Gwiwer

Big ship - and she would be very close in to you there. She was much farther off shore here simply because that's where the deep channel is. Nice blue diesels as well by the way.

Gunnislake and Calstock are actually growing areas. Residents of St. Anne''s Chapel, Harrowbarrow, Drakewalls, Albaston, Metherell and Cox Park all make use of the railway to reach Plymouth. The only regular bus in the area links Callington with Tavistock through most of these villages and thus takes some time and it is necessary then to change at either end onto another bus for Plymouth. The train is a far quicker option and requires no change.

Tavistock has a direct main road to Plymouth. Gunnislake and Calstock are very awkwardly sited on land which is hilly and cut by the deep Tamar valley. There is no direct road link from those communities to Plymouth - it is necessary to go via Tavistock or Callington. The distance from Bere Ferrers to Plymouth by rail is about a quarter of that by road. Thus the Gunnislake section survived as a vital link while the main line - which was considered to be an unnecessary duplication of the coastal route (try telling that to residents of Tavistock!) was bisected and Bere Alston - Okehampton closed. The condition of Meldon viaduct might have been mentioned in that closure but could have been no more relevant than was the alleged condition of Ribblehead viaduct when the S&C closure was attempted. It has always had a low speed limit applied, 30mph IIRC, which was lowered to 20mph in its later days.

1. Cornwall is home; Australia is where I live these days. I keep up with subject matter of personal interest which includes among other things transport systems and the price of pasties! 2. Plenty of obstructions on the old lines. Tavistock council offices, Bridestowe station is now private and has a garden across and between the platforms, Halwill Junction is beneath a housing development, Bude station site is also built over, Launceston is occupied by the steam railway and the trackbed the other way is under an industrial estate. That's off the top of my head. And it assumes that Meldon and Holsworthy viaducts (among many other structures) are still fit for main line use.

The A30 is near motorway standard west from Exeter passing Okehampton and Launceston. Exeter Central (city centre) station - Launceston via the A30 is around 45 - 50 minutes drive. You would need a straight modern high-speed rail line to offer a competitive advantage; the old SR route west of Okehampton is anything but that. Exeter - Okehampton has already been considered by Devon CC for a weekday commuter service but they prefer to support express bus and coach services instead which can stop closer to town and village centres and still offer quicker journey times for less net cost. One of the "political" barriers to the railway running north from Tavistock is the council offices which were built over the track bed north-east of the viaduct and more or less on the old station site. The potential new site is much farther from the town centre and many homes. Greenlands is one of the larger residential areas which would not get much (if any) advantage from a station on the south-western approach to town though that seems to be the only option under consideration. Roads from Launceston to Plymouth via Callington and to Tavistock are pretty horrendous; that from Tavistock into Plymouth is better but already a virtual traffic jam for much of the day.

Devon County Council seems to be behind the push to get trains to Tavistock from Plymouth though they might need to work hand-in-hand with Plymouth unitary authority on funding. It would be ludicrous to have a line with funding in place from Tavistock to Tamerton Foliot but be unable to run into Plymouth for want of support. They also appear interested in Okehampton - Tavistock but more as part of a national network than as a local service provision. Anyone with any awareness would know the problems and possibly the amount of money required along the sea wall section which might not last for ever, or not as a medium-speed main line. Devon and Cornwall would need to work together on an Okehampton - Launeston - Bude proposal most of which lies in Cornwall. The Royal Duchy is (as it always has been) far less affluent than its neighbour east of the Tamar and is desperately trying to avoid wholesale cuts to supported services already. Devon is poorer for losing Torbay and Plymouth to unitary authorities but is still quite positively supporting public transport. The situation is quite different to the Borders Railway in Scotland which is under the aegis of the Scottish Parliament and although it also will link extremely rural areas it will provide transport options for those regions to the national Capital as opposed to quite modest regional market towns. If Launceston were ever to rejoin the main line railway map the link should be to Plymouth via Tavistock and not to Exeter via Okehampton in my opinion. It would probably be as quick to reach Exeter and London by the Plymouth route in any case.

I am a long way away from any local news reports but can see from a good knowledge of the area and its traffic flows that there might be value in at least surveying the route to establish if it could be re-used. Much of it has been lost beneath buildings for example and could not necessarily be realigned easily. The Okehampton line is now in private hands but is useable all the way to Meldon. Bere Alston to Tavistock is being looked at with a view to reopening to a new station short of Tavistock viaduct. The rail lobby is looking at joining those two ends once more but that would be a far bigger task and not cheap. Whether there is any value to be gained in reopening to Bude (or even to Launceston, where a steam railway now has an established operation over a mile or two of the trackbed) will be determined by potential costs and the traffic potential. Roads in the area are not the best and can become very crowded. But for many months of the year they are lightly-used and the biggest delay might be getting stuick behind a tractor. There would be little commuter traffic from Launceston to Exeter via Okehampton; it is a fairly self-contained town owing more to Plymouth for regional employment. As a pro-rail person I do wish the campaigns well but we have to be realistic in terms of what is practicable. Newquay has been run right down by many years of management and has at last seen an increase in service frequency. If those trains had sufficient accommodation for the number of passengers wishing to travel it would also help. It is a long and slow route which does not service the major traffic flows in the area (which are probably to Perranporth, Truro and points west rather than to the east) but is doing a little better than "just surviving".

Following on from the previous post here is the "going-away" view .....

Cross-posted as the image has recently been added to my gallery and I have received several suggestions that it would also sit comfortably in this topic ..... Early morning local train calls at Treheligan lit only by the platform and train lighting.

Rails seems to be one of those retailers who will only ship by signed-for mail. That is in everyone's best interests but does hike the price significantly to particularly overseas customers. It is one of the reasons I will not use them again. I am prepared to take the risk on something going astray if my chosen retailer is likewise. I therefore choose to shop at places where the sale price is usually better that Rails, where the stock levels are indicated in real time (or not at all, rather than a vague suggestion) where there is an option to choose my shipping service (and sometimes with a price displayed at checkout) and where I find the customer service and shopping experience to be overall rather better. While there is little that I can say might be "wrong" with Rails there are others who for my money and experience are far more "right". And often somewhat cheaper. As with all things we will all have had different experiences and have perhaps differing expectations as well. Nothing has ever gone astray on its way to me when shipped at the basic rate and I don't have to take a half-day off work to retrieve a parcel from a post office during business hours. Australia Post will not re-deliver; if you're out when they call you collect it later or go without.

I would stick with Streamline spacing and adapt the structures where possible. If you have Streamline spacing and then widen that to fit structures (and reduce it beyond the structure) your end result may look strange indeed.

01.15 Waterloo - Padstow remained in the timetable for a good many years after the Withered Arm closed. IIRC it became the 01.40 to Yeovil Junction.

You normally can, Dave, but it's not so easy to direct a "furriner" around to there when approaching from Tuckingmill. Tesco's is easier in that direction if you don't know Camborne's confuse-a-car system B)

For the record topped and tailed by 47/7 (train engine) and 73/1 and worked via Hove (reversible loop platform) and Preston Park (up loop platform) since it is impossible to access Lovers Walk from platforms 1 or 2 at Brighton station. Through WR services normally used platform 2 due to their length though could use platform 1 in emergency.

Very full and complete details there thanks Natalie. A question though. The Brighton - Penzance workings surely included a buffet car? The dedicated set(which was based at Hove) did. Or was this only a trolley service by then? When a WR (Waterloo - Exeter)Mk2 set was used in later years these included a TSOT. Your mention of the 08.37 (SSO) Waterloo - Exeter reminds me that this was a summer relief train and at one stage stopped only at Basingstoke, Andover, Salisbury, Yeovil Junction, Axminster, Honiton and Exeter (both). As such it was quite a fast and attractive train and was for some years diagrammed 2x33/1+8TC (4TC was used on occasions resulting in severe overcrowding). That formation also resulted in a bit of attention from the haulage fraternity! The day it arrived at St. Davids with 33/1+33/0 leading foxed them; the WR sent it back in shove mode most weeks but this didn't work with the 33/0 coupled to the TC!

The coaching stock gurus may correct me but I don't believe any SR sets were regularly employed on this route - it was always considered a WR service and only had SR input on Sundays (as noted), in the years when 3H units provided some of the Portsmouth - Bristol turns, and when class 33 locos were employed. Those latter were on long and complex rosters which saw them work something like Portsmouth - Cardiff - Manchester and back over a 2 or 3-day cycle between inspections on the SR. They also had odd turns into West Wales and along the north Wales coast at times IIRC from the same rosters. The Sunday service was provided for a few years by 8TC (sometimes only a 4TC was turned out) + 33/1 on a single out-and-back diagram from Portsmouth and which was inter-worked with Portsmouth - Reading services IIRC. Loco haulage ceased at the end of the summer timetable for I think 1989 when the service was taken over by class 156 units, later replaced by class 158. SR Mk1 carriage sets were used more commonly on Waterloo - Weymouth Quay / Southampton Docks boat trains and peak hour London Bridge / Victoria - East Grinstead / Uckfield workings. The stock for the Brighton - Exeter train was found from the WR Waterloo - Exeter allocation after that returned to loco-haulage from Hastings demu operation. Prior to that era it had its own dedicated rake of SR stock berthed in Hove yard overnight.

Weekday services were Western Region stock based at Cardiff Canton and which was also used on the Manchester (and Holyhead) services formed into generally 5-coach rakes. Southern sets may have appeared on Sundays as noted; there was the well-known SuO TC+33 working in the early 70's and SR crews were always used between Portsmouth and Salisbury no matter what the motive power.

Correct Ian, thanks. It's been a hard weekend so far with the loss of a dearly loved pet followed by severe flooding around here. Mind elsewhere - keyboard fingers in neutral And that middle vehicle is a Mk2 brake first but can't tell from here whether it is a BFK or a BFO.

There has been a topic around these parts which provided carriage numbers and formations for the route with dated observations. If I find it I'll link to it here for you. By the 80's the perhaps best-remembered vehicle used on that route had departed, namely Gresley buffet W9135E. (W because it was by then maintained by the WR, E at the end denoted a pre-Nat vehicle which was originally allocated to the ER). The formations varied rather and typically included more corridor than open vehicles but one of the latter was certainly W4900 which migrated to Cardiff (Canton) after several years in the Brighton - Exeter rake as S4900. I believe this vehicle - which was one of those repainted green and cream for the West HIghland steam service as simply 4900 still exists on the Bo'ness & Kinneil and is now in maroon livery. It was also one of those included in a "West Highland" coach pack, probably the Lima one though they were never very accurate with coach numbers for general releases. In the 80's you might have found almost any permutation of BSK, CK, two or three SK's and often a BG as well.

Plenty of work has been going on behind the scenes (literally) and in some cases in front of them recently though the ongoing pressure of paid employment responding to floods and cyclones has meant there have been no running days so far this summer. Atop the tunnel which leads from the "Up" end into the fiddle yard a field with a typically Cornish standing stone has been created and is being investigated by a middle-aged couple ... While behind the scenes the entire fiddle yard has been painted black to reduce the visual intrusion of the boards. Backscenes are well under way behind the viewing area while sky panels are now fitted along the garden fence and backed with a strong waterproof membrane. These have a lower fitting made from gutter flashing which has been painted dark green. The box shape fits around a fence post. Point motors are also painted black with white panels to receive their numbers shortly. The tie-bars will also receive a spot of white paint to prove throw to the operator whose position is in line with the mid-section bridge. Stone cottages are under construction for Penhayle Bay with the first cut of the Wills sheets here being trial-fitted around a rainwater downpipe! The joys of working outside eh? Odd gaps in the backscene are being filled; here we see the construction of "sky" around an upright roof support post which used to intrude into the scene. Some odd shapes are formed and prodigious amounts of filler used but a result is being achieved. These areas need a little "give" as the posts can move in high wind so Woodland "Flex Paste" is being used as filler. Just arrived in the mail today is my order for a Busch "Windsurfer Set" which has given me sufficient boards to get some surf action going ..... The sea is still the flat painted version for now but may not stay the way for too much longer!

It has been extremely wet here. We have had nine months of near-continuous wet days rounded off by some of the heaviest falls ever recorded just after Christmas. The model is largely undamaged by all of this. But large parts of the State of Victoria have been under water now since the year turned and a few places were flooded before Christmas. Some towns have had two or even three flood peaks with barely time to mop up in between. Some homes have been (and some still are) under several feet of water. Currently there are evacuations in effect for many rural towns in our north-west and most of the railways and roads in that region have been affected. Some will remain under water or out of action for many months. The situation is not as bad as in Queensland but is every bit as devastating to those affected and to their homes, farms, businesses and the overall economy. One spokesman from ComSec (Commonwealth Bank Securities) managed an apt case of foot-in-mouth when he commented that "These floods will put a dampener on the economy".

Hobbies are taking second place at the moment during the heavy workload caused by our floods crisis. But in the few times I have managed to get outside and restore my sanity I have made good progress with a number of tasks. The unglamorous parts of the job include painting the entire fiddle yard black between the tracks in order to reduce the visual intrusion of bare boards; the illusion will be helped in due course by the addition of "coal" ballast laid thinly between the rails. The more obvious and visible signs of progress are the continued painting of the backscene (all 30 metres of it, of which 25 are in place though not fully decorated) and the infilling of numerous gaps caused by the intrusion of objects in the outdoor environment. At one location the line has to curve round a real tree. This has now been waterproofed and a curved MDF panel fitted around the trunk. Ironically the scene painted onto it is of smaller trees as it forms a part of the arboretum - pine forest scene. As the tree moves in the wind the scenery around it also has to "give" by a few millimetres instead of being firmly fixed in position which presented another challenge. The decoration here is not quite complete but gives an idea of the progress made. In the reverse angle shot the substantial post which supports the roof and which intruded into the moorland scene has now been incorporated into it. A small area of land has been constructed (shown as a dark green patch in the image below but since fully decorated) while the angle between the backscene and the post has been painted to represent a distant tor. Compare these images with posts 132 and 147.

Also done here. And not without due consideration of the potential for a Frankston Pier Railway. Might be using imported 1938 tube stock or might be "only" G-scale ride-on but the thought is there!

More superb shots Peter. I bet it's hot at Llanbourne today B) with queues for the open-top buses!

Left hand side - yes. You'll have to excuse me, I'm upside down in Australia!