Dartmouth Steam Railway - Paignton to Kingswear Train Review 

it is,get down here.....!

Morning it’s Alex from the social media team. Thank you for your kind words and we hope to welcome / re welcome you to the steam railway soon!

Oh wow, sounds great! 😁

Indeed and we were on it, fantastic trip, highly recommended. Started from Peterborough, we joined at Finsbury Park, and the tickets included ferry to Dartmouth where we had about three hours or so.

Thats a cool fact

@John Keepin . Good morning ! Whilst you may know about other steam railways this is not the case with ours. We do still operate this toilets but due to COVID-19 we have taken the precautionary measure to temporarily close the toilets on all our services. Thank you , Alex - social media team

Sounds fun!

Hi it’s Alex from the social media team. Thank you for your kind words !

me too

Thank you Derisley!

i.k.brunel was so confident that he would be allowed to run the railway to dartmouth,he built the station ready for it!

Morning, it’s Alex from the social media team, we hope you enjoyed your trip with us.

Mk 1 stock has a belt driven dynamo and batteries under each vehicle but there are electrical connectors between the coaches in case one fails. The original Mark 1 stock had Saturn-style ceiling fittings plus reading lights over the windows which you can see in the videos. It is a low voltage system. Should work efficiently with LEDs.

Interesting - that's quite a good idea too!

@@SuperalbsTravels One of the advantages of heritage line having national network connection.

It's great that the railway is used as a real means of transport rather than just being a museum.

That's because it's an extension of that route! :)

Good morning . Glad you enjoyed your experience! Alex from the social media team

@@charleskd09Hi What is the railway doing about the closed stations at Goodrington & Churchston? Churchton is looking dilapidated and bits falling from the overbridge from recent pictures. Are they being demolished or are you going to do the decent thing and re open for passenger use? No other heritage/tourist line had done this as Covid had by and large ended.

@@alantraish3368 Good afternoon, Your comment has been escalated to myself. We can confirm that trains haven't called at Goodrington Sands, Churston or Greenway since 2019. We also inform you that these stations are now closed for at least this and next season. If you have any further questions, please do enquire to me on this thread, Reagrds, Charles Paignton Station Master & General Manager

@@charleskd09 With all due respect this isnt saying why they are now permanently closed. What about the locals at the beach or at Churchton? It doesnt look good for the railway does it? Again I ask are going to demolish all the infrastructure at these stations to save on maintenance? Is it just a cost cutting exercise? Business model perhaps?

Hello @@alantraish3368 During the pandemic due to social distancing we had to run a more frequent service so we could carry as many passengers as possible, in order to do this we had to remove the station stops at Goodrington and Churston. We have continued this practice for reasons I have discussed below: The vast majority of our passengers travel between Paignton and Dartmouth and then onto a boat trip on the river Dart, very few passengers got on/off at the intermediate stations. In previous years we had no prior knowledge of how many people would be getting on the trains at these stations so always had to leave space vacant on the trains just in case people got on, this could mean leaving a rather large queue of people at Paignton who are prepared to pay a full fare compared to those at Goodrington & Churston. Currently we are able to provide a much more frequent service between Paignton and Kingswear, offer allocated seating which makes the passenger experience better as there no need for passengers to pile onto the train to find seats for those they are travelling with, and not stopping allows for better coal consumption and less wear and tear on the locomotives. Because of this we are in a much better financial place then we were only a few years ago and are now able to invest in more locomotives & rolling stock to keep the railway going which is the main aim of the business. The stations are not closed indefinitely but are assessed on a year on year bases and maintenance is carried out to keep the stations in usable condition. We have a small volunteer group at Churston who do a good job to keep the station looking presentable. Any further questions please let me know. Kind Regards Jack Gibson MSc Railway Operations Manager

Thanks for the background, the loco sure has a different life now. 😃

Hi @Jack Taylor thank you so much for your kind words from Alex @the social media team

They don't still insist on all this "covid" nonsense do they? Well I won't be visiting them then. I'm thoroughly fed up with being nannied

@@AndreiTupolev I haven't been on either but I know they have Perspex screens and stuff still up. I completely agree with you I hate being treated like a child and not allowed to make my own decisions.

@@AndreiTupolev would you still visit if you had a bad flu? or, are you just another hate bot?

@@devon896 no one is treating you like a child! it's actually about respecting other people.....especially the vulnerable what happened to that? would you go visit gran with a bad flu?

@@patrickj8984 I don't understand what you're saying. Hate bot? No of course anyone wouldn't visit if they were feeling ill would they. That's the whole point. They've hardly found ANY instances of infection being spread by people who aren't obviously sick

Good morning @frglee . It’s Alex from the social media team. The gift shop was highly requested back in 2013 so was introduced at the start of the 2014 season.

only the females, when they are on heat!!!