nomadlens
Images of the South West
Steam Train, Corfe Castle
Something a little different today. This is the 34208 ‘Eddystone’, an SR (Southern Railway) West Country Class air-smoothed 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive, built in 1946. This was taken from the battlements of Corfe Castle on the Isle of Purbeck looking down on the Swanage Railway, a 6 mile long heritage railway. It was reopened in 1979 after being closed in 1972 and was originally built in 1885. It is now reconnected to the main rail network.
Corfe Castle itself is a stunning structure built on a small hill in an incredibly strategic position in a gap in the Challow Hills; the name Corfe itself has an Old English derivation and means a ‘cutting’, the cutting here having been eroded into the chalk hills by two streams, running either side of it. It was built by William the Conqueror but there is evidence of former Saxon structures on the site. One day I would like to climb the hills that flank it to shoot it at dawn and dusk; unfortunately it is rather a long way from where we live.
I’ve been trying to think but I cannot actually recall ever being a passenger on any of these heritage railways though I’ve been on a steam train before; that’ll be something to put right in the future.
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