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.