ORIGINAL ‘West COuNtRy’ NO. 34105 SWANAGE

Twenty years ago, ‘West Country’ No. 34105 Swanage took part in the Mid-Hants Railway’s end of Southern steam 30th anniversary gala in July 1997, running in the guise of classmate and ’67 veteran No. 34102 Lapford - complete with its number and the words ‘The End is Nigh’ chalked onto the smokebox door. How prescient - the youngest preserved ‘Light Pacific’ hasn’t turned a wheel in anger since that year. Swanage spent the majority of its working life allocated to Bournemouth where, on May 3 1951, it had the honour of hauling the inaugural Weymouth-Waterloo ‘Royal Wessex’. During the 1950s, it was also regularly at the head of the ‘Pines Express’ over the S&D. It wasn’t all top link work for the ‘West Country’, as it stood in for a failed tank engine on a Bournemouth West-Brockenhurst push-pull service in September 1961. Despite its name, Swanage has always called the ‘Watercress Line’ home in preservation. It is currently at Ropley in the midst of an overhaul which could return it to service within two years. It has recently had its cab and an all-new smokebox fitted to the frames, while the framework is in place to receive the all-new air-smoothed casing. The boiler is still undergoing overhaul at the MHR’s boiler shop in Ropley; however, the focus is on returning ‘Merchant Navy’ No. 35005 Canadian Pacific to steam before other jobs can be tackled.