What a lovely, very thoughtful and interesting film, well presented and filmed. It's good to know, in hindsight, that the Okehampton line has been re-opened to passengers after all that time.
It is sad to see the closures of the old railway lines. I really liked “Beechings Folly” but Beeching was not the only culprit in the folly, Ernest Marples, the government’s Minister of Transport at that time and as a co-founder of Marples Ridgway, with substantial in road building contracts, would be in breach of conflicts of interest. The old film footage is fascinating, for if a picture is worth a thousand words then a contemporary film/video is historically priceless. Thank you for making it available. Best wishes from Oxfordshire where Abingdon (-on-Thames) lost its branch line passenger service in 1963, but open to goods and the last passenger excursion on 30 June 1984.
What a great video. Even now things have moved on . With passenger trains returning to Okhampton. And the failure of HS2 hopefully paying to open the line back to Tavistock. The pace of life back then was a lot slower. 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Closing the Tavistock North station was very short sighted and to hear it being mentioned that attempts were being made to open it when this documentary was filmed makes me laugh as we seem no closer in 2024!
The station at Okehampton is high above the town, with a steep hill to climb in order to access it. The British Army's 'Southern Command Battle Camp' was even further up the hill . . .
The driver of the last passenger train was Den Burrage. He is briefly seen standing beside the Mayor of Okehampton in the 4 foot at Okehampton. Sadly he was killed in a shunting accident in Exeter Riverside in the early 1990s. The guard who is briefly seen prior to departure from Exeter I have not been able to identify Perhaps somebody will know.
As others have said, it's great news that common sense has prevailed and trains are once more running to Okehampton. I wonder if we'll ever see the line reopened to Bere Alston, I think it's only around 23 miles from Okehampton. It's now over 10 years since the GWR route was washed away by a huge storm at Dawlish, which caused Cornwall and much of west Devon to be cut off by rail for eight weeks or so. I should have thought this would have underlined the importance of an alternative route, of which the obvious choice is via Okehampton and Tavistock.
Images, but no mention, of tunnels under Devonport. From the back of my flat in 1987, I could see the demolition of St.Levans viaduct. It had been plagued by acts of vandalism apparently.
Privatisation didn’t bring the possibility of steam trains running up the Tamar valley. Instead 30+ years on class 150s in GwR colours are still running services to Gunnislake. “Tentative plans“ to reopen the line to Tavistock are still “tentative”, with 2029 the earliest possible date for reopening.
@@EllieMaes-Grandadwhere there’s a will there’s a way HS2 beats on. Simple, compulsory purchase orders will sort all that nonsense if theirs a will?? & especially if the Parliamentary railway land order hasn’t been revoked either?? Always very foolish to build on ex railway land that’s liable to return & bite you. Even west Devon council acknowledged that things might have to change at Tavy north when they built their edifice there.
