The steam-operated railway is a major tourism attraction in Dorset

Annual signalling and track work usually means the closure of the six-mile Purbeck Line every January for five weeks.

But volunteers are running a special weekend service from Norden to Corfe Castle and Harman's Cross.

The 40-minute service uses a heritage diesel "railbus" dating from the 1960s.

It will run on Saturdays and Sundays, with eight trains a day running between Norden park-and-ride, Corfe Castle and Harman's Cross until 3 February.

Last year the railway carried more than 200,000 passengers.

First year-long service

"The Swanage Railway is not just a very successful tourist attraction - it's a major people mover too so it's important that we maintain as much of the weekend public train service as possible during our major engineering works at Swanage," said Mick Dean, Swanage Railway's general manager.

"This is the first time that we have run trains between Norden park and ride, Corfe Castle and Harman's Cross during the new year shut down at Swanage - meaning that for the first time we are running trains on every weekend throughout the year."

Last year, volunteers from Swanage Railway raised �30,000 in order to bring back to the UK a Pullman observation coach from California to be used on the line.