THE Bournemouth Belle train service and the stations of Dorset play a vital role in Keith Widdowson’s new book The Great Steam Chase.

Keith, born and raised in Kent, joined British Railways in 1962 and worked as an enquiry clerk at Waterloo for 45 years before retiring.

Soon after he joined the railways, he decided to “chase” the last remaining steam locomotives of southern England before the transition to modern trains took hold. He documented the entire escapade in photographs.

Now, the author has logged his journey of the lines he rode, covering 52,000 miles from Kent to Cornwall, and capturing 140 images of what once was.

He includes the still commonly used, 143-mile commuter route from Waterloo to Weymouth, stopping through the same stations it does today.

The prestigious Bournemouth Belle was used to shuttle passengers from London to Bournemouth until withdrawn for preservation in 1967.

Keith takes the reader back to 1870, a time that initially saw objections from Bournemouth landowners to an “intrusive railway”.

Those objections quickly disappeared once it was realised that business and tourism would be channelled into the success that Bournemouth now experiences.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Bournemouth was privileged with two stations, East (which remains) and West.

The Bournemouth West station was closed in 1965.

As well as a historical background of Bournemouth’s railways and locomotives, Keith describes his Sunday mornings on top of Bournemouth cliffs.

Railwaymen and season ticket holders alike would join for a game of football whilst waiting for the return steam services to London.

The passing of their friendships paralleled the loss of the steam trains.

“As a variation we sometimes all took boats out on Poole boating lake – never-to-be-forgotten occasions and certainly never able to be repeated,” he writes.

The Great Steam Chase, The Last Days Of Steam On BR’s Southern Region is available from bookshops and online at £16.99.