The Swanage Railway has always held ambitions to run services into Wareham on the mainline, and in summer 2017 they finally achieved that ambition! I finally got to take a day out to try out the service just a few days before it was due to finish at the end of the summer, and what a wonderful sight D6515 made running into Wareham!
Next year the plan is to run a mainline certified class 117 DMU on this service, but for the first summer the SR hired in rolling stock and a pair of diesel locos (33025 and 37518) from WCRC. As the 71A Group's D6515 is mainline certified, it has also been able to join in the fun - and in the longer term one of the SR moguls (31874) is being mainline certified as part of its overhaul.
Uploaded to Flickr by jalapenokitten on 22 January 2018
Photo © jalapenokitten, 22 January 2018. Licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons licence