Devon and Cornwall, Day 9

Sunday 9th June

Bidding farewell to Plymouth, we embarked on Sunday morning for a trip on two rather long branch lines in Devon, to Barnstaple and Okehampton. As last days of holidays tend to be, it was a little more fraught, a little more rushed than we'd have liked it to be, not least because we were on our way home and had to cart our luggage around with us all day.

1040 Plymouth to Exeter St Davids, arr 1141
Headcode: 1A81, operated by First Great Western using HST rake LA62 with 43012+43172
Distance: 52 miles; walk-up price: £10.05

We started with our last run over the Devon banks, back from Plymouth as far as Exeter. The HST to London, the first one of the morning from Penzance, was fairly busy, and we ended up sat in various parts of the quiet coach at the rear of the train.

After an hour, the five of us arrived in St David's station in Exeter, where we met up with Paul, who'd come down from Reading for the day to join us in our exploits around Devon. Nearly as soon as we'd met Paul, we said goodbye to one of the Jameses, who wanted to get back to Liverpool relatively early; he'd been to Barnstaple but not Exmouth, so he headed to Exmouth. The four of us plus Paul wished him farewell, before boarding the train to Barnstaple:

1203 Exeter St Davids to Barnstaple, arr 1314
and
1324 Barnstaple to Exeter St Davids, arr 1433
Headcode: 2B75 and 2R33 resp., operated by First Great Western using Sprinter 153382* + Pacer 143612
Distance: 39 miles each way; walk-up return: £6.20

Barnstaple is easily the longest of the Westcountry branch lines, at nearly 40 miles long and over an hour from Exeter. Even though this Sunday train was calling at all the intermediate stations (relatively unusual for a weekday), we still got some fairly decent speeds up in between the stations. The unlikely combination of a one-car Sprinter and a two-car Pacer was our chariot; we decided to avoid the Pacer and go for the Sprinter, if for no reason other than it had tables.

The line runs across the centre of Devon, from Exeter on the south coast to Barnstaple on the north coast. Well, nearly anyway; both Exeter and Barnstaple sit at the top of an estuary. The line used to continue north to Ilfracombe, which is actually on the coast, but the line was cut back in the 1960s.

While the last section between Barnstaple and Ilfracombe was surprisingly hilly, what remains of the line is reasonably flat (at least as Westcountry branches go). The views of the gently rolling Devon countryside were thus comforting, rather than spectacular; the kind of views that bring a contented smile to your face on a warm Sunday lunchtime as you lean back and watch the world go by.

Our train was a little late into Barnstaple, so we had no time to stand and stare before coming straight back. The way out had been relatively quiet, but the train was a little busier on the way back; nonetheless, after two-and-a-half hours out in the far reaches of rural Devon we were suddenly thrust back into the urban reality of Exeter.

Upon arriving back in Exeter, we bumped into James who, in the time we had been to Barnstaple had gone to Exmouth and Okehampton, and was now waiting for a train to take him north. After bidding him farewell for the second (and final) time, we grabbed some supplies and headed to our final branch of the weekend, to Okehampton.

1509 Exeter St Davids to Okehampton, arr 1551
and
1556 Okehampton to Exeter Central, arr 1640
Headcode: 2K08 and 2K09 resp., operated by First Great Western using Pacer 143620
Distance: 25 miles and 25.75 miles resp.; walk-up return: £3.30

The branch to Okehampton is not like any other line in Britain, for many reasons. For one, it's privately owned by the Dartmoor Railway, not by Network Rail. There are just five services in each direction on summer Sundays, with one train shuttling back and forth between Exeter and Okehampton. And it's not as if there are many more trains on weekdays: the Okehampton branch only runs on Sundays.

Let's start at the beginning. First of all, here's a map showing the Okehampton, Barnstaple and Gunnislake lines, together with the now-closed section between Okehampton and Bere Alston (in brown):

(Map based on OpenStreetMap; © OpenStreetMap contributors)

The line was first built as the London and South Western Railway main line between Exeter and Plymouth via Crediton, Okehampton, Tavistock and Bere Alston. The section between Bere Alston and Plymouth remains as part of the Gunnislake branch, which we traversed the previous day. At the other end, between Exeter and the former Coleford Junction the line remains as part of the Barnstaple branch. Put another way, the Barnstaple branch used to leave the mainline at Coleford Junction. That's actually no longer a junction, with the two branches now having parallel single tracks for the three miles until they join at Crediton.

The line between Meldon Quarry and Bere Alston was closed in 1968, and passenger services between Exeter and Okehampton were withdrawn in 1972. Until 1997, though, the line soldiered on with ballast traffic to and from Meldon Quarry. With the ballast traffic winding down, and the branch now owned the quarry owners, they decided to reinvent the line between Exeter and Okehampton as a heritage railway line, with passenger services.

Aside from the Dartmoor Railway's own trains, which are now rather infrequent, the main such service is the FGW-provided summer Sunday service, which is funded by Devon County Council. Dartmoor Railway still run the stations of Okehampton and Sampford Courtenay, both of which have a well-kept feel of the Southern Railway to them - this was never GWR territory, and thus it shall remain!

While the LSWR managed to avoid gradients as bad as the 1 in 36 on the GWR main line between Exeter and Plymouth, they didn't manage to avoid them completely: after all, Devon is a rather hilly county. But rather than several steep hills, the 60-mile LSWR route between Exeter and Plymouth was simply one big hill, with 30 miles up at 1 in 75, and 30 miles down at 1 in 75, the summit pretty much dead in the middle at Meldon Quarry.

As such, our ride in this Pacer along a rather overgrown line to Okehampton was rather entertaining. On the way to Okehampton, the engine struggled constantly up the hill. But on the way down, we were treated to one of the most hair-raising rides on a train I've been on for years: the track, while sound, was not as precisely aligned as, say, the 125mph West Coast Main Line; and with a 1 in 75 downhill gradient to take us most of the way back to Crediton, once the driver got it up to speed we barelled down the hill like we were almost out of control, practically clinging on for dear life. It was great fun.

All too soon, we left the wonderful backwater of the Okehampton branch, and returned to normality at Exeter. Rather than disembark at St David's - the GWR station - we continued on up the 1 in 37 bank to Exeter Central - the LSWR station, much more conveniently located for the city centre - and headed off to buy some food for the long trip home.

In keeping with the LSWR theme for the day, we decided that getting a FGW service back to Reading would be hell on a Sunday afternoon, with most of the trains probably ending up full and standing. Having said goodbye to Ian, who was heading back via Birmingham, the four of us decided to go back via Basingstoke instead:

1730 Exeter Central to Basingstoke, arr 2002
Headcode: 1L62, operated by South West Trains using Sprinter 159001*+159007
Distance: 124 miles

It's been a good few years since I'd been on the South West Trains route between Exeter and Basingstoke - also part of the LSWR mainline to London - and it made a nice change from FGW. With a full two-and-a-half hours' journey to Basingstoke ahead of us, the four of us sat round a table and played our last game of Fluxx, a remarkably addictive card game.

The two and a half hours passed fairly quickly, and before we knew it we'd arrived at Basingstoke. Ben stayed on the train to head home via Clapham Junction; Paul, James and I alighted for our connection to Reading:

2007 Basingstoke to Reading, arr 2030
Headcode: 2J62, operated by First Great Western using Turbo 165104
Distance: 15.5 miles

Our five-minute connection at Basingstoke was easily made, and we duly joined our last FGW train of the weekend. But it wasn't a sleepy Westcountry branch, it was a slightly more busy Thames Valley commuter line, which the next morning would be rammed once again with commuters to London. It just didn't feel the same, and it brought home that, slowly but surely, the long holiday was ending.

Once in Reading, I bade farewell to Paul, a Reading local, and James, who was heading to west London, and joined my final train, the familiar CrossCountry run back to Coventry:

2041 Reading to Coventry, arr 2152
Headcode: 1M96, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 221132
Distance: 79.75 miles

Somehow, the very same train we'd been on three days previously from Newton Abbot to Plymouth had made its way to Reading to take me home to Coventry; a little digging suggests it did so via a night in Aberdeen. It's easy to forget just how big CrossCountry's network is.

Once I was finally home, I collapsed into a chair, and said plaintively to my housemate, "too many trains!". It had been a long week, and a very good one; but perhaps a little too intense, in retrospect...

Devon and Cornwall, Day 8 (Part 2)

Saturday 8th June, afternoon

After a fine morning on the Looe branch, in the afternoon we headed to Gunnislake and Newquay. With an hour's break in Plymouth, we headed to Sainsbury's and grab some lunch. Once done, we boarded our next branch line train, the only one to actually terminate in Plymouth itself:

1254 Plymouth to Gunnislake, arr 1340
and
1345 Gunnislake to Plymouth, arr 1430
Headcode: 2G75 and 2P89 resp., operated by First Great Western using Sprinter 150247
Distance: 14.5 miles each way; walk-up return: £3.45

The Gunnislake branch is another slightly odd branch. For one, it's partly in Devon and partly in Cornwall: instead of crossing the Royal Albert Bridge, we curve off the mainline and go under it, hugging the eastern bank of the River Tamar. We then cross the River Tavy on a wide, curving viaduct, before a solid four-mile 1-in-73 climb up to Bere Alston.

At Bere Alston, we reverse in order to continue towards Gunnislake. Just before the station at Calstock we cross the fairly narrow Tamar, thus finally entering Cornwall, before a torturously twisty climb up to Gunnislake. The ten miles from Plymouth to Bere Alston took us 24 minutes; by contrast, the 4½ miles from Bere Alston to Gunnislake took a full 20 minutes.

The reason for the reversal is that while Bere Alston to Gunnislake has always been a branch line, the line from Plymouth to Bere Alston once continued on via Tavistock, Okehampton and Crediton to Exeter. This was the old London and South Western Railway mainline, built in competition to the GWR, but the section between Bere Alston and Okehampton was shut in the 1960s.

The line between Okehampton and Bere Alston has long been talked about for reopening, and hopefully at least the section from Bere Alston to Tavistock is being actively campaigned for. Reopening the whole line, though, would provide a useful diversionary route for mainline trains between Exeter and Plymouth. Indeed, if the Dawlish sea wall cannot be shored up in the long term, we may have no option but to reopen this if we don't wish to sever Plymouth and Cornwall from the railway network entirely.

After just a few minutes in Gunnislake, we journeyed back at the same glacial pace as we'd climbed up to Gunnislake; clearly the sinuous curves, rather than the steep gradients, were the limiting factor in the speed of the train. But any quicker and it would have spoiled the views: not many lines over the variety of views of a single river, from perched high atop a steep valley looking down to a small stream, to a wide flowing estuary crossed by huge viaducts. Just a perfect little branch line for a Saturday afternoon.

1454 Plymouth to Newquay, arr 1652
and
1726 Newquay to Plymouth, arr 1914
Headcode: 1C80 and 1A97 resp., operated by First Great Western using HST rake LA13 with 43177+43005
Distance: 55.5 miles each way; first class walk-up return: £18.10

Our final excursion of the day was to the coastal town of Newquay, deep in north Cornwall, and surfing capital of the UK. The town's population can swell from 20,000 to 100,000 in summer months thanks to a long-established tourist trade. While weekdays see a simple shuttle service to and from the junction with the mainline at Par, summer Saturdays see this replaced with a series of long-distance trains from as far away as London, Manchester and Dundee (yes, Dundee!) to cater for holidaymakers.

We caught one of the FGW services, an HST through from London Paddington. Knowing it would be busy, and fed up not having any comfort or tables in standard class on an HST, we had decided to upgrade to first class. We could have just paid £10 each way for the upgrade, but we discovered that a first class day return fare from Plymouth was just £18.10, so we went for that. (We actually bought the tickets off the guard on the Gunnislake train, who was only too happy to earn the commission!)

You may think that first class was a bit extravagant for a little branch line in Cornwall. But Newquay is no little branch line: from Plymouth, even with only two stops at Lostwithiel and Par, the journey was scheduled at a full two hours. And it was well worth it, for the peace and quiet, for the comfortable seats, for the fact that a bay of six seats suited five of us perfectly, for the unobstructed views from the window, for the tables to play games on, for the free drinks and snacks we got (yes, there was even a full buffet open all the way to Newquay); most of all, being in first class just made it more of an occasion, somehow.

The branch line itself leaves the main line at Par, rather inconveniently sited just a few miles east of the much bigger town of St Austell. Indeed, Par itself barely merits a station but for the junction (much like St Erth). The branch line remains controlled from two old-fashioned signalboxes (as, indeed, does much of the Cornish mainline): the first is at St Blazey, just round the corner from Par, where DBS have a major depot and yard to serve the freight trains in Cornwall (principally carrying china clay).

Five miles further on is Goonbarrow Junction, no longer a junction but rather a passing loop with two tracks, for trains to pass on this otherwise single-track line. This is the last signalbox before the 15-mile dead end to Newquay. On Saturdays the line runs to full capacity, with trains waiting for each other at Goonbarrow in order to continue on the single line.

However, with the track on the branch not being maintained to the highest possible standard, the branch is pretty slow, and each train is allowed about two hours to do a round-trip from Goonbarrow Junction to Newquay and back, meaning just seven trains on the branch all day. To maximise capacity, almost all are at least seven carriages long on a Saturday.

That said, our driver clearly took a fairly liberal interpretation of the speed limits, because we arrived in Newquay at 16:37, a full 15 minutes early! This gave us nearly an hour to look round the town of Newquay, and we took a walk over to the cliffs above the beach, enjoying an ice cream, and marvelling at the beautiful blue sea below.

While the coastline was very pretty, the town itself was less so, with an hour being more than enough time to take in the facilities clearly aimed at the party-going nightclub clientele for which Newquay is, sadly, now nearly as (in)famous as it is for surfing. Once we'd finished our ice creams we didn't linger, and returned to the train back to Plymouth.

The journey back was rather more sedate, but it gave us another look at the countryside we passed through: no deep river valleys here, this was rolling china clay country, with some views south towards the pits in St Dennis. We played some more Fluxx, but stopped to take a proper look (and some photographs) of the Royal Albert Bridge as we passed over it and left Cornwall for the last time.

Nearly two hours after leaving Newquay - and four and a half since we'd left Plymouth - we were back in Plymouth. In the bright evening sunlight, we took a walk over the Hoe, the hill overlooking the Sound and the naval installations. We paused at the huge war memorial in the centre, which bears the names of thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen who gave their lives in both world wars and since.

After a walk around the coastal path, we found the docks humming with people, locals and tourists alike enjoying the fine summer's evening. We found a restaurant away from the hubbub and enjoyed our last dinner out, before heading back for our final night in the south-west.

Devon and Cornwall, Day 8 (Part 1)

Saturday 8th June, morning

Having done the Cornish mainline and the St Ives and Falmouth branches on Friday, on Saturday we sampled the other three Cornish branches, to Looe, Gunnislake and Newquay, each with a very different charm about them. First, to Looe, on one of the weirdest railway lines in the country...

0924 Plymouth to Liskeard, arr 0949 (actual 0954)
Headcode: 1C72, operated by First Great Western using HST rake LA62 with 43172+43012
Distance: 17.75 miles; walk-up return: £3.55

We started much as we had the previous day by heading west over the magnificent Royal Albert Bridge. Unlike the previous day's train at almost exactly the same time, this was not a two-car train that started from Bristol Parkway; it was instead an HST that started at Plymouth, and thus was already sat in the station when we got there.

On arriving at Saltash, the guard announced that there were some bikes blocking the guard's van which needed to be moved; after a seven-minute stand they had evidently been moved and we went on our way. This turned our nice nine-minute connection at Liskeard to a slightly more risky four minutes; we were fairly sure they'd hold the train but not certain.

Fortunately when we arrived in Liskeard we ended up pretty much dead in front of the steps up to the footbridge to cross over to the branch platform, and we alighted smartly and were the first people over the bridge and onto the waiting branch line train to Looe.

However, we weren't the only ones. The world and his wife seemed to want to go to Looe on this fine Saturday morning, and all that waited to shuttle people back and forth was a one-carriage Sprinter (a "dogbox" class 153).

Worse, it was already half-full by the time we got there thanks to - among many others - a bunch of young girl guides off on a trip to Looe. We made it on the train, but many were not so lucky, and we left nearly a whole trainload of people behind on the platform! Eventually, having crammed as many people on as possible, and decided that cancelling the train would have made a bad situation even worse, the train left seven minutes late.

0958 (actual 1005) Liskeard to Looe, arr 1029
and
1032 Looe to Liskeard, arr 1103
Headcode: 2L77 and 2L78 resp., operated by First Great Western using Sprinter 153325
Distance: 8.75 miles; walk-up return: £2.65

The Looe branch is, without doubt, the most insane railway line in Britain. Period.

The trouble all starts in Liskeard itself. Now, the mainline runs east-west, and Looe is south of Liskeard. So you'd expect the bay platform to be on the south side. Wrong! It's on the north side. Furthermore, the bay platform for the branch is at right angles to the mainline. Literally at a right angle.

So, we started off from Liskeard heading north-east. After all of about 500 metres, we start screeching to the right in what turns out to be a tiny horseshoe curve. Before we know it, we've done a 180 degree turn and we're heading south-west, and we go under the great big viaduct carrying the mainline.

We then turn right a bit more to point north-west, and then another line joins from our left at Coombe Junction ground frame (a ground frame is a set of levers for controlling points placed at ground level, like a miniature old-fashioned signalbox without the good view). After another 200 metres we arrive at Coombe Junction Halt, the fifth least-used passenger station in Britain with just 60 people using it in 2011/12.

When we leave Coombe Junction Halt, we find ourselves going backwards! And then we stop again at the ground frame, and the guard swings the points, and we head down the other mysterious line, which turns out to be the Looe branch, and we are finally heading south.

Here's a diagram to help you figure out where on earth we've been:

(Map based on OpenStreetMap; © OpenStreetMap contributors)

So why all this shenanigans? Well, the line to Looe originally continued north to Moorswater, and the connection between Coombe Junction and Liskeard was added much later. Why? Because of the vast difference in height; between leaving Liskeard and arriving at Coombe Junction we have dropped nearly 200 feet. In order to make the gradient manageable, they had to make do with this ridiculous arrangement.

Most trains, in fact, don't bother to go all the way to Coombe Junction Halt station, reversing instead at the ground frame. We deliberately chose one of the two trains a day - both early in the morning - which go via the halt itself, to ensure we'd been on the whole line.

Once we were actually on the branch itself, we could stop worrying about where the train was going and instead focus on the wonderful scenery. The Looe branch is one of the prettiest, most beautiful lines in all of Britain; it skirts the valley of the East Looe River all the way down to the small town of Looe on the coast, where the river becomes quite wide. The river was remarkably still, even where it joined the West Looe River for the last kilometre or so out to Looe Bay.

Being a few minutes late, we barely had time to even set foot on the platform - I didn't bother in the end - before the train back. I would have liked to have some time in Looe, but we didn't have time to look round the end of every branch line. Fortunately the train back was rather less crowded, and we got good seats from which to admire the beautiful view.

Of course, on the way back we had to do the whole rigmarole of reversing and heading round the ridiculous curve all over again. Once we eventually arrived back in Liskeard, the people who were waiting for the train back to Looe - many of whom had been on our train from Plymouth and hadn't made it on the first time - had swelled in number even more, such that I doubt they'd have all fitted in two carriages.

The train left full once more, leaving more people (hopefully not the same people) to wait an hour or so for the next train. We crossed over the road - yes, there's a road between the mainline and the bay platform! - to wait for our train back to Plymouth.

1131 Liskeard to Plymouth, arr 1156
Headcode: 1A83, operated by First Great Western using HST rake LA12 with 43037+43129
Distance: 17.75 miles; walk-up price included above

This train to Paddington was fairly busy, and we couldn't find a table, so the five of us strung out to various bits of the carriage. In order to cram as many commuters from Reading into one train as possible, there are generally just two tables per carriage, with the rest of the seats being airline seats; so it didn't have to be that busy to make it difficult to find a table. At least in this instance it was just a short half-hour run back to Plymouth.

After lunch, we were headed for Gunnislake and then Newquay... but that will have to wait for part two!

Devon and Cornwall, Day 7

Friday 7th June

For our first full day of track-bashing in Cornwall, we headed west. As west as you can go in England. While there's no train to Land's End, there's a bus from Penzance. But first, we had to get to Penzance:

0921 Plymouth to Penzance, arr 1123
Headcode: 2C43, operated by First Great Western using Sprinter 150101
Distance: 79.5 miles; walk-up price: £6.20

Oh goody, two hours on a 150 with 2+3 airline seating. In other words, the carriage had five seats per row, all facing the same direction; to get to one of the window seats, you had to clamber over two other seats to get there. To be fair, the train wasn't quite full, and two carriages was about right for the number of people. (Nonetheless, I pity anyone who got on the train earlier: it started from Bristol Parkway at 0624. It's hard to imagine a worse train journey than *five* hours on one of these things.)

Train aside, the journey was lovely. The ride on the mainline through Cornwall serves to emphasise how hilly a county it manages to be; there are at least 37 viaducts between Plymouth and Penzance, averaging one every two miles or so. The line always seems to be going up or down a hill, with gradients frequently as high as 1 in 60 - except for the final couple of miles along the coast into Penzance.

Once in Penzance, we just had to cross the road to get to the bus station, to wait for the number 1A bus to Land's End. It runs every two hours or so, with a three-hour gap in the afternoon; as Ian said, "it's not quite the frequency of the Victoria line"!

1140 Penzance bus station to Land's End, arr 1234 (actual 1244)
and
1435 (actual 1447) Land's End to Penzance bus station, arr 1532 (actual 1548)
Bus number #1A, operated by First

The bus to Land's End was by far the best bus ride I've been on since at least the X99 journey to John O'Groats. Unlike that journey, which was mostly on main roads, the bus to Land's End winds through more back roads than I thought possible. Imagine narrow country lanes with barely enough room for two cars to pass; and then put double-decker buses down them...

The roads led us through rolling countryside, with various hairpin bends and 1 in 5 gradients that would have been tricky enough in a car. The bus drivers, fortunately, were experienced enough to deal with the roads; though on one occasion we did have to pass another double-decker bus at a snail's pace, carefully inching forward trying not to hit the other bus. We arrived in Land's End about ten minutes late, the timings proving a bit optimistic.

To be honest, the bus ride was more fun than Land's End itself. Unlike my earlier visit to Land's End on Monday we actually spent a couple of hours in the complex, with time for lunch and an ice cream, but once you've seen the views once there's not much else to be done. The same bus took us back on the same torturous route to Penzance; the bus was again late, and we arrived in Penzance about fifteen minutes late, giving us just enough time to get the train to St Erth:

1600 Penzance to St Erth, arr 1609
Headcode: 1A94, operated by First Great Western using HST rake OC30 (reverse formation) with 43031+43145
Distance: 5.75 miles; walk-up price: £1.65

A slightly surreal experience, this one: we boarded a train that would have, had we stayed on it for more than five hours, taken us all the way back to London Paddington; but we got off after just eight minutes after going the one stop to St Erth, junction for the St Ives branch.

1618 St Erth to St Ives, arr 1631
and
1633 St Ives to St Erth, arr 1647
Headcode: 2A35 and 2A36 resp., operated by First Great Western using Sprinter 150249+150234*
Distance: 4.25 miles each way; walk-up return: £2.65

Our first Cornish branch line was that to St Ives. The line is rather busy, not least because getting to St Ives by car is quite tricky (as we discovered on Monday): it is the only branch line to run with four-car trains for most of the day. The line gets a half-hourly service, but only just: there is just one train shuttling back and forth, with two drivers, one at each end, so that they don't have to waste time changing ends!

The journey takes just under 15 minutes each way, but it packs some beautiful scenery in in that time: out of St Erth the line heads north, along the west side of the estuary across from Hayle, before turning west to follow the coast. To follow the coast the line has to hug the cliffside above the sea, with glimpses down to beautiful beaches below. After just half an hour there and back on this beautiful branch, we were back in St Erth, waiting for the next train back towards Plymouth, as far as Truro:

1653 St Erth to Truro, arr 1722
Headcode: 2M88, operated by First Great Western using Sprinter 150216
Distance: 20 miles; walk-up price: £4.10

This was a pretty busy train, ideally timed for commuters heading home from Penzance and St Ives. The five of us spent most of the half-hour journey playing games, mainly trying to name the next station on a given line. We felt slightly sorry for the guy who happened to end up stuck in the middle of us...

1727 Truro to Falmouth Docks, arr 1751
Headcode: 2F87, operated by First Great Western using Sprinter 150126
Distance: 12.25 miles; walk-up return: £2.65

A quick five-minute connection at Truro put us on the single-track branch to Falmouth. The line isn't nearly as busy as the St Ives branch, with two trains shuttling back and forth every hour, crossing at Penryn to provide a half-hourly service.

The loop at Penryn was reinstated in 2008 thanks to some EU funding, and gave rise to a unique track arrangement. To avoid the cost of a footbridge, the loop only extends half-way down the platform: northbound trains pull into one track of the loop, with southbound trains then going around them onto the single line and stopping further down the same platform.

We arrived at the end of the line, Falmouth Docks, which is a bit less convenient for the town centre as Falmouth Town station: the town itself is located about 20 minutes walk from Docks, or about 10 minutes walk from Town. With an hourly service even late into the evening, we were in no hurry home, and looked round the very pretty town of Falmouth.

I made a point of finding the memorial to Operation Chariot (probably worth a blog on its own!). After looking round the pier, which offered great views over the harbour with its Royal Navy vessels, we headed back through and ate in a fish-and-chip restaurant. Somehow fish and chips always tastes better right at the coast; something about the salt air, perhaps... Once we'd had dinner and grabbed a few supplies in Tesco, we headed back to Falmouth Town station.

2026 Falmouth Town to Falmouth Docks, arr 2028
and
2031 Falmouth Docks to Truro, arr 2057
Headcode: 2F91 and 2T91 resp., operated by First Great Western using Sprinter 153368
Distance: 0.5 miles and 12.25 miles, resp.; walk-up return included above

We were there with time to spare, time enough to catch the train as it was on its way to Falmouth Docks rather than the way back. With flexible rover tickets, we decided to head to Docks and back if only to get good seats; this was the smaller one-carriage train on the branch. Even though we only had half an hour we managed to play some Fluxx, a mildly ridiculous card game with ever-changing rules.

2102 Truro to Plymouth, arr 2225
Headcode: 2P96, operated by First Great Western using HST rake OC38 with 43182+43151
Distance: 53.75 miles; walk-up price: £6.20

Another swift change at Truro put us on a very quiet HST back to Plymouth; for whatever reason they need to get an HST back to Plymouth for the evening, and so it runs in service (at least on Fridays). We continued playing Fluxx, with the sun by now more or less below the horizon. Once back in Plymouth, we headed back to our hotel to do it all again on Saturday.

Devon and Cornwall, Day 6

Thursday 6th June

On Thursday morning I said goodbye to my parents and headed by train up to Plymouth, where over the course of the day the five of us would descend to spend a long weekend track-bashing all the branches. My day was to largely consist of a trip to Torbay and back, including a ride on a steam train.

1056 Bodmin Parkway to Plymouth, arr 1139
Headcode: 1M49, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 220002
Distance: 26.75 miles; walk-up price: £5.30

Unfortunately the most conveniently-timed train was a CrossCountry Voyager, which I swore I'd avoid while down in the south west, but for only 45 minutes it wasn't a huge deal. After a brief delay at Saltash to wait for a train to come off the single-track Royal Albert Bridge, we arrived in Plymouth and I headed to the Travelodge, about 15 minutes away, to check in and dump my bags. Once I'd had some lunch, I headed back to the station to head east to Paignton to meet up with James and Ben.

1341 Plymouth to Newton Abbot, arr 1424
Headcode: 2A63, operated by First Great Western using Sprinter 150247
Distance: 32 miles; walk-up return: £4.15

The line between Plymouth and Newton Abbot is one of the hillest mainlines in the country, over the "Devon Banks". First comes Hemerdon Bank, a two-mile climb at 1 in 42 followed by a seven-mile slog at about 1 in 150, after which we descended Rattery Bank, with a solid three miles at an average of about 1 in 50. By Totnes we were nearly back to sea level, but between there and Newton Abbot there was Dainton Bank, necessitating a couple of miles of 1 in 37 up and a couple of miles at 1 in 36 back down again.

The majority of trains on this line are either HSTs or Voyagers, both long-distance trains with more than enough power to cope with such hills. But this was a local stopping service from Penzance extended through to Newton Abbot, formed of just a two-carriage 150, which felt rather underpowered as it struggled up the banks. To be honest, though, this gave a much more interesting ride: modern trains make it seem too easy.

I arrived at Newton Abbot about five minutes ahead of James and Ben, who were on a train down from London Paddington. They hadn't had lunch, and we had plenty of time, so we headed into Newton Abbot for some food, before coming back to get the train down the branch to Paignton:

1531 Newton Abbot to Paignton, arr 1551
Headcode: 2T20, operated by First Great Western using Pacer 143621+143617*
Distance: 8.25 miles; walk-up return: £2.65

Although I'd been to Paignton before just a few months previously (more in another blogpost), we were headed to Paignton to go on the Dartmouth Steam Railway. Our four-car Pacer down the branch was a few minutes late, having been held up somewhere on the Exmouth branch; we made it into Paignton just four-and-a-half minutes late, under the magic five-minute threshold for our train to be counted as late.

Once at Paignton, we crossed over the road by the level crossing to get to the adjacent Queen's Park station for the Dartmouth Steam Railway (DSR), which in spite of its name only goes to Kingswear: if you want to get to Dartmouth you have to get a ferry across the river Dart from Kingswear.

1615 Paignton Queen's Park to Kingswear for Dartmouth, arr 1645
and
1700 Kingswear for Dartmouth to Paignton Queen's Park, arr 1730
Operated by Paignton & Dartmouth Steam Railway, seven coaches hauled by 5239 'Goliath'
Distance: 6.75 miles each way; walk-up return: £11.00

The DSR is unusual in being a heritage railway line that doesn't rely on volunteers: it is popular enough and has been around long enough to successfully run on a commercial basis. A return costs £11, in a similar ballpark to most heritage lines. The half-hour journey starts on the eastern coast, but then heads over a hill to meet the mouth of the River Dart to the west; both sides give good views out over the water.

The train was hauled by a GWR tank engine, 'Goliath', dating from 1923 and originally designed for short-haul trips to and from the coalfields of South Wales. The seven coaches it hauled were a motley crew: on the way to Kingswear we travelled in Mark 1 compartment stock. On the way back, we chose to forgo the Mark 1 open coaches with 2+2 seating and tables, and instead we found our way into one of the GWR suburban coaches with 2+3 seating, dating from before the war and thus even older than the BR Mark 1s.

It wasn't quite as long and exciting a run as some of the other heritage lines I've been on, but the views more than made up for that, and the warm sunshine made the whole thing feel like a real day out. When you spend a lot of your leisure time on trains, you can become a bit blasé about them; when you're on a steam train by the Torbay coast, it's a whole different kettle of fish.

To be honest I wish we'd had time to head to Dartmouth and back on the ferry, but we were only able to get there in time for the last train of the day to Kingswear, and thus had to come straight back to avoid being stranded. Once we got back to Paignton we had time to look round the shop before heading back to the mainline station:

1753 Paignton to Newton Abbot, arr 1809
Headcode: 2F51, operated by First Great Western using Sprinter 150104
Distance: 8.25 miles; walk-up price included above

A short 15-minute run back up the branch to Newton Abbot ensued, with the train reasonably busy but not packed. The branch to Paignton is quite nice, though not in the same league as some of the Cornish branches we would see later in the weekend. It's rare, though, in being double-track throughout, such is the service frequency required - the branch usually sees a half-hourly stopping service to Exeter, with a handful of long-distance trains to London and Manchester each day.

At Newton Abbot, we had an optimistic three-minute connection onto a southbound CrossCountry service. We needn't have worried: the train we were connecting into was the 0900 Glasgow Central to Penzance, and had ample opportunity to be delayed en route; on this occasion it got stuck behind a stopping train from Bristol to Weston-super-Mare, and left Taunton 17 minutes late. By the time we got it at Newton Abbot, though, it was just seven minutes late:

1812 (actual 1819) Newton Abbot to Plymouth, arr 1850 (actual 1856)
Headcode: 1V58, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 221132
Distance: 32 miles; walk-up price included above

On board our last train of the day, we met up with the other James, who had come down from Liverpool. Unlike my Sprinter earlier in the day, the Voyager made mincemeat of the Devon banks and we were back in Plymouth in no time. (Incidentally, the train had a booked 12-minute stand at Plymouth, and was thus on time once it left Plymouth.)

Once we got to Plymouth, the others checked into the hotel before we went for dinner in Pizza Express. After dinner we headed back to the station to meet our final companion, Ian, off an evening peak train from London Paddington, before heading back to the hotel ready for the Cornish branch lines on Friday.

Devon and Cornwall, Days 2-5

Sunday 2nd June

Over the next four days in Cornwall, we packed in a lot of sightseeing, together with various family occasions. Sunday revolved around a barbecue at my aunt and uncle's house, involving probably the biggest reunion of my mum's side of the family in at least a decade. I hadn't seen two of my cousins since about 1995; in some sense it was almost like we'd never met, but equally there was an instant family tie, with none of the awkwardness that sometimes comes with meeting new friends.

My aunt and uncle's house is set on the edge of a village in beautiful countryside. We'd picked the right week to come to Cornwall: not two days before I left, it was cold and miserable, but by Sunday afternoon it was hot and sunny, feeling genuinely like summer for the first time. We sat outside in the sun enjoying our hot dogs and our steaks (to say nothing of the wide variety of salads and side dishes laid on), soaking up the sun.

After a lovely afternoon spent reminiscing and swapping stories, rounded off with a walk down to the river just down from their house, we headed back to the hotel, stuffed full of food. Rather than go out for dinner, we eventually headed out for a picnic, making our own sandwiches and eating them in the car on the beautiful beach at Polzeath, just north of Padstow, on the north coast, before taking a walk out to the edge of the Atlantic.

Monday 3rd June

The next day my parents and I left my aunt and uncle and headed west, to the very edges of England. While Land's End is the more popular, it is only the westernmost point in England, not Britain (Ardnamurchan, in Scotland, is further west). On the other hand, the Lizard Point is the southernmost point in Britain, but is much less of a tourist trap.

We headed first to the Lizard, over an hour's drive west even from Bodmin. (Even Cornwall itself is big!) The Lizard is a beautiful peninsula: the land is covered in beautiful fields, while the coastline is rugged but well-worn, with easy access to the coastal paths. After a nice walk over to the next headland, we headed back into the village of Lizard for some lunch.

After a brief stop at Kynance Cove - a beautiful bay just north of the Lizard - we headed to Marazion, just east of Penzance and home of St Michael's Mount, a natural island just a few hundred metres off the coast which has acted as a natural fortification for nearly a millennium.

While we made it to the island, unfortunately by the time we got to the castle it was too late in the afternoon and we couldn't take a look around the inside. At low tide, one can walk across the causeway to the island; but when we got there the tide was well in, and so a little motorboat shuttled us to and from the island.

With the afternoon gone, but plenty of time before dinner, we headed to Land's End. While much more touristy, and geographically less relevant, it's easy to see why Land's End is so much more popular than the Lizard: the whole country seems to narrow about you as you drive west on the A30, until at last you arrive at the end of England, surrounded by nearly 270 degrees of sea.

Surrounding the point itself is a sprawling tourist complex, with multiple cafes and gift shops. But arriving as we did at 6pm it was mercifully quiet, with just a few visitors and none of the tourist hubbub. The one disadvantage was that the toilets were locked, but otherwise we got to look into the Atlantic on all sides in peace.

We had dinner in St Ives, about half an hour's drive from Land's End, in a lovely fish restaurant with a view over the old harbour. Our meal was delayed by a hold-up in the kitchen, but this meant that we exited the restaurant just as the sun was crossing the horizon in a fabulous orange sunset. The fading sunlight persisted, with a few faint rays staving off darkness for the whole hour-long drive home.

Tuesday 4th June

On Tuesday, blessed with even better weather than the previous couple of days, we headed to the north coast, to Tintagel Castle. Located on a rocky peninsula jutting into the sea, and making a perfect natural fortification, Tintagel Castle may have been used as early as the third century AD; but the first definite evidence points to a fortress in early medieval times. Legend has it that King Arthur himself was conceived here.

The castle itself is a nearly impregnable fortress perched right on the coast, with just one wooden bridge linking it to the mainland. After climbing up a staircase carved out of the stone, you find yourself on top of the main rock of the island, and wandering around you get superb views out to the sea and to the cliffs on the coastline.

The ruined buildings of the castle make for an interesting sight (and site!), with remnants of a great hall, a well, a chapel, and a tunnel possibly used for storing food. The island is surrounded by cliffs, in one of which lies Merlin's Cave. The whole thing takes the better part of two hours to fully explore, and is remarkably interesting, made all the nicer by the lovely sunny day.

After a very nice lunch in the visitors centre at the Castle, we headed back up the steep hill (which hadn't seemed half as bad on the way down!) to the village of Tintagel itself. We then paid a visit to the Old Post Office, a beautifully-preserved fourteenth-century stone house now in the hands of the National Trust, before relaxing in the sun with a nice scone.

In the evening, after a brief rest in the hotel, we headed to Padstow for dinner. Padstow, a pretty fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, is sometimes referred to as Padstein - a tongue-in-cheek reference to the number of eating establishments in the town run by Rick Stein. We managed to avoid them all, however, and had a very nice Italian meal in a restaurant overlooking the harbour.

Wednesday 5th June

Wednesday was the last full day of family - my parents and my aunt and uncle were headed home on Thursday. We were thus headed for one last family lunch in Fowey. Beforehand, though, we paid a flying visit to Wave 7 Gallery, run by my cousin in rural Cornwall just a few miles north of where we were staying. The gallery is filled with paintings, pottery, prints and assorted knick-knacks, and my mum couldn't resist the urge to buy a couple of things.

A quick drive over to the south coast brought us to Fowey Hall, a lavish country house hotel where my Cornish aunt and uncle treated the rest of us to a fabulous three-course meal, all the while swapping stories aplenty. After a long, lingering lunch, we left my Cornish aunt and uncle, and the five of us headed for a drive around the coast to Mevagissey, where we stopped to look round the little fishing village.

After that we headed for the nearby Dormer Point, or more accurately to the car park where you can walk to the point. Navigating there proved to be a challenge: we dispensed with the satnav and I used a proper old-fashioned Landranger to guide us to the car park, which was down a seemingly interminable series of lanes. Once there, we went for a short walk; while we didn't bother going all the way to the point we still got some lovely views round the coast; my dad, ever eager, continued on to the point proper at his usual brisk pace, and by the time the rest of us had dandered back to the car he had practically caught us up.

Having had such a big lunch we decided a picnic tea would suffice, so we grabbed some sandwiches and, once back at our hotel, sat outside in the fading sunlight to enjoy one last picnic as a family.

Devon and Cornwall, Day 1

It's too easy to think that Britain is a long, thin country, with plenty of north and south but not much east and west, a view that's particularly easy to slip into living in Coventry, pretty much bang in the middle of England. In reality, though, the eastern and western extremities of England are in fact quite far away. In particular, it's pretty much impossible to make a day trip out of going to Devon and Cornwall. So I didn't: I went for a week in June.

A nine-day holiday to Cornwall was divided into two parts. I travelled down on Saturday 1st June, to spend five nights in a quiet country hotel near Bodmin with my parents and my aunt and uncle. They had travelled over from Northern Ireland to visit my other aunt and uncle, who live near Bodmin. For all I've seen of my aunt and uncle in Cornwall, it's as if they're on another island; I really should get down more often.

But from Thursday 6th June, the focus shifted; I headed back over the Tamar to Plymouth, to meet up with the guys and go track-bashing. Once you get west of Exeter, there is but a single main line to Penzance, with no fewer than nine branches, all but one reaching to the coast. Over the course of four days, we went over all but one of those branches; it's not quick, given that you have to go down each branch and come back up again, but the scenery and the locations made for an unforgettable week in the south west.

Saturday 1st June

1125 (actual 1129) Coventry to Reading, arr 1239 (actual 1246)
Headcode: 1O12, operated by CrossCountry using Voyager 221127*+221122
Distance: 79.75 miles

The first step was to get to Cornwall. This would take five and a half hours. I'd forgotten just how much west there is to this country.

I had two options: I could go via Birmingham, necessitating another change at Plymouth, and condemning me to make more or less the whole journey on CrossCountry; or I could go via Reading, changing just the once, and using First Great Western (FGW) the whole way from Reading to Bodmin. I opted for the latter, mainly because I'm fed up using CrossCountry, not least because their trains are too short; by comparison I don't use FGW very much and looked forward to something a bit different.

So I started with the familiar hour-and-a-half run to Reading. It being CrossCountry it wasn't even a surprise that it was a few minutes late. It was, however, a surprise to have a 10-car train turn up, two 5-car Voyagers having been coupled together. This turned what would otherwise have been quite a busy train into a pleasantly quiet one, with plenty of space for everyone to spread out. I found a seat in the quiet coach on the unreserved half of the train and settled down.

During the journey, though, it became apparent that the longer train was a definite advantage: it ended up being quite busy, and just by having to stop a bit longer at each station we crept later and later. We arrived at the newly-rebuilt Reading station seven minutes late, giving me 45 minutes until my train to Cornwall. I picked up a couple of things in the shops before heading over to platform 8:

1332 Reading to Bodmin Parkway, arr 1703
Headcode: 1C84, operated by First Great Western using HST rake LA16 with 43069+43041
Distance: 216.5 miles

With a three-and-a-half hour journey to Bodmin ahead of me, I took advantage of one of the best features of an FGW HST: first class. While on weekdays the first class carriages may be filled with rich commuters, on weekends they'd just cart about fresh air. So FGW, in common with most long-distance operators, offer cheap upgrades to first class at weekends, which also serves to ease the shortage of capacity in standard class.

With such a long journey ahead, I decided £20 for a Weekend First was worth it for the wide, comfortable seat, with an individual table, an unobstructed window view, and a few snacks thrown in for free. Once the conductor had upgraded my ticket, about half an hour into the journey, I reclined my seat, ate my lunch, and relaxed as the countryside streaked past.

Exeter marked the half-way point by journey time, though we'd covered nearly two thirds of the distance from Reading to Bodmin. East of Exeter, the train was very much an express service, calling at just Taunton and Tiverton, and cruising at 110mph for much of the journey. By contrast, west of Exeter, the train weaved its way through the countryside, first along the sea wall at Dawlish, before climbing over central Devon (south of Dartmoor) to Plymouth, and then weaving its way sinuously through Cornwall.

While the journey west of Exeter thus seemed slower, it was all the more worth it for the views. The countryside of Berkshire, Wiltshire and Somerset is all well and good. But it can't compare to the Dawlish Sea Wall, where the railway between Exeter and Newton Abbot is the sea wall, built on land reclaimed from the sea; nor to the pretty Devon hills, climbed with gradients of 1 in 40, looking towards Dartmoor; nor to the second-to-none Royal Albert Bridge over the River Tamar, where we cross from Devon into Cornwall; nor to the innumerable viaducts and bridges carrying us through the ups and downs of Cornwall itself.

After three-and-a-half hours I arrived in Bodmin Parkway station, greeted by my dad, who drove me to the hotel. In spite of the first class seat, my back was aching a little from the long journey; no doubt it would have been worse, though, if I'd been forced to endure the same journey in standard class.

A relaxing evening ensued, with dinner in a nearby pub, followed by an early night, ready for a big family reunion on Sunday.