Hampton Malstead

[mdvle]

 

I suspect main reason was tourism, being the closest station to Salcombe which had beaches, and the GWR had camping coaches at the other stations on the line.  

 

Disused Stations site says it had a direct train to/from Paddington on weekends, and a through coach on weekdays (via the Cornish Riviera)  so it apparently had good passenger numbers prior to the road/car combination hurting it.  However, as the photo confirms, the line apparently also at some point had a lot of goods traffic though no idea what would have generated that traffic.

 

Be interesting to know why a corrugated iron carriage shed was deemed necessary.

 

Anyone interested there is this discussion on some of the operations in the lines final years

 

 

[Miss Prism]

15 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

I've done some more delving into Kingsbridge and it seems the bay was actually added in 1915.  But it is a devil of a job finding a picture of a passenger train in the bay - I've so far managed to find only one, which was taken when the bay was fairly new.

 

Presumably this one:

 

[Schooner]

On 14/10/2019 at 00:07, mdvle said:

...had a lot of goods traffic...

...primarily driven by Paignton Gas Works' demand for coal, I believe

[mdvle]

7 hours ago, Schooner said:

...primarily driven by Paignton Gas Works' demand for coal, I believe

 

True for Kingswear, but the station in question in that case was Kingsbridge.

 

The aerial photo posted of Kingsbridge, and the comments on the Disused Station site, all indicate that Kingsbridge had a healthy amount of goods traffic but there isn't any obvious reason why.

[Miss Prism]

1 hour ago, mdvle said:

The aerial photo posted of Kingsbridge, and the comments on the Disused Station site, all indicate that Kingsbridge had a healthy amount of goods traffic but there isn't any obvious reason why.

 

Large catchment area and dodgy roads?

 

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

 

Large catchment area and dodgy roads?

 

The large catchment area would be more than enough in the days when freight by rail was the prime way of moving stuff to many areas.  Kingsbridge in effect had a large hinterland from a railway point of view and it was of course an agricultural and fishing area as well as a destination for a wide range of goods.

 

The reason it had a corrugated iron carriage shed is no doubt relatively simple - it was a very cheap way of building a carriage shed.  Once it was decided that the station needed a carriage shed then that would seem the cheapest and quickest way of creating one.  The question is then why have a carriage shed?  Well there was no other well sheltered or covered accommodation for passenger coaching stock and somebody no doubt found that stock was suffering from standing in the open for extended periods, especially in a goods yard near to the spot where coal was handled. 

[Schooner]

5 hours ago, mdvle said:

...the station in question in that case was Kingsbridge.

 

So it was. A tired brain skipped the inconvenience of not knowing what it was on about and went straight for the little (hopefully) useful nugget it did, my mistake

[mdvle]

11 minutes ago, Schooner said:

 

So it was. A tired brain skipped the inconvenience of not knowing what it was on about and went straight for the little (hopefully) useful nugget it did, my mistake

 

In fairness, having a Kingsbridge, Kingswear, and Kingskerswell all in close proximity leads to confusion.