Amongst the first enterprises to be up and running on the standard
gauge preserved railway scene was the Dart Valley Railway. We called in for our
first visit there during August 1971, as part of a youth hostelling holiday by
car to the south coast of Devon and Cornwall.
Now known as the South Devon Railway, the former branch line
originally ran between the junction station at Totnes - on the ex-GWR main line
from London Paddington to Penzance - and Ashburton, via Buckfastleigh. It was opened
in 1871, closed by British Railways in 1962 and re-opened as a preserved steam
railway in 1969.
Improvements to the A38 trunk road soon scuppered a return
to Ashburton. The Friends of Ashburton Station group was set up to protect the
surviving buildings on the old station site. Supporters promote the long-term future
re-instatement of the railway to the town, though this would necessarily mean a
deviation from the original alignment between there and Buckfastleigh.
At the other end of the line, the current railway service
stops short of re-joining the main line at Totnes, because the costs incurred
by running into the main station were prohibitive. Instead, locomotives reverse
on a run-round loop at Totnes [Riverside], where a platform was constructed, known
for a time as Littlehempston, after the nearest village. Riverside station has
no road access but can now be easily reached on foot from the town centre and
the main line station via a footpath and footbridge.
Buckfastleigh remains the railway’s operational HQ and both of
these pictures of ex-GWR tank engines were taken there in the summer of 1971.
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