One of the first lines to be built in our area, the Southampton to Dorchester Railway is better known as ‘Castleman’s Corkscrew’ after Charles Castleman who did much to make it a reality. After a brief on the influences Charles grew up with, we consider why a solicitor in a Dorset town became the driving force behind getting the line approved and built together with where his riches came. Examples are given of the political gambles he made and some of the machinations involved in making the line operational. The latter part of the talk is a visual tour of the original version of Castleman’s Corkscrew featuring many early images complimented by how some of the closed sections look now – the Castleman Trailway.

Philip Benstead is a retired Aerospace Systems Engineer who has worked around the world mainly on developing the ground based elements such as Air Traffic Management, Airport Systems & mitigating their impact on Renewal Energy sources. Having caught the ‘Railway Bug’ from his father it helped him when designing flow management systems interfacing railway links with airports. The resulting footplate journeys when working in China & South Korea are a key memories from his career.

Philip lives locally & is an amateur historian covering such subjects as WW2 in the New Forest area and construction of the local railways giving talks to local societies and schools.