyager at Swanage station on Sunday.

"I never expected to see a train run between Wareham and Swanage for the first time since 1972. I always thought that I would not be around when it happened but I am - and I am 80 years of age in a few weeks time," explained Stan who first worked a train to Swanage in 1940 as a fireman - and worked his last train to Swanage for British Rail as a driver in 1969.

"The achievement of the Swanage Railway has been very great when you think that they started with nothing. The success of the railway is a great credit to all the volunteers who have worked so hard and put such a lot of time and interest into it over the year.

"A lot of my railway colleagues thought the Swanage Railway would not come back and eventually link up with the national railway network because it seemed such an impossible task. After all, the people that wanted to bring back the railway started with nothing - there was nothing.

"A lot of people did not take the railway seriously during its early years and thought its volunteers were playing trains. But they have been proved wrong and Sunday’s historic run of the first train from Wareham to Swanage since 1972 proves that - as does the enthusiasm of Virgin Trains for their new Virgin Voyager to make a special piece of history and be named at Swanage," added Stan who has been helping train the Swanage Railway’s locomotive crews since the early 1980s.