POP mogul Pete Waterman joined trainspotters to watch the first steam engine for 42 years take passengers from London to Swanage.

Hundreds of people lined the grass banks at the railway station to welcome the 1940s steam locomotive Tangmere into the seaside town.

It did not quite go without a hitch, as the steam train stalled approaching Furzebrook and needed a push before its triumphant arrival, on time.

Mr Waterman, who was signing his book A Train Is For Life about his 50 years making model trains, said: “It’s absolute heaven – lots of green engines which I have not seen for 40 years.

“I am not a trainspotter. As the Ministry of Transport said I am the golden anorak and proud of it.”

He said the Swanage campaigners were ‘amazing’.

He added: “British Rail never ever believed that this could happen again and we have got to remember these guys have had no money from the Government.”

The Southern Railway Bulleid Pacific steam locomotive was named Tangmere after the West Sussex Battle of Britain airfield.

It was used to pull the 12-coach Dorset Coast Express train on the London to Swanage trip.

The last steam-hauled passenger train before this was on June 18, 1967, marking the end of British Rail steam traction in southern England.

British Rail then closed the Purbeck branch line from Wareham in January 1972 and lifted seven miles of track for scrap south of Furzebrook to Corfe Castle and Swanage that summer.

Campaigners fought for the line to be rebuilt and watched it grow from nothing over the years since 1976.

Swanage Railway Trust chairman Mike Whitwam said: “This means an awful lot because people campaigned for many, many, many years for it to stay open. They failed in that campaign and British Rail ripped up the track during 1972 and we have spent all that time rebuilding it until a few years ago when we joined up with the main line again.

“It’s an awful lot of hard work and dedication for many volunteers over many years. In the early years there was no money, they had to scrounge whatever they could all over the place.

“This is a step towards the future. What we want to do is to run regular passenger services between Wareham and Swanage because Swanage has been cut off from the outside world since 1972.

“It will also put Swanage back on the map again.”