Important improvements at Norden Park and Ride Station - July 1998

Report by APM Wright - July 28th 1998

Swanage Railway volunteers have deepened the platform of their award-winning Norden Park and Ride station and extended the ticket office - so they can cope with even more passengers as the peak two-train summer rail service starts on the relaid Purbeck Line.

Important improvements have been made to the Swanage Railway’s award-winning Norden Park and Ride station with the platform being deepened and the ticket office having two exterior serving windows installed so a one-way entry and exit system could be brought in to reduce delays and congestion for passengers leaving and entering the station.

Last year, the station opened in 1995 at the west end of the six mile Purbeck Line next to Purbeck District Council’s newly extended 250-space park and ride car park was used by 60,000 people.

Now, the depth of the station platform - a 1930s concrete example saved from Devon - has been increased more than two fold into the railway embankment by the volunteer and full-time elements of the Permanent Way Department under Tony Andrews. Gabions (large stone-filled metal wire boxes) have been installed to retain the cut back embankment..

Extra seats have also been installed and a concrete waiting room moved. Eventually, the plan is to build a wooden waiting room and shelter in the same colours as the ticket office - sand and Buckingham Green - to give passengers more cover.

The ticket office at Norden has also undergone another metamorphosis. The office was converted out of an old Victorian LSWR crossing keepers’ hut that spent its life at the East Stoke crossing on the London to Weymouth line between Wareham and Wool until October, 1994.

When initially converted for use at Norden in the summer of 1996, passengers had to enter the hut to buy tickets with passengers entering and leaving the station by the same narrow gateway. That lead to congestion and delays for the public.

Now, two ticket windows have been installed on the north wall of the ticket office and a protective and signed canopy built to offer passengers cover. The area around the hut has been widened so passengers enter the station via the office’s north side and leave by the old gateway on the south.

The carpentry work on the ticket office has been carried out by Bournemouth husband and wife team Geoff and June Neale. They were among the team of Swanage Railway volunteers who helped convert the hut for ticket office use and now Geoff Neale is Norden station’s first project manager.

The ground around the ticket office has been surfaced with tarmac, the eventual intention being to tarmac the whole of the five coach platform. Meanwhile, the new surface for the deepened platform is crushed chalk aggregate

"The changes to Norden are a definite improvement and have been made to help our passengers by giving them better facilities and speeding up the movement of passengers via the one-way system," said Swanage Railway’s Passenger Services Manager David Green.

"The deepened platform and improved ticket office are not the end of developments and improvements at Norden. We want to increase the amount of covered accommodation so passengers don’t have to get wet in bad weather," he added.

The deepened platform at Norden and the improved ticket office came as the Swanage Railway started its peak summer two-train timetable on Saturday, July 11th, 1998. That runs until the end of the first week of September.

Under the intensive timetable, steam trains leave Swanage and Norden every 35 minutes, crossing each other at Harman’s Cross. The first steam train is at 10.30 am and the last being 5.30 pm from Swanage and 6.05 pm from Norden.

After that, the Swanage Railway’s two-month five trains an evening diesel railbus service - using one of two ex-Western Region Class 108 DMUs - kicks in. Last year, the eight week service was used by more than 3,000 people.

The first train, the 6.05 from Swanage, runs to Norden Park and Ride with the rest (the 7.10 pm, 8.20 pm, 10 pm and 11 pm) running to Corfe Castle. Railbus train tickets are just £2 for unlimited travel on the evening of issue.