Recent content by 34104

Are you sure about that?

According to Heritage railway this month the L and B have just completed the purchase of the house at Parracombe which was a major blockage to further progress because of an extension built across the old trackbed.They are going to resell to a member of the trust and slew the track past the...

There is a log in "Bulleid's Pacifics" by D.W Winkworth of a run made by 34057 from Exeter St Davids to Devonport Kings Road [admittedly about 2 minutes from North Road but there was also a stop at Bere Alston on this journey] in 1954.The scheduled time for the run was 90 minutes but was...

Not sure how you work that one out.It takes a good 25-30 minutes to get from Tavistock to the centre of Plymouth and that is a traffic dependent estimate-Woolwell and Derriford roundabouts can be rather busy places at times.Using the 25-30 minute timescale,by rail you would be at a point near...

You don't help your case by referring to people with just as valid an argument as your own rather Torbay biased one as "the Okehampton gang".For any person with a longer term and less blinkered point of view of transport requirements,the Okehampton line has many advantageous factors going for it...

Plympton had a station once upon a time and very nice it looked too; https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3512/3697774542_de75a30c8c_z.jpg?zz=1 Closed in 1959,can't even blame the axeman for that one!

Not sure about some of that.Surely one of the points of a complete through service from Plymouth to Brighton would be that you wouldn't have to change at Salisbury? That was certainly the case in days of yore when the Plymouth-Brighton service was a prestige daily service which outlasted all the...

Yes,they aren't what you would call salubrious.Most of the stations with a bit of style and character such as Devonport Kings Road,Millbay and Ford were victims of the Beeching axe [or whoevers axe in the case of Millbay] and the remaining ones have been reduced to dingy platforms with bus...

Yes,WDBC voted to support the reopening of the whole route from Okehampton to BA,which by definition means that they would be prepared to relocate their offices-seem to remember they were looking to do that anyway.There is the housing estate [whoever gave planning permission for that-being...

I emailed the Environment department of Devon County Council twice specifically asking for information on the Tavistock-Bere Alston reopening in the past few weeks but didn't receive the courtesy of a reply.There has been very little mention of the project in recent times in the local press and...

Somebody on another forum made the interesting point that the Spotlight programme may have been referring specifically to the DAL route as the inland option rather than Okehampton. That would certainly figure, because as I recall the costing for Okehampton in the study made awhile back by NR...

Very quiet on this front just recently but the Campaign for Rural England are in favour of the Okehampton route; http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/New-reopen-railway-line-north-Plymouth/story-26712958-detail/story.html Not sure how much clout or influence CFRE have but certainly wouldn't...

When I were a nipper, it was always known as Dockyard Halt but the halt bit seems to have disappeared over the years and the station sign is now simply Dockyard. There was a good view of the sadly demised Ford station and viaduct on the SR mainline from the station-had many a wistful gaze at...

Coincidentally enough, the old gogglebox has just set me thinking-the Titfield Thunderbolt is being shown tonight C/W evocative shots of the Somerset and Dorset line. Did some of the S and D survive into the 1970's-maybe a connection at Radstock to the GWR Bristol Line and possibly at Highbridge?

Yes, the Barnstaple-Meeth line certainly stayed open until the early 1980's for china clay freight from Peters Marland, rather ironic that the line should have stayed open for so long as it was one of the least used passenger lines in the country probably! Some interesting shots of it post...