Herston Halt railway station is a railway station located at Herston near

Swanage Swanage () is a coastal town and civil parish in the south east of Dorset, England. It is at the eastern end of the Isle of Purbeck and one of its two towns, approximately south of Poole and east of Dorchester. In the 2011 census the civil ...

, on the

Isle of Purbeck The Isle of Purbeck is a peninsula in Dorset, England. It is bordered by water on three sides: the English Channel to the south and east, where steep cliffs fall to the sea; and by the marshy lands of the River Frome and Poole Harbour to the n ...

in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

county of

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

. It is an intermediate station on the

Swanage Railway The Swanage Railway is a railway branch line from near Wareham, Dorset to Swanage, Dorset, England, opened in 1885 and now operated as a heritage railway. The independent company which built it was amalgamated with the larger London and South ...

, a

heritage railway A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...

that currently operates from

to Norden (and on special occasions to Wareham ).

History

The Swanage Railway follows the route of the former

London and South Western Railway The London and South Western Railway (LSWR, sometimes written L&SWR) was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Originating as the London and Southampton Railway, its network extended to Dorchester and Weymouth, to Salisbury, Exeter ...

line from Wareham to Swanage, a line that opened in 1885 and was closed by

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

in 1972. From the time of closure, a strong campaign to reopen the railway as a

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

operated

developed, and the Swanage Railway began operating a steam service at the Swanage end of the line in 1982. The original line did not have a station at Herston Halt, and the current station was opened at Easter 1984 by the Swanage Railway as a temporary terminus for the line. The station opened as a simple wooden platform construction which took two coaches, which has now been dismantled and replaced with a concrete platform recovered from the old Woodside railway station. The station reopened on Good Friday 2009 – 25 years after the original opening.

Future

The Swanage Railway have started working on a carriage shed just east of the station towards Swanage, this is because of the lack of covered accommodation. The foundations of the shed are complete as well as the track, but they still need £150,000 for the structure of the building.

Services

Trains stop at Herston Halt on request only. Services run every day from the beginning of April to late October, with weekend only operation in March, November and December. The level of service varies from 6 to 17 trains a day in each direction, depending the season and the day of the week. Southbound, trains operate to Swanage station. Northbound, trains operate to stations at

Harman's Cross Harman's Cross is a small village on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, England. It is situated on the A351 road between Swanage and Corfe Castle. The village is within the civil parish of Worth Matravers, which is itself within the South Dorset co ...

Corfe Castle Corfe Castle is a fortification standing above the village of the same name on the Isle of Purbeck peninsula in the English county of Dorset. Built by William the Conqueror, the castle dates to the 11th century and commands a gap in the P ...

, and

Norden Norden is a Scandinavian and German word, directly translated as "the North". It may refer to: Places England * Norden, Basingstoke, a ward of Basingstoke and Deane * Norden, Dorset, a hamlet near Corfe Castle * Norden, Greater Manchester, a vil ...

(also on special occasions to Wareham).

References

External links

Video footage of Herston Halt
{{Dorset railway stations Heritage railway stations in Dorset Railway stations built for UK heritage railways Railway stations in Great Britain opened in 1984 Swanage 1984 establishments in England