Although Oby (see previous posts) is bubbling away my main project is and always has been a layout called “Bosmelin” and it is this that I shall be progressing in 2019.

I have found the history and operations of the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway, which linked the two towns after which it was named, particularly interesting. My library of books about the line and related magazine articles has grown over the last decade while the release of several ready to run models that were prototypical to the line mean that making a model of the line is quite feasible.

With Wadebridge at the western end of the line and Bodmin at the eastern there were  three other mid-line locations of interest. Travelling from Wadebridge the first of these was Grogley Junction where the short goods branch to Ruthernbridge diverged from the ‘main line’ – a generous description for what was essentially a backwater branch line.

The next location was the Junction at Boscarne named after a hamlet in the Parish of Nanstallon. Boscarne Junction was where the B&WR coincided with a short branch line from Bodmin (GWR.) This facilitated through running from the main GWR Plymouth to Penzance line at Bodmin Road albeit with a reversal midway at Bodmin (GWR.)

Linked to Boscarne Junction and effectively under the control of Boscarne Junction Signal Box was the third junction at Dunmere where the B&WR split into two arms; the one to Bodmin (LSWR) and the other to the goods only terminus at Wenford Bridge.

As can be seen Boscarne Junction was a pivotal operating point on the line which had originally been opened in 1834 to transport sand gathered from the estuary of the River Camel at Wadebridge to a series of ‘wharves’ at various villages along the line. The sand was used by farmers and landowners to improve the soil in their fields and in practice was unloaded more or less where it was needed – while the wharves were used for other goods.  In the early days granite from the De Lank Quarry on Bodmin Moor was  regularly carried from Wenford Bridge – the blocks being conveyed to the terminus down an incline from the quarries.

Later, china clay from the Wenford Dries just south of the terminus was the primary freight carried on the line – most being taken from Boscarne Junction along the GWR lines to the deep water port at Fowey on the south coast of Cornwall. In the early days clay was also shipped from Wadebridge and Padstow. Ball clay from the pits in North Devon also found it’s way over B&WR metals having been transported to Wadebridge via the North Cornwall Railway.

The line from Boscarne Junction to Wadebridge survived as a freight only line until the 1970s after which the china clay from Wenford Dries became the only goods carried until the pits on Bodmin Moor were closed.

Today the Bodmin & Wenford Railway Ltd – the principal standard gauge heritage line in Cornwall – runs trains between Bodmin General (ex GWR) and Boscarne Junction.

Next time I’ll explain how ‘Bosmelin’ fits in to this.