News 2013

December 2013. Lavenham, Suffolk. The old station at Lavenham was situated at grid reference TL 917497. It was demolished many years ago and the site used to accommodate a new factory, first used by E.R. Holloway (for cosmetics) and more recently by Amorex (for cement products); but now the factory also has been demolished. Since the local authority, Babergh District Council, could not find a commercial buyer for the land, it lodged a planning application which included a change of use to housing. However, the council’s development proposals were rejected in August 2012 in a flurry of criticism which targetted the height and density of the planned housing, the lack of affordable homes for local residents, and the damaging impact on local infrastructure of a further increase in traffic levels. Currently, the project appears to have stalled, leaving this picturesque East Anglian village with a sizeable blot on its landscape. (Tim Grose)

December 2013. Lavenham to Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. As a follow-up to the story above, visitors to this site will be interested to learn that two sections of the old trackbed north of Lavenham have found their way into the local rights of way network over recent years, namely:

• Knight’s Hill, north of Lavenham, to near Cockfield: TL 914522 to 905542 (ca. 1 mile); and
• Little Welnetham to Hawker’s Lane, Sicklesmere: TL 887594 to TL 879606 (ca. ½ mile and part of St. Edmund’s Way).

There are plenty of footpaths in the area, some of which cross or follow further sections of the old railway. This is an attractive rural area, so we suggest that a bit of exploration with the aid of an up-to-date OS Explorer map might not go amiss next summer. (Jeff Vinter)

December 2013. Braunton to Mortehoe, Devon. This is the ‘missing link’ in the section of the Tarka Trail between Barnstaple and Ilfracombe. Devon County Council is resolute in closing this gap, as is made clear in the 2011 report accessible here. Note the references to the ‘international dimension’ of the route, which is now part of the Velodyssée from Ilfracombe to Brittany in France. (Jeff Vinter)

December 2013. Great Elm to Frome, Somerset. Frome’s Missing Link now has funding to start preparation work for ‘Phase 2’, which will run from Great Elm to Hapsford (click here) . The team reports: ‘The first job here is to clear vegetation on the access track that will enable materials to be taken up to the proposed route. As ever, this has to be done during the winter to minimise disruption to wildlife. You will be pleased that the vegetation is not as dense as it was along the railway track and, once done, we can fell any trees that would prevent us gaining access and fence our new boundary with the adjacent field where we have leased a narrow strip to make our works access track wide enough before we receive planning consent.’ There will be a ‘Chain Gang workday’ on Saturday 11th January 2014 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; meet at Buckland Bridge, where the path end is shown on the map (click here) at Great Elm. It is good to see how closely this route will follow the railway into town, which will help to guarantee far easier gradients than exist on the current road-based route. (Frome’s Missing Link)

December 2013. Stalbridge to Sturminster Newton, Dorset. The latest newsletter of the North Dorset Trailway reports that work is beginning on the next section of the route. ‘It is still in its very early stages but our next objective is the link between Sturminster Newton and Stalbridge [4 miles]. An application has gone to the Planning Department [of Dorset County Council] for a link between Rolls Mills industrial estate and Bath Road at Snooks Builder’s Yard. This will give access from the town [i.e. Sturminster Newton] to Rolls Mills and also to the Trailway. It would be wonderful if we could walk, ride or cycle from one end of North Dorset to the other.’ This part of the project will require the reinstatement of two more bridges, one just south of Stalbridge, and the other immediately north of Sturminster Newton; both will be over the River Stour. (Lesley Gasson, Trailway Network)

December 2013. Tavistock, Devon. Just north of the site of Tavistock South station, part of the old GWR line through the town still survives; access is via a disused graveyard. No fences have to be climbed over or notices ignored, other than those warning about land subsidence due to the age of the site (sunken graves). The northern end of the track terminates suddenly at the point at which a longish viaduct has been removed and the main road out of Tavistock realigned to use the trackbed for a few hundred yards. The southern end likewise stops suddenly due to the removal of a road bridge just short of the station. We have no idea who owns this section of trackbed, but it provides a little more to explore if one is ever visiting this attractive west Devon town. (Bob Spalding)

December 2013. Alderbury Junction (Salisbury) to Alderholt, Wiltshire/Hampshire/Dorset. This part of the former LSWR line from Salisbury to West Moors and Wimborne is now the subject of a local campaign to develop it into a traffic-free multi use trail which would be called The Charford Way. The campaign’s website explains: ‘There is a disused railway line that, in various states of existence, lies between Alderbury and Alderholt and the group are at the early stages of considering if this former transport artery could form the basis of a traffic-free route, either using the former route or passing close to it in areas where it has been built upon or irreversibly changed.’ There are no plans currently for the trackbed south of Alderholt, but The Charford Way, as envisaged, would provide a valuable link from the Fordingbridge area into Salisbury, incorporating Hampshire CC’s recently opened two mile railway path through the restored Breamore station. (Tim Chant)

December 2013. Peebles to Innerleithen, Borders. We’re a bit late with this story but, on 20th August this year, Paul Whitehouse, the Environment and Climate Change Minister in the Scottish Parliament, formally opened the new Tweed Valley Railway Path between Peebles and Innerleithen. The route runs from NT 261403 on the eastern edge of Peebles to NT 331362 on the western edge of Innerleithen. It includes a new bridge over the River Tweed at NT 308380, just east of Cardrona, and utilises an old railway tunnel under the A72 at Eshiels, just outside Peebles. The new trail, based on part of the former North British line from Leadburn to Galashiels, is 6 miles long and cost over £1 million to construct. Our correspondent reports that this route is going in the opposite direction from Peebles compared with the Peebles to Symington and Broughton to Tweedsmuir routes reported in May, so collectively a very significant network is in prospect. We reported in May 2012 that the Scottish government had voted to retain its large budgets for cycling, so this must be where some of that money has gone. (Tim Hewett)

December 2013. Further to our story in March (click here), we are pleased to report that the new ‘Hereford Greenway’ will be opened officially on Tuesday 10th December at 3:00 p.m. The greenway is a new walking and cycling route from the eastern gate of Hereford Cathedral to Rotherwas Industrial Estate, which – once across the River Wye – uses the trackbed of the old GWR branch line from Hereford to Ross-on-Wye. The intention for the future is to extend the route to Holme Lacy, ‘opening up access to the Wye Valley’. (What a pity that such a different view pertains further south along that valley – click here for details.) The crowning glory of the greenway is a stunning new bridge over the River Wye, which is within sight of the still operational Newport-Shrewsbury line. If any reader can supply us with a photograph of this bridge, do please get in touch via our Contact page. (Tim Chant)

December 2013. Tintern, Monmouthshire. The café at The Old Station Visitor Centre in Tintern has just been named the best café in Wales, beating off competition from over 400 rival entries. Sadly, visitors will not be able to walk south of the station any time soon because proposals to install a new bridge over the River Wye immediately south of the station, and create a multi-use trail along the old branch line to Chepstow, have been defeated by local opposition. Click here for further details. (Tim Chant).

November 2013. Blakeney to Soudley, Gloucestershire. Gloucestershire County Council is supporting local villagers in their bid to win £50,000 from the People’s Millions in order to restore and upgrade an ‘ancient horse drawn tramway’ which once linked these two villages. If successful, the route will also provide improved access to the intermediate communities of Brains Green and Two Bridges. The project was featured on ITV West Country on Tuesday, 26th November, when viewers had a chance to vote for it; it was in competition with community radio station ‘Frome FM’. If you can supply further details of the ‘ancient horse drawn tramway’ between Blakeney and Soudley, please get in touch via our Contact page. Update: The tramway project won the vote by 28 supporters to 7 – good news, although a low turnout. The 28 was the highest poll for any of the six projects. (Tim Chant)

November 2013. Mangotsfield, Bristol. Mangotsfield first station is up for sale – and it comes with its own preserved train, mounted on a track panel. The estate agent is David James, and the guide price is £550,000. The ‘train’ comprises an 0–4–0 industrial saddle tank and a brake van. The station is situated on the long-closed line from Bath Green Park to Yate, and was replaced by a later, much larger station to the south. This second station had six platforms to serve a triangular junction with lines fanning out to Bath Green Park, Yate and Bristol St. Philip’s. Most of this network has been re-used in the Bath to Bristol Railway Path. (Tim Chant)

November 2013. Penarth to Cosmeston, Vale of Glamorgan. Campaigners fighting to have part of a rail trail through Penarth designated a ‘village green’ are attempting to prevent the existing stone dust path being replaced with tarmac. The usual reason for replacing such a surface with tarmac is to make it more robust and cheaper to maintain in the long run. Back in the 1970s and 1980s when rail trails were first constructed in any number, quarry companies used to give away limestone dust as a free by-product of their stone crushing activities, while the Manpower Services Commission funded the construction teams which built the trails – but those days are long past. Limestone dust is now a product in its own right which has to be paid for, and MSC construction teams are a distant memory. The one mile trail runs from grid reference ST 184710 to ST 183692 and is part of NCN88; it is built on part of the former Taff Vale Railway’s line from Penarth to Cadoxton. (Tim Chant and Jeff Vinter)

November 2013. Bath to Bournemouth, Somerset and Dorset. Sustrans is organising a cycle ride next year from Bath to Bournemouth, following as much as possible of the route of the former Somerset & Dorset Railway. We hope to publish further details in due course. The ride, obviously, will take in both the existing rail trail from Bath to Midsomer Norton, and those sections of the North Dorset Trailway which are open already. One of the intended outcomes is to ‘energise’ Somerset County Council about the potential of the old line if they were to ‘get on board’ with the neighbouring local authorities who have done so much to re-use the old line – Bath & North East Somerset Council, Dorset County Council, North Dorset District Council and East Dorset District Council. (Jeff Vinter)

November 2013. Westport to Achill, County Mayo. We reported the opening of the 42 kilometre (28 mile) Great Western Greenway in May this year, but it was good to see it featured recently in the November edition of ‘GoRail’, the magazine of Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail). Under the heading ‘Take a Spin on the Great Western Greenway’, this is what the magazine had to say: ‘Escape the bustle of urban life on the multi-award-winning Westport to Achill Great Western Greenway, the longest off-road walking and cycling trail in Ireland. The first 14 kilometre stage of the Greenway from Newport to Mulranny opened in 2010 and a year later extensions were finished lengthening the route to 42 kilometres, almost entirely off-road.

‘The Greenway follows the path of the old Westport to Achill Midland Great Western Railway line which closed in 1937. The Greenway meanders through some of the most beautiful and idyllic countryside you’ll find anywhere in Ireland. Walkers and cyclists can drink in the views of the spectacular Nephin Beg mountain range, Clew Bay, Clare Island, Croagh Patrick and Achill. You could even stop off for a hike on one of the Derradda loop walks or take a break on Mulranny’s Blue Flag Beach. Clew Bay Bike Hire has bases at various locations along the route. For more information please see www.clewbayoutdoors.ie.‘ (Jeff Vinter from Iarnród Éireann’s ‘Go Rail’ magazine)

November 2013. Frome, Somerset. Further to our report last month (click here) about Rossetti House (Gracewells) donating a vital strip of land in Welshmill Lane at the town end of the ‘Missing Link’ to Radstock, Network Rail has now formally confirmed agreement for the path to be built under its railway bridge on the operational line to Whatley Quarry. There now remain the final details to be sorted out with Mendip District Council, which, aside from coming up with funding for construction, has been helpful to the project as the owner of some of the land needed. Sustrans and Frome Town Council have funded the land assembly. Rupert Crosbee, Sustrans’ Area Manager, commented: ‘With Mendip, Gracewell and other partners, the project is really showing how public authorities, the third [i.e. voluntary] sector and commercial organisations can work together with the community to produce something that we know will be a real asset to local people’. The project also has reason to hope that a grant of £5,000 will be made by Aster, which will enable a start to be made on the rural section of the Missing Link in the Low Water area of Frome within the next few months. (Frome’s Missing Link)

November 2013. Petite Ceinture, Paris. The Parisians need Sustrans! They have a 20 mile abandoned circular railway which once conveyed passengers around the city along the route of its ancient walls, but the line went into decline from the 1930s thanks to competition from the more modern underground Metro, and now the route is overgrown and officially ‘off limits’ – not that this has stopped people from exploring it. A short section was re-opened in August this year as a park, and a fierce debate attends the forthcoming mayoral elections as to whether the route should be converted into a cycle trail or a string of further parks. Click here for a report by the BBC. (Graham Lambert)

November 2013. Norham Station, Northumberland. MSN Money and Rightmove have just featured Norham railway station, Northumberland, which is for sale at £420,000. It is complete with the booking office, waiting room, porters’ office, telegraph office, a three-bedroom station master’s house, both platforms, fully intact signal box, engine shed, goods shed, lime shed, coal shed and 3 acres. In its working days, the station was a stop on the former Berwick-Upon-Tweed to Edinburgh line. The agents’ write-ups say that it had been used as a museum until 2010, which rather over-eggs the pudding since it was essentially a private home with some features, such as the signal box, which the owners opened up to the public for a few days during each summer season. Nonetheless, the station would make a great home for a railway enthusiast. (Sebastian Davis-Ansted and Dave Hurley)

November 2013. Midleton to Youghall, County Cork. Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) reinstated rail services between Cork and Midleton in 2009 but, according to IE staff at Cork station last month, the re-opening is unlikely to extend further east along the rest of the branch to Youghall. The problems are cited as the cost (625,000 euros) and occupation of the trackbed by farmers, which – unless defeated in the courts – takes the route out of play for any future use whatsoever. The same problem exists at Abbeyfeale on the former line from Limerick to Tralee, which local groups have been developing into the Great Southern Trail. (Jeff Vinter)

November 2013. Timoleague to Courtmacsherry, County Cork. The trackbed of the former Timoleague and Courtmacsherry Extension Light Railway is now open as a traffic-free trail for walkers and cyclists. The 2½ mile route was the last roadside railway to operate in Ireland, closing (together with the rest of the extensive west Cork network) on 31st March 1961. The trail follows the south side of the tidal estuary of the River Arigideen, which provides users with some fine views. (Tom Ferris, The Trains Long Departed: Ireland Lost Railways, Gill & Macmillan, ISBN 978 17171 4785 4, p. 143) Note: For recent news of other Irish railway paths, click here.

October 2013. Hamworthy to Hamworthy Goods, Dorset. Poole Harbour Commissioners hope that the current lack of traffic over this line will be temporary only, since they believe that a rail connection is vital for a successful modern port. Accordingly, any hope that this branch might have become a new cycle trail has been scotched for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, planners at Poole Borough Council have approved unanimously a plan to install a ramped foot and cycle bridge over the railway line between the Harbour Reach development and Hamworthy Park, which will eliminate a long walk to the park along the busy Blandford Road. Work is expected to commence next spring and should be complete by the end of 2014. Hamworthy Goods was Poole’s first railway station, built in 1846 and opened to passengers in 1847; parts of its crumbling platform still remain. (Tim Chant)

October 2013. Marsh Mills, Plymouth, Devon. The historic bridge on the Lee Moor Tramway near Marsh Mills, which received a mighty blow from a fallen tree trunk swept downstream along the swollen River Plym last November, has now been repaired. The work took a while to organise because the bridge is a scheduled ancient monument, but the damage – which affected the east abutment – was made good during July and August this year; the stone mason engaged on the work delivered a high quality repair. The anti-slip mesh on the bridge was renewed at the same time. (Jeff Vinter)

October 2013. Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. Major repairs to Vauxhall Bridge at Great Yarmouth have been completed at a cost of ca. £750,000, and a cycle path across it is now open. There is no mistaking the restored structure thanks to an application of red paint, which looks particularly bright in sunlight. This major structure is situated at grid reference TG 520080 near Great Yarmouth railway station. Can anyone supply us with a photograph of the ‘finished article’? If so, please get in touch using our Contact page. (Jeff Vinter)

Above: This may seem a strange photograph to include on this site, but it shows the landslip which in late 2012 collapsed on to the track of the former Wye Valley Railway between Chepstow and Tintern, just north of Tidenham Tunnel. This is the view looking north along what used to be the running line – which is still there, incidentally, although now buried. The gentleman climbing over the pile of fallen earth and trees is one of a team from Railway Paths Ltd., whose directors and engineers recently surveyed the branch and its structures. There is now no chance of this route becoming a multi use trail for the foreseeable future, and members of the public are advised to keep away from this location, especially during and after wet weather. For further details, see the story below. 21st October 2013. (Jeff Vinter)

Update: The above comment about lack of progress over the extension to Rowsley may accurately reflect what is happening on the ground, but it is a different story behind the scenes. ‘The White Peak Loop’ is a key feature of the recent successful bid by the Peak District National Park for cycleway funding from the Department for Transport. Work on this and other projects is due for completion by 2016. The White Peak Loop aims to create an off-road cycle circuit of about 60 miles through the White Peak area, nearly all of it based on former railway lines. There is a lot of detail on the Derbyshire CC web page. If you read this, don’t forget that the 11 miles listed under the White Peak Loop are just what’s required to complete it – the rest is open already. (David Thompson)

‘I was there recently and can give the following information. The new section of path leaves the A5084 about 30 yards from the centre of Torver and passes behind the former station (now holiday cottages). It uses the trackbed almost exclusively and, after ¾ mile, passes under a minor road (connecting the A593 with the A5084) by a railway underbridge. Soon after this, it makes an end-on junction with the pre-existing National Park path, which immediately leaves the railway track to run alongside the A593, mainly in sight of the trackbed. It rejoins the line just before the Caravan Club site at Park Coppice, and about ½ mile later rejoins the A593 where an underbridge is filled in. Turn right, towards Coniston, and about 100 yards down the road turn left up a track. The line can then be followed to the site of Coniston station (now a housing estate) and goods yard (now an industrial estate). The centre of Coniston is just down the hill.’ (David Pedley)

Above: A montage of photographs from Radstock West station. Top left: The former passenger platform, looking east towards Frome on a cheerless winter’s day. Top right: The overgrown running line which once led into the town’s former railway forge and wagon works, all of which are proposed for demolition. Bottom left: Although the rails through the station platforms have now been removed, elsewhere in the area various railway relics survive, including this GWR chair which remains bolted to its decaying sleeper. Bottom right: The GWR’s goods shed in Radstock is the only building on the site that Bath & North East Somerset Council has undertaken to keep. All photographs taken on 8th June 2013 except top left, 17th February 2013. (Sebastian Davis-Ansted)

Radstock West really is quite a site, although partially obscured by years of vegetation. Apart from the engine shed, both the forge building (once part of Marcroft’s wagon works) and passenger platforms survive. All of the track is in situ too, except in the immediate station area and into the old forge; the tracks even survive alongside the old goods platform. The station has lost its signal box, which would appear to be a loss until ones learns that it was moved to the Didcot Railway Centre in 1973, where it has been beautifully restored (see here). For further details of what’s happening at Radstock West, see the story below.

• The path from Welshmill [a section of the new link] passes over some land that was part of the Frome gasworks which has to be decontaminated. A scheme for this has now been agreed and our contractor is expected to be on site late this year or early next year. The delay has been frustrating, but at least it gives us a few months to raise the rest of the money for this first phase.
• A way forward has also been identified with Network Rail to extend the path from Buckland Bridge to Elliots Bridge (Hapsford). [This is part of the new link which will run alongside the NR freight line from Frome to Whatley Quarry.] We hope this will enable us to apply for planning consent in the next few months.

The Department for Transport has announced successful recipients of its ‘Cycling ambition’ grants scheme. This invited cities and national parks to bid for funding support, and included two very welcome innovations in the bidding process: bidders were required to demonstrate a long-term (10 year) commitment to cycling strategy and investment, and they also had to show that the local public health function was an active ‘partner’ in the project. The fund was approximately £40 million.

The Government has – encouragingly – decided to raise the scale of the investment, and is now putting in a total of £77 million to a project budget expected to reach £148 million, including local ‘match funding’. This means a level of local investment reaching around £10 per capita per annum – the level that we (i.e. Sustrans) have long advocated as the minimum to bring about behaviour[al] change.

This increase in funding means that eight cities or city regions – Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Birmingham, West of England, Newcastle, Cambridge, Norwich and Oxford – have all received the total value of their bids, as well as [the] Peak District, New Forest, Dartmoor and South Downs national parks.

This investment will be spent over the two coming years, but the ongoing commitment of the local authorities offers hope for a longer-term, and hence more effective, approach.

• DfT: www.gov.uk/government/news/government-shifts-cycling-up-a-gear
• Sustrans: (now removed)

Note: The Bath to Bristol Railway Path and the new Two Tunnels Greenway at Bath finish within a quarter of a mile of each other. We hope that it will not be beyond the wit and wisdom of the local authority to establish a safe, well signed link between the two for walkers and cyclists. A growing number of both cycling and railway enthusiasts think it is about time that we had a coast-to-coast route in the south west to rival C2C and The Trans-Pennine Trail in the north. Bristol to Poole would do very nicely. (Jeff Vinter)

• Athenry to Sligo. Although ‘West on Track’, a pressure group for re-opening this section of the western rail corridor, wants to see this line re-opened, the Irish Minister for Transport has said that he would not re-open it even as far as Tuam. If he holds to this view, then the railway will be available for a greenway.
• Collooney, near Sligo, to Claremorris. This section of line has been proposed as a new rail trail, which would weigh in at 75 kilometres (50 miles).
• Kiltimagh to Castlebar. There was no direct railway between Kiltimagh and Castlebar, but this route has been mooted as a cross-country link to connect a future Collooney to Claremorris trail with the Great Western Greenway (see story above on Westport to Achill).

May 2013. Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. It’s the ‘last chance to see’ for a section of the Tewkesbury & Malvern Railway at the Mythe, west of Tewkesbury. The previously overgrown trackbed has recently been cleared of years of vegetation prior to the demolition of the embankment and bridges, which can be seen to good effect in the photograph above. Fortunately, parts of the trackbed east of the town can still be walked, as reported in December 2012. (Paul Stewart from ‘Branch Line News’)

April 2013. Derby to Ilkeston, Derbyshire. Further to our report in January 2010 about Sustrans and Derbyshire County Council’s plans to convert the 13 miles of Great Northern trackbed between Breadsall and Ilkeston into a cycle trail known as The Great Northern Greenway (NCN672), the planning application for the section from Breadsall to Morley has just been published here. It can seem as if projects like this take for ever, but often a lot of hard work goes on behind the scenes, not least with local landowners, and it is important to get this aspect of the work completely right: it is far better to have a delay than a rushed planning application that fails. (John Swan)

April 2013. Bath to Midford, Somerset. On Saturday 6th April at 10:00 a.m., 100 VIPs cycled through the ‘Two Tunnels’ on the old Somerset & Dorset Railway south of Bath. (Don’t be sore about the VIPs getting special treatment – they paid £175 each for the privilege and thus raised a five figure sum to help finance future maintenance.) The trail was opened officially to the general public at 12:30 p.m., after which some 10,000 walkers and cyclists tried it out. And to think that, years ago, members of this club were told that there was no demand for rail trails! (Jeff Vinter)

April 2013. Pill to Portishead, Somerset. The last remaining unused section of the Bristol to Portishead branch is expected to re-open in 2017 as part of the Greater Bristol Metro. Road communications along the A369 between Portishead and Bristol are dire during the morning and evening rush hours with an hour or more frequently being required to cover the 10 or so miles. However, a debate is now under way about the location of the new station in Portishead. Initial plans had sited this in Harbour Road, fairly near the town centre, but that would require a new level crossing over Quays Road at ST 475763. Now North Somerset Council says that a level crossing is no longer ‘appropriate’ and that a new bridge costing £4 million will be necessary … unless the station is moved further away from the town centre. These are not encouraging developments: modern level crossings with barriers that cover the entire road have proved themselves perfectly safe elsewhere (Canterbury and Chichester spring to mind), while it seems undesirable either to move the new station further from the town centre, or to add a further £4 million to the existing £38.9 million project cost. The location of stations at the periphery of towns and cities is what caused many of them to be closed in the 1960s. Do our politicians learn nothing from the lessons of history? (Tim Chant from The Bristol Times)

April 2013. Rays Bridge (nr. Billingsley) to Netherton (nr. Highley), Shropshire. We haven’t pinned down all the details yet, but there are publicly accessible tramway and railway trackbeds on the west side of the Severn Valley Railway between Bewdley and Bridgnorth; they were constructed initially to serve local collieries. The route listed as the title of this entry is one that we are sure of: it is part of the old line which once ran from Billingsley Colliery to a junction on the SVR about half way between Arley and Highley stations. The trackbed runs along the south side of the Borle Brook and appears clearly on the OS Explorer map as a public bridleway then footpath from SO 715834 to SO 734823, a distance of about 1¾ miles. At the north end (SO 715834), one can see clearly the course of the incline that led down from the mine, while at the south end (SO 734823) the map shows the old line continuing as a farm track (with no public access) for another 1¼ miles down to the junction with the SVR. (Derek Richards)

April 2013. The Bind to The River Severn (nr. Brooksmouth Farm), Shropshire. Further to the entry above, the north bank of the Borle Brook was used by a tramway which predated the colliery railway. This can be followed from SO 726836 to SO 753817, a distance of 2 miles (including ½ mile on the B4555). The local website, www.highley.org.uk, provides the following historical details: ‘At the end of the 18th century, coal mines and a blast furnace were opened in the nearby parish of Billingsley. The coal and iron were brought alongside the Borle Brook through Highley by a horse-worked tramway to the River Severn where they were sent downstream in boats. This tramway worked for no more than 15 years, but its route can still largely be traced as a footpath alongside the Borle Brook, running via shallow embankments and cuttings.’ (Derek Richards)

March 2013. The Daily Mail. Could this be a bandwagon we are witnessing here?!? (See the next two stories below.) On Thursday 28th March, The Daily Mail published this interesting re-assessment of Dr. Richard Beeching, whose infamous 1963 report – The Reshaping of British Railways – gave us so many empty trackbeds to re-use. (Justin Cottrell)

March 2013. The Guardian. On Friday 22nd March, The Guardian published an excellent article on the soon-to-be-opened Two Tunnels route, which will re-use the old Somerset & Dorset Railway south of Bath (click here). The route will be opened officially on Saturday 6th April. (Matt Skidmore)

March 2013. The Independent. It is not often that we can promote a newspaper, but on Wednesday 27th March, the Independent published an article by Tina Ediss which looked at the consequences of the Beeching closures from the point of view of the leisure opportunities afforded by the re-development of some of the old railways which the good doctor had no use for. The timing, of course, owes everything to the fact that 2013 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Dr. Richard Beeching’s now infamous report, ‘The Reshaping of British Railways’. Tina’s article, which can be read online by clicking the link here (or here if the link no longer works), gives a plug to some good railway paths. (Jeff Vinter)

March 2013. ‘Back on Track’, National Railway Museum, York. On Wednesday 27th March 2013, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm, the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) is holding a lecture and panel discussion at the NRM which will look at the impact the Beeching cuts had on communities up and down the country, and how communities are developing the services they kept, or re-opening routes that were lost. Attendance is free but prior booking is required – click here for further details. The Webmaster apologises for not promoting the previous event held in London on 11th March; this was overlooked due to pressure of work. (Susan Dye, CBT)

March 2013. Edinburgh Waverley to Tweedbank (City of Edinburgh, Midlothian and Scottish Borders). 30 miles of new – or rather reinstated – railway between Edinburgh and Tweedbank are due to open in summer 2015. (Click here for further details.) This major project costing £294 million will lead to the closure of a number of local rail trails which re-used parts of the formerly abandoned trackbed, but the project will construct new cycle routes to replace those which are lost. The new trails will not be quite so pleasant as the old rail trails, but their design objectives are to connect communities not only with each other, but also with their soon to be re-opened stations. Currently, a half-hourly rail service is planned, and all station car parking along the line will be free to encourage commuters to use rail in preference to road. (John Palmer and staff at Sustrans Ltd)

March 2013. Bartonsham to Rotherwas Industrial Estate, Hereford. Further to our story in November 2012, the new multi use trail on the south east side of Hereford from Bartonsham to Rotherwas has now appeared on Facebook (click here); when complete, the route will string together some otherwise isolated bits of old railway and give them a new lease of life. This Connect 2 project – partly funded by The People’s £50 Million (remember that?) – includes some very impressive engineering, the principal feature of which will be a new suspension bridge over the River Wye. A commentator on Facebook describes the cost of that as £70K, but we would expect it to cost at least 4 times that. (Tim Chant)

March 2013. Stalbridge to Sturminster Newton, Dorset. More good news about the revival of the old Somerset & Dorset Railway as the North Dorset Trailway! Hot on the heels of the announcement of the official opening of the new section from Stourpaine to Blandford Forum on Sunday 19th May (see below) comes this item from the latest newsletter of the Trailway Network, the supporters’ group: ‘Just when everyone thought that was enough and there is no money for anything, we met North Dorset District Councillors and Dorset County Councillors on 19th February to talk about the next stage of Trailway development. The Town Councillors, District Councillors and County Councillors were agreed that the link between Sturminster Newton and Stalbridge is the next most important section of the Trailway to work on. It is always a long, slow operation achieving the next major link but each bit creates its own momentum and gradually the Trailway expands. People are so enthusiastic about it; money is not always the most difficult hurdle. As you can image people south of Blandford are also keen to see their end of the Trailway reach Poole; that also has to be encouraged, negotiated and financed.’ (Lesley Gasson, The Trailway Network)

March 2013. Corringham to Thames Haven, Essex. The 8th March edition of the Thurrock Gazette carried a story entitled ‘MP gets walking to back railway bid’, although – rather than being an actual railway – his efforts were to support a new railway path project. The subject is the Corringham Light Railway from Corringham to near Thames Haven, which operated as an independent railway from 1901 to 1952 before being absorbed into the Mobil Oil company on 20 September 1971. According to the newspaper, the objective is to ‘transform the old railway line into a free heritage walk and cycle track, allowing visitors to make the most of the historic pathway and to preserve an important part of local history.’ The biggest problem is that the railway currently forms part of the land owned by the Coryton Oil Refinery and therefore ‘falls under PricewaterhouseCoopers’ administration package, meaning the future ownership of the land is uncertain.’ Stephen Metcalfe, the MP for East Thurrock, commented: ‘The Corringham Light Railway has [the] potential to be a great feature of Thurrock and if the practical problem of land ownership under PwC can be overcome, I see no reason why the old trackbed cannot have a future as part of our industrial heritage.’ (David White)

March 2013. Tavistock to Bere Alston, Devon. Next year, 46 years after this part of the LSWR’s main line from Exeter to Plymouth via Okehampton was closed, Tavistock is due to get its trains back. The original line was double track, but only one set of rails is to be relaid, with the unoccupied space reserved for a multi-use trail; see our earlier report from May 2012. The re-opening will make Bere Alston a junction once again, although initial timetable drafts showed no ‘splitters’, i.e. trains that divide en route. Instead, it looks likely that trains from Plymouth to Gunnislake will continue to call at all or most stations, as they do currently, with a fast service operating from Plymouth to Tavistock. Both services will call at Bere Alston, which makes that village a clear winner in terms of service frequency. (Campaign for Better Transport) Update: Summer 2014 came and went without the line to Tavistock re-opening, but in September 2014 the housing project on which the reinstated railway depends received planning permission; click here for further details. (Jeff Vinter)

March 2013. Yatton to Cheddar, Somerset. On 1st March, The Western Daily Press reported that North Somerset Council had re-opened Shute Shelve Tunnel, near Winscombe, following a week-long closure to remove loose rock, trees and vegetation that might obstruct the railway path or present a hazard to its users. However, in exceptionally cold weather, the tunnel still has to be closed due to the icicles which form, and sometimes fall, from its roof. (Tim Chant)

March 2013. Porth Penrhyn, Bangor, to Bethesda and Llyn Ogwen, Gwynedd. This 4 mile rail trails, part of an 11 mile cycle route known as Lôn Las Ogwen, currently uses much of the Penrhyn Railway, which opened in 1801 to transport slate from Lord Penrhyn’s slate quarries at Bethesda to Port Penrhyn near Bangor. The modern trail can be picked up near Bangor at SH 592725 and has long provided a traffic-free route to SH 607681 on the northern edge of Tregarth. Gwynedd CC is now increasing the railway content of the route by another 1¼ miles by extending the trail through the old railway tunnel at Tregarth (SH 608681 to SH 610679), after which it will pass Bryn Bella crossroads and run on the west side of the A5 to ca. SH 618669 near Bethesda rugby ground, remaining on the old trackbed throughout. Gwynedd CC’s ‘Habitats & Vegetation Survey’ makes it clear that the 279 yard tunnel at Tregarth will be opened up, although this will require lighting due to its length and the fact that it is on a curve; the lighting will have to be environmentally sensitive since the tunnel has become a bat roost since it was last used in 1962, although only one bat was found in residence at the time of the survey! Work on the extension is underway at present, although no opening date is known yet. When complete, this will make virtually the entire length of the Penrhyn Railway accessible to walkers and cyclists, although the continuation of the trail to Llyn Ogwen is via quiet lanes and off-road tracks. (Huw Davies and Jeff Vinter)

March 2013. Damage to Railway Paths, Nationwide. No visitors to this website will need reminding that the weather in 2012 was the second wettest in the UK since records began; according to the Met Office, the only wetter year was 2001. It will come as no surprise, therefore, to learn that the weather has done a great deal of damage to Sustrans’ railway paths around the UK, such that the charity has launched an appeal to raise funds so that the most serious damage can be put right before spring gets underway and use of the trails starts to climb again. Just to take one example, in west Devon, an entire tree fell into the River Plym and then floated downstream until it delivered an almighty blow to one of the bridges on the Plym Valley route, now re-branded as Drake’s Trail and extending all the way from Tavistock to Plymouth – largely via the old GWR railway line. Damage of equal severity has been inflicted on routes around the UK, including scour damage around bridge and viaduct piers, path foundations being undermined by floods, and whole sections of paths being washed away, as has happened with the C2C route near Consett. If you feel that you can make a contribution to the very worthwhile and important work of making good all of this ‘meteorological mischief’, please do so. (Huw Davies)

February 2013. Hockley Viaduct, Hampshire. The BBC local news reported on the morning of Tuesday 26th February that Hockley Viaduct was opening that day for walkers and cyclists, thus beating the estimated opening date of April 2013 by over a month. It is not known yet whether the associated railway path along the trackbed from Hockley to the Chesil area of Winchester is complete, but that too was a part of the overall restoration package. (Tim Chant) Update: Our Southern Area coordinator, Graham Lambert, visited the viaduct five days later – click here for his report.

January 2013. Dewsbury to Savile Town, West Yorkshire. Earlsheaton Tunnel on the former Great Northern line from Headfield Junction to Dewsbury South Junction received its official opening as part of a new local greenway on Wednesday 16th January. Click here and here for the related publicity materials. Two members of Railway Ramblers’ Yorkshire Area group represented the club: they advised us that the club’s grant of £2,000 had not been spent on this phase of the project, but would be used on a later phase to extend the path along the GNR trackbed towards Dewsbury Central station. (Lynnette Evans and Peter Martin). Note: Peter Martin submitted a fine selection of pictures of the opening.

January 2012. Frome to Great Elm, Somerset. The campaign to create a safe off-road route between Frome and Great Elm, where NCN24 leaves the old Frome-Radstock trackbed for a less than ideal road-based route into Frome town centre, continues to make progress. The campaign group, Frome’s Missing Link, has just published the following report: ‘Mendip District Council has given conditional planning consent and landowner support for the path from Welshmill to Low Water. However there are still obstacles to be overcome. Local developers and some landowners have been very generous in providing enough land to get the path through but we are still awaiting formal agreement from Network Rail to allow us to use a strip of land they own. Natural England is encouraging the Missing Link group to apply for grant funding. This is subject to their own and European Union rules, and needs match funding which can be provided by the value of the work done by our Chain Gang volunteers. The grant is paid out after completion of the work. Here the Town Council has been brilliant agreeing to provide up-front funding. A grant would enable us to build a much better and longer path more quickly than the £10,000 participatory grant also generously provided by Frome Town Council.’ Despite this good news, difficulties still remain in relation to a diversion order required for a public footpath, where a single objection could trigger a costly public enquiry. (Frome’s Missing Link)

January 2013. Coombe Junction to Moorswater, Cornwall. The last freight train to Moorswater, near Liskeard in Cornwall, ran on 3rd January this year, and our correspondent was there to witness the occasion. The loss of this short freight line (effectively a spur off the Liskeard to Looe branch line) creates the opportunity for another short rail trail in Cornwall – but will the local authorities be able to act in these tough economic times? For further details, click here. (Peter Murnaghan)

Update. On 10th February, another correspondent advised us that freight trains are still running to Moorswater. A service ran on Monday 4th February, with the next arriving on Thursday 14th February under train code 6Z17. For the latest situation, click this link for our February update. (Richard Cook)

January 2013. Hockley to Winchester, Hampshire. An article published recently by Winchester City Council makes it clear that the project to restore Hockley Viaduct and convert the trackbed of the former Didcot, Newbury & Southampton Railway south of Winchester into a multi-use trail is progressing well. The viaduct now boasts a new signal, provided by the friends of Hockley Viaduct, while the entire project is expected to be complete some time in February. Earlier reports indicated that the official opening was to take place in April. (Peter Murnaghan)

January 2013. West Auckland to Barnard Castle, County Durham. The Teesdale Mercury reported recently that plans to create a walkway on the old railway line between West Auckland and Barnard Castle could be ‘back on track’. The Mercury’s report explained: ‘The scheme, called the South West Durham Heritage Corridor, was dropped in 2010 due to funding problems and the expected high cost of maintaining the public route. But now the team behind the project, which was co-ordinated by regeneration charity Groundworks and Durham County Council, is being put back together.’ Local councillors recognise that the route would be good for tourism, and the one section that was constructed before the axe fell – between Bishop Auckland and Spring Gardens – is being well used. Councillor Tony Cooke said that the £6,000 per kilometre cost of maintaining the trail was seen as extortionate. We think that the newspaper has got this wrong: £6,000 per kilometre is probably the construction cost rather than the annual maintenance cost, and that matches the £10,000 per mile which Sustrans spends on constructing a high quality, all weather route. When complete, the trail will link Bishop Auckland with Barnard Castle via Haggerleases, allowing people to discover relics of the railway such as bridges, abutments and Langleydale Viaduct. (David White)

January 2013. Loddiswell, Devon. The beautifully preserved Loddiswell station on the former GWR branch line from South Brent to Kingsbridge is currently on the market with an asking price of £850,000. The estate agents are Marchant Petit (tel. 01548 857588), and their blurb describes the property thus: ‘A railway conversion in landscaped gardens with a mile of salmon and trout fishing on the River Avon. It retains the original station canopy and the two-storey signal box houses an indoor pool and cinema. 5 beds, 3 baths, recep, 3 acres.’ (Richard Lewis)

January 2013. Wheal Maria to Morwelham Quay, Devon. The ever enterprising Devon County Council has recently opened most of the Devon Great Consols Mineral Railway system as a new network of multi-use trails. The network is accessible from a fee-paying car park at Bedford Sawmills, which is located on the A390 between Tavistock and Gunnislake. It looks as if the network covers about 5 miles of new route, with some sections opened as recently as June 2011. Unfortunately, the website which promotes all this (www.tamarvalley.org.uk) has a corrupt version of the promotional PDF file on its server, but the same brochure is also accessible here. We have, of course, advised the Tamar Valley organisation of the problem. Bedford Sawmills are about 1½ miles north east of Gunnislake station at the north end of the Tamar valley branch, although care is needed on the busy A390. (Jeff Vinter)

January 2013. London. Continuing the steam theme introduced at the head of this page, 2013 marks the 150th anniversary of the opening of London’s Metropolitan Railway, and a number of celebratory steam specials are planned to mark the occasion. This link to the Mail Online gives an account of a steam trial on Saturday 15th December 2012. Who’d have thought it? As the Mail’s reporter said: ‘This is no 1930s fantasy. It’s Baker Street station – and it’s all happening in the here and now.’ The steam specials are coming on Sundays 13th and 20th January. Unfortunately for would-be travellers, the ballot for tickets is now closed but, if you missed this event, steam is back on the Met on 25th to 27th May. (Rob Davidson)

Above: It is obvious that the mines around North Molton in Devon have attracted a lot of interest, for other transport enthusiasts and industrial archaeologists have been there before us. This photograph shows a ‘horizontal duplex steam winch by Clarke, Chapman & Co Ltd of Gateshead. This is believed to have been installed ca. 1918 and is in situ but derelict. The slide valve cylinders are ca. ” x 8″ and the geared drum is ca. 14″ diameter.’ 1st January 1998. Photograph and caption by Chris Allen, and reproduced under the terms of this creative commons licence.

Since websites come and go, and specific web pages may be moved, we quote below – in full – the material that we have found on the New Florence Mine Tramway and the associated Crowbarn Mine Tramway. The sources are quoted at the foot of each entry.

The New Florence Mine Tramway

The New Florence Mine Tramway was constructed to connect the New Florence Iron Mine (see SS 73 SE 15) with South Molton. It conveyed iron ore from the mine to the main railway line. Its overall length was some 5.5kms (extending from SS 7460 3326 to SS 7300 2720).

The current investigation, as part of RCHME’s West Exmoor Project, only includes the extreme northern end of the tramway, from the New Florence Mine site to the Exmoor National Park boundary.

The tramway best survives at its junction with the Crowbarn Mine Tramway (see SS 73 SW 21), where it is a sharply defined, flat-topped embankment 0.9m high. North of Brinsworthy Bridge it has been disturbed and eroded in places by the erratic course of the un-named stream. At several places it crosses and re-crosses this stream, and here attempts have been made to confine the stream with short sections of roughly coursed walling. In addition, lengths of tram rails still in place have been used as the basis for a makeshift bridge to carry the tramway over the stream at SS 7493 3173. Further north-east up the valley the course of the tramway is impossible to follow in places.

At SS 7527 3205 are the remains of a loading bay fronting the tramway and adjacent to other structures associated with the New Florence Iron Mine. In addition the Ordnance Survey 1st edition 25″ mapping of 1888 depicts several sidings leading off the main tramway; there is no field evidence for these. The main line continued for some 200m north-east of the centre of the complex, and ended alongside a massive spoil heap issuing from one on the principal adits. (1)

Citation (1): Field Investigator’s Comments: Wilson-North, W.R., 20th April 1993, RCHME Field Investigation.

Source: http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=917533 (an English Heritage website – click on the link for ‘More Information and Sources’)

We have not been able to find any information specifically about the Crowbarn Mine Tramway, but the University of Exeter has published some brief details of Crowbarn Mine on its Mining History Information pages. It is interesting to see that the ores found here included gold, which is currently being mined in the Crediton area to the south east. Local resident Fred Harding has produced an interesting website about North Molton gold, past and present.

Crowbarn Mine

Site Identification Number – 117
North Molton Parish, Devon
National Grid Reference: SS 738318

Open workings and adits on west side of Mole Valley south of Heasley Mill. Early working for iron; opened up for gold in 1853 as South Poltimore but abandoned with collapse of Poltimore and Britannia mines. Reworked for iron and manganese from 1873 as part of enlarged Bampfylde sett until about 1884. Served by branch of the Florence Mine tramway. For brief details of iron and copper mining in this parish see Atkinson 1997, pp. 37-9 and 42-55 respectively.

Note – the author’s view of copper/gold mining development in this parish is not in agreement with that expressed by Dixon in Atkinson 1997. See Claughton Jan 1997 for areas of disagreement.

Atkinson, Michael. (ed.) Exmoor’s Industrial Archaeology, 1997.

Peter Claughton / Dept. of Economic and Social History
P.F.Claughton@exeter.ac.uk
Last modified 13 May 1998

Source: http://people.exeter.ac.uk/pfclaugh/mhinf/nd_list/nd_117.htm (a University of Exeter website)

Report compiled by Jeff Vinter
 

Above: With its 33 spans, Hockley Viaduct south of Winchester is not an easy structure to photograph, but our correspondent did a good job by climbing up to the one vantage point in the area which provides a chance of capturing the whole thing, especially in late winter when the trees are still bare. The newly installed semaphore signal stands out particularly clearly. 3rd March 2013. (Graham Lambert)

Following Tim Chant’s report of the opening of Hockley Viaduct on 26th February, I visited it today (3rd March) and cycled along the extended NCN23 from the site of Winchester Chesil station on the former DNSR to the restored viaduct and back. The new tarmac cycle path takes over from the old footpath just past the industrial site near the former goods shed via a new ‘cycle friendly’ double slope, nicely finished with used sleepers, and continues between the former track bed and the canalised River Itchen towards the viaduct. It passes under the former trackbed and back again to pass the car park at the bottom of St Catherine’s Hill, access to the latter having benefitted from a recently upgraded path on wooden steps. The cycle path gains access to the former trackbed a couple of hundred yards before passing over Hockley Viaduct, which has been beautifully restored by cleaning and re-pointing the brickwork, fitting new blue capping stones along the full length on both sides of the structure, and lowering the brickwork in two places and inserting stainless steel bars to enable the River Itchen and the distant city of Winchester to be viewed, which was not previously possible unless travelling by train! The final touch is a home semaphore signal, permanently ‘off’.

Above: The view over the water meadows of the River Itchen from one of the newly lowered sections of parapet. The lighting on this bitterly cold and overcast day did not do the view any favours, but a couple of the club’s walk leaders have planned a return visit in early May when, hopefully, the weather will be more kind. 3rd March 2013. (Graham Lambert)

Above: Our intrepid reporter, seen here with his trusty folding bike, demonstrates why the restoration team decided to lower the parapets in two places to provide views from the restored viaduct. 3rd March 2013. (Graham Lambert)

Hockley Viaduct is a very lucky survivor. Back in the 1980s, army engineers offered to demolish it free of charge it for Winchester City Council as a training exercise; Railway Ramblers joined the opposition, thus making the preservation of this structure one of the club’s earliest campaigns. (Smardale Gill Viaduct in Cumbria was another early campaign.) Following the army’s threat to the viaduct, Dr. Edwin Course and a team of industrial archaeologists from the University of Southampton took core samples from the piers and found that, rather than being rubble-filled, they were made from concrete. This was a significant discovery, for it revealed Hockley as being one of the earliest concrete viaducts in the UK, predating those built by McAlpine’s on the West Highland line in Scotland by several years. Thirty years on, it is great to see this historic structure once again serving a useful purpose.

Report by Graham Lambert
 

Above: The last train to Moorswater, hauled by Freightliner locomotive 66618, about to pass the platform of the former Moorswater station, which was originally the nearest ‘railhead’ to Liskeard before the main line came through and later, in 1901, the incline was opened from Liskeard station to Coombe Junction. 3rd January 2013. (Peter Murnaghan)

Thursday 3rd January 2013 was a sad day in the life of Moorswater, a location with so much history. For on that day, the last freight train ran to Moorswater. The train arrived mid-morning with twenty wagons of cement from Derbyshire, which were unloaded and returned empty to Westbury in the afternoon. This followed the established pattern of an occasional train which has run up the branch line once every few weeks.

A change of ownership of the Hope cement works in Derbyshire has brought about the cessation of this flow of rail traffic to Moorswater. It is understood that cement traffic will now arrive at Moorswater by road instead. This location has been a hive of activity since long before the arrival of the railway, when packhorses brought down minerals and stone from Bodmin Moor. In 1846, the Liskeard & Caradon Railway opened for horse drawn (or gravity worked downhill) trains from the granite quarries and copper mines on Caradon Hill. The cargo was transferred from wagons at Moorswater to barges on the Liskeard & Looe Union Canal for onward shipment from Looe harbour. Moorswater at the time reverberated with much industry, with several lime kilns and a granite dressing plant, as well as the canal basin. In 1860, the Liskeard & Looe Railway opened alongside the canal to provide much needed extra capacity for the mineral traffic, during those busy days of mining at Caradon. This meant that through trains could run down to Looe and locomotives replaced the horses, being accompanied by more substantial permanent way on the original section, an example being the level crossing at Woodhill being replaced by the overbridge that remains to the present day.

The system remained isolated from the Great Western Railway that soared overhead on the 147ft high Moorswater Viaduct. It was only in 1901, when the two mile circular line was built from Coombe Junction up to Liskeard station at a gradient of 1 in 40, that the line became linked with the rest of the network. Just after the outbreak of the Great War, pumping and underground development ceased at Phoenix United Mine and the admittedly light coal and minerals traffic to the siding there was lost. With the war going badly for the Allies in 1916, and the home railways under Government control, a number of lightly-used stretches of line were lifted temporarily and the materials thus reclaimed were redeployed for a redoubled War Effort. The Caradon branch line, from a few chains north of Moorswater Engine Shed through to Cheesewring Quarry, Sharptor and Minions Goods depots, and Phoenix United Siding, was one such.

Recent research for the Heritage Lottery funded Caradon Hill Area Heritage Project has revealed that this was not the end of the story of the Caradon Branch line, however, with evidence beginning to emerge of a partial relaying of some track. Traffic to and from the China Clay dries, opened at Moorswater in the early 1900s, kept a fragment of the Caradon line from the site of the Moorswater Canal Basin to what became Coombe Junction occupied and, in recent years, this facility has changed its operation again to a receiving station for cement from Derbyshire. Sadly, this last rail link with Moorswater has now come to an end.

	Left: A scene that will not be witnessed again – the cement wagons being shunted into the terminal siding at Moorswater. (Peter Murnaghan)
	Above: The A4 sheet displayed in the locomotive’s left cab window was effectively the train’s headboard. (Peter Murnaghan)

Only one further train is scheduled to work this last half mile north of Coombe – a railtour special, named ‘The Hullabala-Looe’ on 10th February, organised by Pathfinder Tours.

The soon-to-be disused railway from Moorswater to Coombe Junction Halt runs parallel to the old canal, which has its own towpath. But this is narrow and the railway trackbed would make a good all-weather track, wide enough for cyclists as well as walkers.

A future project?

Report by Peter Murnaghan