Track laying westward from Norden

News release dated 4th September 1999 - all photographs are copyright Andrew P. M. Wright.

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Triumphant Swanage Railway volunteers have laid a quarter of a mile of track on newly cleared and drained trackbed in their efforts to achieve a cherished and hard fought dream - connecting the restored Purbeck Line with the national rail network.

The cleared trackbed was once choked with trees and undergrowth from the Norden park and ride station westwards to the site of the former narrow gauge clay tramway sidings at Eldon's.

In a delicate operation with BP Exploration, Swanage Railway volunteers extended their Purbeck Line track from their award-winning Norden park and ride station across the access road to Wytch Farm, western Europe's largest on-shore oifield, on the evening of Tuesday, June 29th, 1999.

The first few hundred yards of the BP road is used as the public's access to the 250 space park and ride car park next to Norden station. When the new road was built in 1988, BP included a section of level crossing track for future use when the Swanage Railway's tracks reached that point.

Now, more track has been laid a quarter of a mile west of Norden park and ride station to where the Victorian Eldon's Sidings - a trans-shipment point between a narrow gauge clay mine railway - joined the Swanage branch line until its closure in 1972; the sidings being unused from the early 1960s.

"It was great to see the panels being laid where only a few years ago there was impenetrable undergrowth and a waterlogged trackbed. It was very inspiring and the result of so much hard work by so many people," said Swanage Railway chairman Bill Trite.

"A lot of preparation work was carried out to make sure the tracklaying across the BP access road was problem free and quick so as not to interrupt traffic to the Wytch Farm oil field.

The 22 60-foot panels of track - mostly bullhead rail with some flat-bottomed but all on wooden sleepers - laid since the end of June were bought from BR's former Network SouthEast in the late 1980s after the singling of the Alton to Farnham line.

The pointwork for the siding at Eldon's has been pinned out while several panels of the siding itself - bullhead rail on concrete sleepers - have already been laid where once wagons were filled with clay.

The plan is to lay 300 yards more track to an underbridge - bridge No 13 - which used to carry the Victorian Middlebere narrow gauge tramway under the Swanage branch line. Work will then be carried out to dig out the trackbed over the bridge so a waterproof membrane can be laid to protect the brick arch of the bridge built in 1884 from water damage.