Winter Steam Gala

Kickstart the New Year with our Annual Winter Steam Gala! Running from 28-31 January, this action-packed four-day event features an intensive timetable of both passenger and goods trains, plus a line-up of special guest locomotives.

We are pleased to announce that the first guest locomotive to join next year’s Winter Steam Gala, 28-31 January, is LSWR T3 563! Based on the Swanage Railway and owned by Swanage Railway Trust, 563 Locomotive Group and managed by Swanage Railway Company, T3 is the last member of its class in service.

The loco was built in 1893 to a design by engineer William Adams; the non-working 563 was donated to the Swanage Railway Trust by the National Railway Museum in 2017. After a six-year restoration to full working order by the trust to its newly lined-out 1890s Drummond passenger green livery, the 81-tonne T3 hauled its first passenger train, since 1945, in October 2023, when it steamed out of Swanage station. It escaped being scrapped thanks to the start of WWII in 1939 and again in 1948, when it helped celebrate Waterloo Station’s centenary.