Swanage author, historian and Harmans Cross station manager Bob Bunyar is looking to publish his eighth book on heritage transport – and shows no signs of slowing down.
Bob, a lifelong railway enthusiast and a volunteer on Dorset’s Swanage Railway since 1986, hopes to publish a second book on aircraft crashes from World War Two in spring 2025, and a second publication of military branch railway lines and sidings before Christmas 2025.

Bob Bunyar has been a volunteer with Swanage Railway since 1986
Bought a guard’s van on a whim
It follows strong sales of Bob’s first volume on railway branches and sidings that once served military establishments and installations, published in December 2024, his seventh book on historic railways and aircraft.
As station manager of Harmans Cross on Swanage Railway, Bob is in an ideal position to gather information on his favourite subject – but he has a history of his own with the heritage line going back almost 40 years.
Bob worked with the Avon Fire Service in Bath, but had a caravan at Harmans Cross where he and his wife Sue spent many holidays and weekends, and became a guard on Swanage Railway back in 1986.
But his connection with Swanage’s restored railway began after he bought a guard’s van on a whim and needed somewhere to keep it.

Bob’s collection of published books will soon include second volumes for two of his latest subjects
“The railway was a bit like my playground”
Bob Bunyar said:
“I wanted to preserve a part of Britain’s railway heritage that was fast disappearing and couldn’t afford an engine, but when the guard’s van came up for sale at Swindon for £750 I bought it straight away.
“Then, of course, I need a home for it, and applied to several railways to see if they would house it. Swanage Railway offered it a home so I brought it down here and have been connected with them ever since.
“I was brought up in a village just outside Bath right on the Somerset and Dorset line, the railway ran at the back of my garden and it was a bit like my playground, I was always at the station or in the fields by it.
“My great great grandfather was a station master, so it was in the blood. I have always been interested in railway history, and have a love of Second World War aviation, especially planes like the Spitfire and the Lancaster.”

A book to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Somerset and Dorset line closing was the start of Bob’s publishing career
“It had some brilliant reviews”
Bob added:
“While I was serving with the fire service in Bath I got interested in an old RAF fighter station just outside the city which had been in service through the Second World War, and took a lot of notes which I didn’t do anything with at the time other than to keep them on my computer.
“Then a friend of mine, a very keen railway enthusiast, asked me for information on the Somerset and Dorset railway, so I researched it for him and then decided I’d like to do something with all of those notes.
“In 2016 it was the 50th anniversary of the closure of the Somerset and Dorset line, and another friend of mine, Simon Castens, who ran a publishing company in Bath said he would publish it for me.
“It had some brilliant reviews and sold really well. I was very pleased with the way it came out, so I decided to go back to my notes on RAF Charmy Down and published that myself – and that’s when I really got the writing bug.”

Bob with Just Jane, a Lancaster Bomber at the former RAF airfield at East Kirkby in Lincolnshire
Chance find of roadside memorials
His wife, Sue, sang with the Gilbert and Sullivan Society in Bath, and when they brought the show Iolanthe down to The Mowlem, Bob did some publicity for the show.
During research, he found that a ship called the Iolanthe was sunk near Swanage in the First World War, torpedoed 10 miles off Portland Bill by a German U-boat while ferrying supplies over to France.
That discovery sparked an interest in local history which eventually became the book Wartime Purbeck, another good seller.
Then while on holiday in Holsworthy in Devon, a chance discovery of roadside memorials to airmen who had died following aircraft crashes was the inspiration for a book called Broken Wings.
The book is a selection of accounts of wartime aircraft crashes and mishaps, including crashes from Dorset, at Bussey Stool Farm near Tollard Green, Field Grove Wood near Durweston and Bulbarrow Hill just west of Blandford Forum.
Bob says that research is his favourite part of the writing process, and collected so much information for Broken Wings that a second part will now be published in spring 2025.

30120, a T9 Class built in 1899 which was shot up by cannon fire at Wool in Dorset in November 1942, by two German Luftwaffe Bf 109Es
“I love the research for my books”
Bob Bunyar said:
“My latest book, Military Branch Lines, is a selection of rail branches and sidings which once served military establishments and installations, some going back to the First World War, with several of them in Dorset including the Bovington and Blandford Camp Railways.
“While travelling by train and looking out of the carriage window, you may have noticed very occasionally a branch line curving away into the distance, apparently going nowhere.
“Or you may have seen old rusty sidings in the middle of the countryside, which appear to serve no useful purpose – but these may once have been of strategic importance for the military support of our country.
Further information
- A selection of Bob Bunyar’s books are available to buy at Swanage Bookshop in Station Road and at Swanage Railway’s shop at Swanage station