European Railroad Discussion > Okehampton revival.

As a child, in the early 1960s, we had friends who owned a cottage on the north Cornwall coast near Bude. In those days you could get a train at Waterloo (in London) that would take you all the way to Bude. Actually, that's a bit of an exageration, it started out as a long train but it dropped coaches at various points so that by the time it got to Bude THE coach from London had been added to a couple of local coaches at either Okehampton or Halwill Junction for the final trundle to Bude. The line closed in 1966 except for the section from Exeter to Okehampton which was retained to serve Meldon Quary just beyond Okehampton.

For about 15 years there has been a summer sunday only service between Okehapmton and Exeter. It provides access to Dartmoor.

In more recent times traffic congestion around Exeter has led to a desire to reactivate the line to Okehampton on a permanent basis and this year it's been happening. New rails, sleepers and ballast have been installed with most of it coming from Westbury through Castle Cary. There has been a variety of motive power and weather.

The first two images were shot on 1st May (in clear weather) and 2nd May (in mist) at much the same time with GBRF 66s in charge of ballast drops. Amazing how our weather varies from day to day.

---

---

When the various trains get to Exeter they have to change direction to get onto the line to Okehampton. In the early days of the work this led to some trains being "top and tailed". After a few trains this was no longer necessary because the locomotives already on the branch could deliver the used train back to Exeter and a locomotive that delivered from Westbury then took it away and the new train was taken on by the locomotive already on the branch.

There weren't enough locomotives at Westbury so here we see 56302 on its way to Westbury to make up the numbers and then a couple of days later hauling a load of continuous welded rail to Okehampton.

---

---

That's very interesting, I was unaware of the Summer Sundays service to Okehampton.  Are there similar operations elsewhere in the UK?

Gordon

The only one I can think of which was a summer only operation was hikers specials from Blackburn onto the Settle and Carlisle which ran for  about 6-8 weeks every summer.
The Okehampton operation was unusual because of the line ownership. It was kept open to Meldon and owned by the quarry company (if I remember rightly) not Network Rail (or Railtrak or British Rail depending on the date!)
The Branch Line Society mantain Passenger Service on Unusual Lines and have and archive going back quite a few years PSUL. To my eyes some of the "unusual lines" don't look that unusual but that's just me!