the north cornwall - pendragon · pdf filet he area served by the north cornwall line has...

The area served by the North Cornwallline has always epitomised thecontradiction of trying to serve a

remote and sparsely-populated (by Englishstandards) area with a railway. It is no surpriseto introduce this portrait of the North Cornwallline by emphasising that railways mostly camevery late to this part of Cornwall — and leftearly. The entire life of the North Cornwall linespanned little more than seven decades.

Followers of this series of articles have seenhow railways which were politically alignedwith the London & South Western Railwayprogressively stretched out to grasp Barnstapleand Ilfracombe, and then to reach Plymouth viaOkehampton, with a branch to Holsworthy, thelatter eventually being extended to Bude. TheHolsworthy line included a station at a remotespot, Halwill, which was to become thejunction for the final push into North Cornwall.

The LSWR had already long maintained apresence in the Far West, from 1846, in the

shape of the ancient Bodmin & WadebridgeRailway, of which more on another occasion.The purchase of the B&WR, deep in the heartof the Great Western Railway’s territory, actedas psychological pressure upon the LSWR tolink the remainder of the system to it as part ofa wider drive into central Cornwall to tap

SOUTHERN GONE WESTSOUTHERN GONE WESTSOUTHERN GONE WEST

THE NORTH CORNWALLA busy scene at Halwill Junction on 31stAugust 1964. BR Class 4 4-6-0 No.75022 isapproaching with the 8.48am from Padstow,while Class 4 2-6-4T No.80037 waits toproceed with the 10.00 Okehampton–Padstow.The diesel railcar is an arrival from Torrington.(Peter W. Gray)

Smile, please! A moorland sheep poses for thecamera, oblivious to SR N Class 2-6-0No.31846 heading west from Tresmeer withthe Padstow coaches of the ‘Atlantic CoastExpress’ on the last stage of their long journeyfrom Waterloo on 22nd August 1964.(Peter W. Gray)

BY DAVID THROWER

BACKTRACK 22-1 2008:Layout 1 21/11/07 14:17 Page 4

THE NORTH CORNWALL

JANUARY 2008 5

passenger and mineral traffic in particular. Forthe rest of the century the LSWR camptherefore had to relentlessly press onwestwards to reach the B&WR — and captureas much as possible of the territory which laybetween — rather like some advancing butslow-moving army relieving a distant townunder siege.

However, much of the way from Halwill,and from civilisation back at Okehampton, wasdecidedly barren country, being used for hill

farming. There was only one town,Launceston, until you reached Wadebridge.Moreover, the coastline was rocky, with fewbays, and its geology and remoteness made itunsuitable for major holiday resorts.

The population of this area, even by themid-twentieth century, was to remainstubbornly low. Between Halwill and Padstow,the four towns and villages were Launceston(4,700), Camelford (1,300), Wadebridge(3,300) and Padstow (2,900). To the west,along the coast, there was Boscastle (900),Tintagel (1,600), Port Isaac (1,000) and thevery minor coastal villages of Trevone, Rock

Peace and quiet at remote Ashwater station,looking west on 22nd August 1964. Set in itstranquil wooded valley, the station was onlyaccessible by narrow country lanes.(Peter W. Gray)

A view looking eastwards along the downplatform at Halwill Junction on 16th June1926, with Southern Railway Maunsell N ClassMogul No.840, at this time still only two yearsold, standing with the 4.10pm Okehampton toPadstow service, with additional stock(probably for a Bude service) in the down bayplatform. The locomotive, as BR No.31840,was withdrawn for scrapping in 1964.(H. C. Casserley)


L LINE PART ONE

6 BACKTRACK

and Polzeath, totalling perhaps a further 4,500inhabitants. The rest was scattered villages,hamlets and isolated farms. This was thin gruelindeed.

It is therefore no surprise that the LSWRwas, in truth, in no real hurry to colonise theterritory as its own, nor that the later WesternRegion of British Railways was to be equallyanxious to withdraw from it just as soon as itcould. The years of the LSWR, SouthernRailway and BR Southern Region weretherefore to see the area’s all-too-brief goldenage of rail travel.

Early daysThe LSWR’s progress west of Exeter towardsits newly-acquired Bodmin &Wadebridge linewas to be one of the slowest pieces of railway-

building ever, taking the remainder of thecentury to complete. The company had reachedOkehampton by 1871 and in 1879 thecompletion of the line from Okehampton toHalwill and Holsworthy had given it the chance

for a further southward push towardsLaunceston.

The LSWR had already previously made alengthy but unsuccessful attempt to reach thetown by a wholly different route. From 1864until 1870 the Central Cornwall Railway hadbeen trying to reach Launceston from Truro,via Ruthernbridge, with LSWR backing as partof an attempt to penetrate the GWR’smonopoly west of Plymouth, but the powershad lapsed with the line unbuilt. In 1880 theGWR had also tried its hand at penetrating thearea and attempted unsuccessfully to promotea route northwards from Fowey throughRuthernbridge to Delabole. This would havebeen to transport slate and clay from the area toFowey. The Mid-Cornwall Railway wasproposed to link St. Dennis via St. Columb to

Drummond LSWR T9 4-4-0 No.30711 standsat Wadebridge on 18th May 1959 with the12.45pm Padstow to Waterloo service, dueinto Waterloo about seven hours later behind aBulleid Pacific. Small communities such asPadstow and Wadebridge were still enjoyingtruly excellent long-distance links andcomfortable rolling stock, courtesy of theSouthern, even if there were numerous stopson the long sections west of Exeter. However,the beginning of the end of the legendary andmuch-loved ‘Greyhounds’ was in sight and thisT9 was withdrawn just three months later.(J. S. Gilks)


Padstow but this scheme, too, was defeated inthe House of Lords in 1882.

The LSWR’s response to the Mid-Cornwallscheme was to attempt once more to capture theterritory from the north. In August 1882 theNorth Cornwall Railway was grantedParliamentary powers to build a line fromHalwill, on the Holsworthy route, to Wadebridgeand Padstow. The route was selected to minimisetunnelling, with a ruling gradient of about 1 in75. Agreements were reached in the same yearbetween the LSWR and the North Cornwall forthe former to work the line. The long-term planwas to eventually press on further westwardsfrom Padstow to Newquay or Truro, but thoseaspirations ended in 1896–97 when a truce withthe GWR was declared.

Finance for the North Cornwall, for whatpromised from the outset to be a fairly costlyand difficult railway to build, with only verymodest traffic prospects, was raised bydividing the line into four separate financialundertakings, each covering respectively theHalwill–Launceston, Launceston–Delabole,Delabole–Wadebridge and Wadebridge–Padstow sections. Each of these undertakingsthen had its own separate working agreementwith the LSWR company.

Many years later, in 1912, the new GeneralManager of the LSWR, Herbert Walker,rationalised these financial arrangements into asingle agreement, authorised by Parliament,with the LSWR paying an annual rental for theNorth Cornwall line of £25,250. Finally,immediately before the three main Southerncompanies were amalgamated in 1923 to formthe Southern Railway, the North CornwallRailway was absorbed by the LSWR inNovember 1922, having by this time becomeits largest shareholder. The North Cornwallcompany was then wound up in March 1923.

ConstructionReturning to 1884, construction of the centralsection of the North Cornwall line required

some heavy earthworks, particularly south ofEgloskerry, despite making the best use of rivervalleys that it could, and the directors of theLondon & South Western Railway must havewondered at times quite what they had letthemselves in for. Construction lasted fifteenyears, from mid-1884 till early 1899. The routewas built as a single track but (somewhat over-optimistically) with numerous double trackclearances.

Construction of the first section, fromHalwill to Launceston, started on 20th June1884. Contractors for the line were Curry andReeve, usually employing 600–800 men at anyone time. The completed line to Launcestonwas inspected on 15th July 1986 and openedon 21st July 1886. However, there were certainniggling criticisms and a 25mph speed limitwas imposed, which must have taken the shineoff matters. This lasted until February 1887.

Construction of the next sectioncommenced in November 1890, still withCurry and Reeve as contractors. There wereproblems in the Tresmeer area, where shaleproved unstable, and the subsequent landslipdelayed the completion of the Launceston–Tresmeer section. Inspection was on 27th July1892 and opening followed the next day,though Egloskerry station wasn’t opened until3rd October. Again, there was an initial speedlimit of 25mph due to the lack of a turntable atTresmeer.

Inspection of the next short section, fromTresmeer to Delabole, was on 8th August1893. Tresmeer to Camelford was opened on14th August 1893, but the section beyond toDelabole was unfortunately still unfinished.This latter was inspected again by the Board ofTrade and opened on 18th October 1893,though this time the authorised initial speedlimit was only 20mph. Construction pressed onand Delabole to Port Isaac Road was inspectedon 1st August 1894 and once again passed for20mph operation, this time because of there notbeing a turntable at Port Isaac Road. Partly due

to this, the LSWR chose not to open the sectionto traffic.

Work proceeded on Port Isaac Road to St.Kew Highway and by November 1894 the soletunnel on the line, at Trelil, was largelycomplete. Inspection of Port Isaac Road toWadebridge took place on 29th May 1895 andDelabole to Wadebridge opened on 1st June1895. The inspector, however, was stillunhappy with Wadebridge’s layout and it wasrebuilt subsequently for the Padstow extension.The Wadebridge extension was officiallyopened on 12th June.

In July 1896 powers were granted to extendthe line to Padstow, with Curry and Reeveremaining the contractors. Work began inDecember 1896, the extension was inspectedon 20th March 1899 and the line was approved,subject to the provision of a turntable atPadstow. The extension was formally openedon 23rd March 1899, accompanied by a 21-gunsalute from the quayside.

Interestingly, in January 1903 a furtherrailway route — the Padstow, Bedruthan &Mawgan — was authorised. No progress wasever made with the scheme, for the first railwayage was all but over.

The line south of HalwillThe North Cornwall line left Halwill headingwestwards, but then immediately curvedsouthwards to follow the valley of the RiverCarey almost to Launceston, where the riverbecame part of the Tamar. The line droppedcontinuously along this section, falling 450ftwithin a few miles.

Most of the stations to Wadebridge, withthe exception of Launceston, only served smalllocal villages, with any substantial population

No.31846 runs past a line of cattle vanstowards Halwill Junction with the 8.30amPadstow–Waterloo on 22nd August 1964. Infront of it are the Bude coaches which will beadded by No.80039. (Peter W. Gray)


usually being either distant or non-existent. Inthe case of Ashwater, the first station, and withthe line incidentally still in Devon, the villageof the same name was half a mile west andthere was little else to hand other than thehamlet of Ashmill. The station was quiteremote from any main road, set in a woodedvalley, and could only be reached by narrowrural lanes.

The station layout was for a passing loop(every station to Wadebridge had a passingloop, which has made most of them lookconfusingly similar to historians ever since),with two platforms and a road overbridge at theHalwill end. The loop was lengthened in 1936,doubtless reflecting the longer freights andpeak summer passenger trains by then beingrun with the Maunsell Moguls. The signal boxwas situated halfway along the down platform,as was a small waiting shelter. Most of theboxes on the line were to the LSWR Type 3design, with large areas of glazing, but therewere numerous variations on this theme.

The yard at Ashwater was extremely basic,with two sidings serving a loading dock and asmall goods shed, with a short headshunt, theyard being accessed by reversing from the upplatform line. There was the usual generalgoods traffic, but nothing of particularconsequence.

The basic layout at the next station, TowerHill, several miles to the south and also still inDevon, was to much the same as that atAshwater, except that the original signal boxwas this time halfway along the up platform.There was very little habitation in the areaaround the station, the nearest being the villageof St. Giles-on-the-Heath, some way off.Interestingly, the original decision to build a

station at Tower Hill had been controversial,with local interests favouring Boldford, nearerto Launceston.

The signal box here was closed in June1920 and replaced with a ground frame, at theend of the up platform, to control access to theyard. The passing loop went out of use at thesame time. The two sidings in the yard serveda loading dock and a stone goods shed. In1943–44 the loop and down platform werereinstated, complete with a new SouthernRailway concrete passenger shelter. The yardwas also provided at this time with twoadditional sidings, for War Department use, inconnection with the build-up to D-Day. To

control access to these sidings and increase linecapacity, a new lever frame was installed in thestation buildings in March 1943. Despite thisflurry of wartime activity, both Ashwater andTower Hill were always amongst the least-usedon the line.

LauncestonAfter leaving Tower Hill and following theTamar, the North Cornwall line headedwestwards, crossed the river (which marks theDevon/Cornwall boundary) and, after passingover the GWR Plymouth–Launceston routealmost at right angles on a lattice girder bridge,entered the SR station at Launceston.

Tower Hill station in 1939. This served a rather scattered local community and was one of theleast-used stations on the North Cornwall line. Note that at the time of the photograph there wasonly one platform line, the loop having been taken out of use just before the Grouping, though itwas reinstated during World War II due to D-Day traffic needs. This is one station which hasunfortunately not survived until the present day, having been demolished after closure for reasonsthat are not known. (Stations UK)

On 15th August 1960 the penultimate summerof the ‘Greyhounds’ in the West, T9 No.30313eases slowly off Wadebridge shed and glidesacross the points at the west end ofWadebridge’s platforms to reverse into thestation and take over a Padstow service from aWestern Region locomotive.(Alan Tyson Collection/Atlantic Publishers)


JANUARY 2008 9

Launceston was the only intermediatestation of any consequence between Halwilland Wadebridge and its importance wasamplified by the existence next door of theGreat Western station. The Launceston &South Devon Railway had been promoted bythe South Devon Railway and had beenincorporated in 1862 as a broad gauge line butwith the Board of Trade authorised to order anarrow gauge (ie standard gauge) rail to be laidif so required. The line had arrived atLaunceston on 1st July 1865 and was workedby the South Devon Railway until absorbed in1873. The LSWR’s opening of its NorthCornwall line service was to rob the GWRroute of any Exeter and London traffic, but itremained the route for Tavistock and Plymouth.

The South Devon/GWR route wasconverted to standard gauge at the end of thebroad gauge in 1892 but, astonishingly,remained unconnected at Launceston to theNorth Cornwall line. The track layouts of thetwo stations were in fact not linked untilSeptember 1943, again in connection with thebuild-up towards D-Day. It is inexplicable thatit took a world war to connect the twopremises, although a link — surely the simplestof schemes? — had been contemplated in1910. Eventually, common sense and economyfully prevailed and on 30th June 1952 theGWR passenger station was closed and theWestern Region’s services were routed acrossinto the SR platforms. The Launceston–Plymouth passenger service eventually ceasedon 31st December 1962 during the severe1962–63 winter.

The LSWR side at Launceston comprised apassing loop and two rather short platforms,with a more substantial yard than elsewhere,east of the station and accessed by reversingfrom the down loop. The main station buildingswere on the down side and included a canopy,with the platforms connected by a footbridge attheir west end. Both platforms had water cranesof the non-swinging LSWR type, with longbags. The station’s main drawback was that itwas at the bottom of a very steep hill, with mostof the town (until 1838 the County Town ofCornwall) near the top, which was surmountedby the ruins of a thirteenth-century castle.

In its final form the signal box, on the up

side and adjacent to a small stone waitingshelter, faced both ways on to both the twostations and had two lever frames, one for eachcompany, back-to-back. This probably made itthe most unusual box anywhere on the SRsystem in the West. The box had originallybeen built as a standard LSWR Type 3 design,with an eighteen-lever frame. However, as astaff economy during the First World War, theGWR’s own box was closed from December1916 and a sixteen-lever frame to control theGWR signals and points was installed in theLSWR box, which then had to be doubled indepth to accommodate it. The signalman —surely a man with divided loyalties — becamejointly-funded.

The North Cornwall yard comprised twoheadshunt sidings and five further sidings, withtwo serving loading docks and two moreserving the goods shed. Business here wassubstantial and the yard handled considerablequantities of general goods for the town,livestock from local farms and sundries. Therewas particularly good business in theforwarding of cattle.

In the middle of the goods yard sidings waslocated a 50ft locomotive shed and turntable,both capable of accommodating a 4-4-0 tenderlocomotive. As the LSWR worked its Far Westoperations with cast-off tender locomotivesfrom further east, these turntables were anecessity, with no fewer than six eventuallyexisting at Okehampton, Halwill, Launceston,Delabole, Wadebridge and Padstow. A 48ftturntable had been necessary from the outsetbecause the station had been a terminus from1886 until 1893 when services were able to beextended to Delabole. At one time theLaunceston shed and turntable appear to havebeen scheduled for relocation to Delabole butthat seems never to have been implemented,perhaps because a continued use was foreseenfor them, and new infrastructure was providedat Delabole instead.

The other shed facilities included the usualcoal stage, water facilities and a small shedoffice and mess room alongside the shedbuilding. Access to the turntable was only bypassing through the shed. The building wasdecidedly flimsy, being of corrugated iron witha raised ridge section. It gradually fell out of

use during the 1940s but the turntableremained in use until about 1963.

The GWR also had its own locomotive shedand turntable, directly opposite the LSWRpremises. After 1943 the Southern Railwaylocomotives seemed to have used the better-built GWR shed but were still, of course,driven and cleaned by SR staff. By the late1940s the SR’s operations only justified twosets of crews and a cleaner. The GWR turntableceased use by 1961 and the GWR shed closedin December 1962, but lingered on in day-to-day use until September 1964.

West of the station, after passingunderneath the A388 road bridge, there was afurther siding serving a small gas works of theLaunceston Gas Company, together with aprivate siding for Trood, a local merchanthandling coal and building materials. BeyondLaunceston the line climbed at 1 in 77 throughthe valley of the River Kensey.

Eglo skerry and TresmeerThe stations at Egloskerry and Tresmeer weremirror images of each other. At Egloskerrythere was the standard two platforms andpassing loop. The station buildings here, as atTresmeer but unlike all the others on the line,were of brick. The signal box was on the upplatform and immediately west of the stationwas a level crossing, with hand-operated gates.The tablet instruments were moved from thebox into the ticket office in 1930. The stationwas very convenient for the nearby village, butits use was still poor.

The goods yard at Egloskerry was on thenorth side of the station, accessed by reversingfrom the up loop. This made it inconvenient fordown freights which therefore did not callthere, with traffic being reversed viaWadebridge and then worked north again ordelivered to other more convenient stations.The yard comprised two dock sidings and ashort headshunt. The sidings closed earlier than

SR ‘Battle of Britain’ 4-6-2 No.34079 141Squadron waits to leave Padstow with a shorttrain of but three vehicles in August 1963. As afarewell is made on the platform, the firemanchecks that his locomotive is well coaled for itsassignment. (Historical Model RailwaySociety/Colour-Rail BRS1432)


10 BACKTRACK

at other stations, on 9th May 1960, and hadbeen lifted by 1961 when the station was stillunder SR control.

The landscape in this area was, and still is,noticeably much more barren than that east ofLaunceston, with far fewer trees, as the uplandsare exposed to the full force of the Atlanticgales. Farms are protected from the weather bystone walls and ragged lines of hawthorns. Therailway here alternated between cuttings andembankments, some very high, and withnumerous long curves.

At Tresmeer the station was located in ahamlet called Splatt, a name mercifully notadopted by the LSWR. The station layout wasagain to the standard format, but this time withthe goods yard on the down side, west of the

station. The two platforms were linked by aroad overbridge and the signal box, with itsseventeen-lever frame, was at the west end ofthe up platform. The yard consisted of the usualtwo dock sidings, one of which served a smallgoods shed, and a headshunt. There was a smallabattoir serving local farms. Traffic handled in

the yard was the usual mix of cattle and pigs,coal and other general goods.

Beyond Tresmeer the line crossed an 86ft-high embankment. A viaduct had been planned,but the local material was unsuitable and therewere bedrock problems.

Otterham and CamelfordAt Otterham the North Cornwall line hadreached a height of 800ft above sea level,almost as high as Meldon Junction. The nearbyDavidstowe airfield, two miles south of thestation and open from 1942 until 1945, was thehighest in Britain. This was an area where theenclosed cabs of ‘West Country’ Pacifics andStandard 4MT tanks were appreciated in winterand where the open footplates of the T9s

‘BB’ No.34110 66 Squadron leaves a smokyhaze over the platform at Halwill Junction as itruns in with the Padstow coaches of the up‘Atlantic Coast Express’ in September 1962.(Bruce Chapman Collection/Colour-RailBRS1226)

A general view of Tresmeer in 1963, looking inthe up direction towards Launceston, Halwilland Exeter. (Stations UK)


JANUARY 2008 11

afforded little protection for crews fromwhatever the weather threw at them, often near-horizontally.

Otterham station, nearly 750ft above sealevel, one and a half miles from the village andon the A39 — making it vulnerable to buscompetition — was of the usual loop and twoplatforms, connected again by an overbridge.The main buildings were on the up platform,with a small stone shelter for down passengers.The signal box was at the London end of the upplatform. It was one of the most exposedstations on the LSWR, perhaps its equivalent ofDent on the Settle–Carlisle line. The yard herewas just a little larger than the basic minimum,with three sidings, two of these serving a dock,and a headshunt. Traffic included cattle, pigs,coal, fertiliser, sand and potatoes.

Beyond Otterham the line reached its

summit of 850ft, barely more than two milesfrom the coast, and passengers could brieflyglimpse the Atlantic from the train. This wasthe mystical coastline which visitors had cometo see, of ancient legends and hopefully not-too-ancient hotels and boarding houses. AsTennyson had written (albeit not withpromoting long-distance rail traffic in mind):

But after tempest, when the long wave brokeAll down the thundering shores of Bude and

Bos,There came a day as still as heaven, and thenThey found a naked child upon the sandsOf dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea;And that was Arthur; and they fostered himTill he by miracle was approven King

The above process may seem highlyundemocratic today, and might also lackhistorical fact, but this was the romantic mythwhich enabled the Southern Railway to marketNorth Cornwall and to play the Great Westernat its own game.

The mystique was further reinforced topotential SR holidaymakers by naming the11.00am down express the ‘Atlantic CoastExpress’ from July 1926 and by conferring the

excellent series of Arthurian legend namesupon the Maunsell and earlier Urie N15 4-6-0sfrom 1925 onwards. Thus did the sight of SirDodinas le Savage or Excalibur or Maid ofAstolat, storming through grubby ClaphamJunction or mock-Tudor Raynes Park withgreen expresses bearing roofboards with‘Atlantic Coast Express’ and faraway-soundingwords such as ‘Padstow’, arouse urbanyearnings to examine maps and holiday guidesand save up for those all-important railwaytickets for a week of exploring the magic ofMerlin.

The approach to Camelford station waswhere King Arthur was reputed to have foughthis last battle, in the year 542. ‘Camelford forTintagel and Boscastle’ was another two-platform passing loop, with the station building

Otterham was yet another station whichfollowed the semi-standardized pattern on thisline, making it difficult for enthusiasts toreadily distinguish one from the next. Thestation is seen here in 1963, looking towardsthe up direction. It was 800ft above sea leveland almost two miles from the settlement itserved, making it a bleak place to await a trainin winter weather. (Stations UK)

A panoramic view of Camelford station in itssetting high on the sweeping landscape ofNorth Cornwall. The station nominally servedBoscastle (of more recent flash-flood fame)and Tintagel, two of the local coastline’s moreromantic destinations. Camelford was anotherlocation where waiting for a train in deepestwinter might deter the less hardy, but at leastit was staffed and had proper passengerfacilities. (Stations UK)


12 BACKTRACK

complete with canopy located on the upplatform, and again in a wild location with rainand mist, or worse, sometimes sweepingbetween the buildings. The signal box, withseventeen-lever frame, was at the London endof the up platform and there was a small stoneshelter on the down side. The station was therailhead for Boscastle and Tintagel which, ofcourse, had to be reached by bus.

The yard here was again a little more thanthe basic minimum, with two dock sidings, aline running through the goods shed and aheadshunt. There was also a smallslaughterhouse for despatching fresh meat toSmithfield Market and elsewhere in the daysbefore refrigeration.

From Delabole southwardsThe Delabole layout was more elaborate thanmost of the other stations on the line. There wasthe standard loop with two platforms and thestation buildings were this time on the downside. The signal box was immediately off the upend of the up platform. The goods yard, on thedown side, enjoyed two accesses, one enablingtrains to run directly into the yard and the otherenabling them to reverse in from the down loop.

There were eight sidings, two of whichserved the loading dock and goods shed. Thelongest sidings were for the transhipment ofslate, with one standard gauge siding laid oneither side of a three-track narrow gauge (1ft11in) terminal, the latter linked to the nearbyslate quarry where there was a complexnetwork. For down LSWR trains, the sight ofthe quarry just preceded entry into the station.Quarry traffic reached entire trainloads in theearly years, but gradually went into declinebefore finally transferring to road. One veryinteresting traffic in later years was slate dustwhich was transported by rail to West Londonand used to make 78rpm records in the daysbefore plastic.

Because Delabole was to act as a temporaryterminus, the station yard was also equippedfrom the outset with an engine shed andturntable. These were located east of the station,in between the goods yard and transhipmentsidings. The shed was smaller than that atLaunceston and the turntable was 50ft diameter,so could take a 4-4-0 or Mogul. As atLaunceston, the turntable was reached bypassing through the shed. There were also waterfacilities.

The corrugated iron shed building wasdismantled and sold-off to the local Co-op by1900, for the very reasonable sum of £20, afterthe line had been pushed through to Padstow.The turntable was also removed and the shedand turntable area were then redeveloped asfurther goods sidings.

The precise details of the earliest motivepower on the quarry system are not available(can any reader help?), but apparentlycomprised seven steam locomotives, at leastsome of Bagnall origin. The system was latermodernised with three diesel or petrol-poweredunits (evidence is conflicting), Nos.1–3, builtby Motor Rail of Bedford in the 1920s. By the1970s one was still active, another out of useand one either scrapped or sold, probably theformer.

Port Isaac Road was located, as its nameimplied, at the intersection of a road rather thanat Port Isaac Bay, which lay less than two milesto the west, though the village was nearly twice

that distance. The station was very much to thestandard layout once again, as was the goodsyard at the Wadebridge end, on the up side. Themain buildings and signal box, to the usualLSWR Type 3 design, were on the up side anda small stone shelter was located on the downplatform. Freight traffic here was moderate,mainly coal and fertiliser, but there were alsotwo private sidings serving Betty and Tom’spremises, a stone quarry. The sidings lay on theDelabole side of the station, with accesscontrolled by a ground frame. They closed in1964.

Beyond Port Isaac Road, half a mile towardsSt. Kew Highway, was the only tunnel on theentire North Cornwall line, the curving 352ydsTrelil Tunnel, passing beneath the hamlet of thesame name. The lack of tunnels reflected theline’s success in following river valleys, but aprice for this had to be paid in terms ofindirectness, with the route twisting andturning.

There is a story about Trelil Tunnel. A driverof an LSWR passenger train was dismissed bythe fearsome Dugald Drummond because hislocomotive slipped in the tunnel, allegedly onfish oil leaking from a preceding train, and benta rod. The incensed fellow-drivers of the FarWest rallied round and formed a protestdeputation. When Drummond came to hear ofthis defiance, the deputation’s leader waspromptly summoned to London where heprobably anticipated some sort of publicexecution at Waterloo. But Drummondappreciated courage. Peace was restored and thedriver whose engine slipped got his job back.

St. Kew Highway was another station thatmarked the intersection of a road, the A39 trunkroad from North Somerset and Barnstaple toTruro. The standard two platforms and loopwere again provided, with the same minimalistyard on the up side, at the south end of thestation. The access to the yard was remodelledand simplified in July 1939. The signal box wasat the Wadebridge end of the up platform, withits back to the yard. Traffic here was evenlighter than at Port Isaac Road.

Beyond St. Kew Highway the railwaydescended the valley of the River Allen, having

fallen for a continuous fifteen miles, mostly ata steady 1 in 75, until it reached the RiverCamel, east of Wadebridge.

Wadebridge and the CamelWhen the North Cornwall line originallyentered Wadebridge it joined the single linefrom Bodmin, with a signal box at thislocation, Wadebridge Junction. However, thebox was closed in February 1907 and a secondtrack established into Wadebridge station.

By Wadebridge, trains which had started atWaterloo had covered 254 miles. Wadebridge,of course, had begun life as the westernterminus of the Bodmin & WadebridgeRailway. This gave it an extraordinary historywhich will be considered in more detail in afuture article covering the BWR era, the lineeastwards to Bodmin (later Bodmin North), theconnecting line to Bodmin General and the twobranches to Wenford Bridge and Ruthern -bridge. In the meantime a basic description ofthe station must suffice.

Very briefly, the Bodmin & Wadebridgewas incorporated in May 1832, a bare sevenyears after the opening of the Stockton &Darlington and the Canterbury & Whitstable.It opened as far as Dunmere in July 1834 andto Bodmin in September of that year. As wehave seen, the LSWR finally connected upwith the line in 1895. The LSWR’s purchase ofthe BWR in 1846 had never been sanctionedby Parliament and that was only achieved in1886. As part of the price for non-oppositionover this from the GWR, the latter was allowedto run its trains westwards from Bodmin Roadinto Wadebridge, via a terminus at BodminGeneral.

In the twentieth century the stationtherefore eventually assumed the form of areasonably important country junction, withthree platform faces. The single line fromWadebridge East Junction was doubled in1910, so that the two routes into the stationfrom Okehampton and from Bodmin ran asparallel reversible single lines, an unusualarrangement (readers will recall the wintertimearrangement between Ryde St. Johns Road andSmallbrook Junction in this respect, pre-1967).

A busy scene at Otterham: T9 No.30313 stands at the up platform with the 3.15pm Padstow toExeter service on 15th August 1960, as unrebuilt ‘Battle of Britain’ No.34058 Sir Frederick Pilerumbles in with a down train. The T9 was to be withdrawn in July the following year. No.34058spent the years 1951–63 allocated to Exmouth Junction and was to be rebuilt just a few weeksafter this photograph was taken, surviving only until October 1964. By some miracle of fate it isstill very much with us, courtesy of Dai Woodham’s scrapyard, but has yet to steam inpreservation. (Alan Tyson Collection/Atlantic Publishers)


JANUARY 2008 13

In addition to the station itself, there was asmall goods yard on the down side andadditional sidings on the up side, both accessedfrom the east. There was also a small butimportant engine shed which servicedlocomotives on the North Cornwall line beforethey returned east to Exeter and their base atExmouth Junction. The shed was coded 72Funder the Southern Region of BR and had avery small allocation of its own including, ofcourse, the famous Beattie well tanks, of whichmore on a future occasion.

West of Wadebridge, and passing thesidings to the quayside just downstream fromthe town’s famous bridge, the line followed theCamel estuary the entire way to Padstow,hugging the water’s edge on a lowembankment. This made the route relativelystraightforward to construct.

There was a major obstacle near the westend, at Little Petherick Creek. This wasspanned, on a curve, with three 150ft girderbridges carried on 8ft diameter piers. Thelocation became one of the most famous in theWest and the image of a T9 crossing it with acouple of green SR coaches as it passes DennisHill and nears Padstow terminus has becomeimmortal.

In truth, the whole route from Wadebridgewas one of the most picturesque on whatbecame the Southern system, the SR equivalentof the Great Western line through Dawlish butmuch more unspoilt, with the azure-blue waterof the Camel estuary and the silvery-gold sandsacross the water. A trip along this route on ahot summer afternoon, with a travel-stainedBulleid Pacific and the last remnants of anexpress which had left urban Waterloo in themiddle of the morning, and with a hotel teaawaiting and a fortnight’s holiday ahead, wasan unforgettable experience.

Padstow stationPadstow was to become the very furthestoutpost of the old London & South WesternRailway empire, with its buffer stops being justunder 260 miles from Waterloo’s, about thesame distance as London to Newcastle but an

infinitely more challenging route. This‘beyond-the-sunset’ role has always givenPadstow a very special place in the affectionsof Southern enthusiasts.

The port had originally been known for itsfishing industry, but became popular as a resortduring the nineteenth century. Even so, itspopulation at the time of the railway’s arrivalwas still only 1,500. The town has also longbeen famous for its hobby-horse tradition on1st May, described at the start of the twentiethcentury as “rude merry-making”. However, theLSWR’s entry to the town did not prompt aninrush of large numbers of holidaymakers asthe second class fares, even at the start of thecentury, were £2 6s 8d (£2.33p), a prohibitivesum for most, with a first class ticket being£3 14s 6d. (£3.73p). A third class return was£2 2s 7d and there was also a special rate long-weekend return, travelling out on Friday orSaturday and returning up until Tuesday, at£1 6s 9d third class which might have beentempting for a few. A hotel, the South WesternHotel, later renamed the Metropole, openedadjacent to the station in 1900.

The passenger terminus was very simple,comprising a single platform and run-roundloop plus a carriage siding, and was built onthe site of a former boatyard. The stationbuilding, again of stone, included a canopy andthe stone-built eighteen-lever signal box was ofthe LSWR Type 4 design, unlike the boxesalong the North Cornwall line. On the southside of the passenger station was an extremelysmall goods yard, with a loading dock, goodsshed and headshunt.

The most important part of the stationlayout was the sidings serving the fish quayand fish shed, where the baskets were piled andthe fish sold. The fish sidings reached as farwest as the Custom House, by the old walledharbour, with one siding running out on to themole of the harbour.

Initially, the fish station was served by justtwo long sidings, including a scissorscrossover. The main fish quay was built by theHarbour Commissioners under powersobtained in 1910. The LSWR subscribed

£30,000 to the bonds which were issued toraise the capital and also provided otherassistance. In 1912 the LSWR Chairman, SirCharles Scotter, and the new General Manager,Herbert Walker, visited Padstow and authoriseda further extension of the dock wall (whichreached nearly 800ft in length), the fish shedand the sidings serving it. Gradually, theLSWR took over more and more of the port’srunning. At busy times for passenger traffic,these fish sidings were also used for berthingcoaching stock.

The fishing traffic wasn’t the only freightbusiness to be had at Padstow and the smallgoods yard on the down side dealt with largenumbers of parcels and consignments ofgeneral merchandise or mineral traffic to andfrom the area. Other mineral traffic handled onthe quayside lines included china clay forshipping by coaster, but this traffic died awaybetween the wars.

In 1933, due to the effects of adverseweather upon moored fishing boats, a new pier,the 450ft South Jetty, was constructed toprovide additional moorings and furthersidings were built out onto this quay. Theearlier quayside was also extended to create amore enclosed harbour. The harbour stillbelonged to the Padstow HarbourCommissioners but the Southern Railway wasresponsible for the design and for supervisionof construction of the South Jetty.

There was no locomotive shed at Padstow,but the LSWR built a locomotive siding andwater tower and installed a 50ft turntable,capable of handling a 4-4-0. The SR moved thisturntable slightly south east when the fish dockwas being expanded, in 1933. After the war theSR constructed a new 65ft turntable close tothe water’s edge, at the station throat, just largeenough for a Light Pacific.

(to be continued)

St. Kew Highway, looking in the up direction,in 1939. This was another romantically-namedwayside stop en route to the Far West and wasreasonably located for the local community.Today it is a private residence. (Stations UK)


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