The new line gave the area a through railway connection to London, but it did not come close enough to influence the mineral traffic, which for the time being was mostly conveyed by coastal shipping, as before.

The building of the main line railway through Wareham encouraged several schemes to connect Swanage or the mineral workings in Purbeck, but they failed to gain the support they needed.

The scheme involved about 4 miles (6.4 km) of line, running on to the pier at Swanage, from which coastal vessels would be loaded directly.

In fact, only a short section was built, from the pier to an area on the sea front called The Bankers where stone blocks were prepared for transit.

A second jetty, forming a fork, was added to the pier in 1896, to cater for the growing pleasure steamer passenger business, and the truncated tramway was re-gauged in about 1900 to the track gauge of 2 ft 6 in (750 mm).

The branch intersected the pre-existing Furzebrook Railway, a narrow gauge industrial tramway concerned with conveying ball clay to a river wharf, and the Middlebere Plateway which conveyed the mineral to Poole Harbour; however the proprietors of those lines were slow to arrange interchange facilities with the Swanage Railway.

[1] In the first decade of the twentieth century, taking holidays at seaside resorts became a major pastime, and through trains from London were instituted in this period.

From 1966, steam traction was eliminated from the area, and the branch passenger service was operated by a diesel-electric multiple-unit set of BR Class 205.

However, due to opposition focused on the problems in providing a replacement bus service during the summer months, the closure was deferred.

When the line closed to passengers, freight continued to operate from Furzebrook Sidings, where Pike Brothers dispatched clay.

The track from Furzebrook to the main-line junction at Worgret remained in use for ball clay traffic, later also serving the oilfield at Wytch Farm.

DCC planned to build a by-pass for Corfe Castle on the railway land, while STC started to demolish Swanage station.

In 1975, after many interventions by local residents, the STC finally granted the Society limited facilities on the Swanage station site.

In 1975, DCC acquired the railway land between the end of the line at Furzebrook and Northbrook Road bridge in Swanage, and undertook to "give further consideration" to routes for a Corfe Castle by-pass.

The first public passenger-carrying steam service since 1967 was "The Dorset Coast Express" from London Victoria on Saturday 2 May 2009,[10] which was hauled by a Southern Railway Battle of Britain class Bulleid Pacific locomotive number 34067 Tangmere.

Movements of locomotives for overhaul are carried out by road transporter as the Swanage Railway has been unable to reach agreement with local landowners to build a branch connection into Herston Works.

The Society continued to work with Network Rail and the local authorities to identify suitable rolling stock and the infrastructure needed to enable regular services.

In July 2010, DCC and Purbeck District councils voted to allocate up to £3 million over three years, to part-fund re-signalling work by Network Rail at Worgret Junction, which connects the Swanage branch to NR's main line near Wareham.

[15] In 2018, as the DMUs were still not ready, South Western Railway ran trains to Corfe Castle on summer Saturdays; these were noteworthy for their low price (£10 return from Salisbury and westwards, £5 from Weymouth and Wareham) and involving a record number of reversals for any scheduled service (4, at Yeovil Junction, Yeovil Pen Mill, Weymouth and Wareham).

[17] Part of the Swanage Railway's "Project Wareham", the £950,000 work took place over two years between Norden station and half-a-mile short of Worgret Junction: three miles of little-used former Network Rail line restored to a passenger-carrying standard, overgrown embankments and drains cleared, a quarter-mile-long embankment upgraded, and half-a-mile of new railway track laid.

The £950,000 work also involved the installation of a level crossing across the Wytch Farm oil field access road near Norden station, and the creation of a nearby road-rail interchange for locomotives and carriages.

The interchange construction involved the excavation of 2,500 cubic metres of earth that was recycled and used to extend a quarter-mile-long embankment near Furzebrook.