Tributes for Swanage Railway campaigner

Swanage Railway campaigner Monavyn 'Monni' Moss has died aged 94

Tributes have been paid to a campaigner who helped to prevent a road being built on the railway tracks near Corfe Castle in Dorset.

In a statement the Swanage Railway Trust said Monavyn Moss, who has died at the age of 94, was 'a determined woman who formed a pressure group preventing a by-pass from being built on the disused railway trackbed through Corfe Castle during the 1970s and 1980s.'

The group said that through her determined efforts, 'Monni', as she was fondly known had ensured the railway could be rebuilt through the village in the 1990s, eventually being reconnected to the national railway system at Motala near Furzebrook in 2007.

Mrs Moss formed the Corfe Castle Eastern Preservation Group, acting as its chairman from 1982 to 1995. The Swanage Railway Trust chairman Liz Sellen said the news of her death had saddened everyone at the organisation.

Corfe Castle with a steam train running past Credit: Andrew P M Wright

Founder member and volunteer at the Swanage Railway Peter Frost who campaigned alongside Mrs Moss also paid tribute saying:"Monni's leadership and popular following by local like-minded people in Corfe Castle was toplay a major role in influencing her peer group within the parish, district and county councils.