Sidmouth

[bnm]

Regarding an incline, yes that is a pain, but when we visited Lyme Regis a few years back, the car park was quite a way up the hill as well anyway.

There's more than one car park in Lyme Regis. If you want the sea front then Monmouth Beach car park is the one to head to.

 

[yorksrob]

There's more than one car park in Lyme Regis. If you want the sea front then Monmouth Beach car park is the one to head to.

I know there is - we took a wrong turn and walked back to the wrong one (also up the hill )!

But people are obviously prepared to walk to and from them, otherwise they wouldn't be there.

 

[Taunton]

The basic problem with the Sidmouth branch, quite apart from the inconvenient terminus, was that it ran to a remote country junction on the main-line (in the traditional manner!) with connections orientated toward Waterloo. It was pretty hopeless for local traffic, offering a very roundabout route and poor connections onward to Exeter the regional centre. Devon General had pretty much mopped up this traffic

Actually the service wasn't even to Sidmouth Junction, but only to one stop up the line, Ottery St Mary, a small village and junction for Exmouth. Often there was either a change there for the main line junction, or a tedious wait while the separate portiond from Sidmouth and Exmouth, in deep winter often just a single coach each, were marshalled together to continue, with all the panoply of two (sometimes three if crossing a southbound train) big 80xxx tanks messed around, and in aforementioned winter the staff outnumbered the passengers.

The Devon General bus company, for some reason, always seemed to provide a much more frequent service all round than the Western and (especially) Southern National companies, whose operating territories surrounded them. This led to Exmouth and Sidmouth having frequent buses in several directions, right from the main streets and seafronts of everywhere, far more frequent than nowadays. They even had a bus garage in Sidmouth, where the Lidl is now.

 

[yorksrob]

Actually the service wasn't even to Sidmouth Junction, but only to one stop up the line, Ottery St Mary, a small village and junction for Exmouth. Often there was either a change there for the main line junction, or a tedious wait while the separate portiond from Sidmouth and Exmouth, in deep winter often just a single coach each, were marshalled together to continue, with all the panoply of two (sometimes three if crossing a southbound train) big 80xxx tanks messed around, and in aforementioned winter the staff outnumbered the passengers.

The Devon General bus company, for some reason, always seemed to provide a much more frequent service all round than the Western and (especially) Southern National companies, whose operating territories surrounded them. This led to Exmouth and Sidmouth having frequent buses in several directions, right from the main streets and seafronts of everywhere, far more frequent than nowadays. They even had a bus garage in Sidmouth, where the Lidl is now.

The lack of a direct service to the main line might certainly help to explain the lack of popularity at the time.

Its interesting that the town became such a bus hub. Of course, these days the bus industry isn't what it was.

 

[30907]

Actually the service wasn't even to Sidmouth Junction, but only to one stop up the line, Ottery St Mary, a small village and junction for Exmouth.

Wrong saint, I'm afraid - the junction was called Tipton St John - and the majority of branch trains ran to Sidmouth rather than Exmouth.

 

[duffield]

Ramsgate station might have closed in the Beeching era if it was at the end of a branch instead of on a through line...