Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

Great works, chaps! I wish I could get down to lend a hand

 

Last year I had a good look at the Barnstaple end of the line and I'm sure the railway will end up only going back as far as Pilton.
It would be quite a challenge to get back to the original station but not impossible if the will was there. The road layout would seriously need addressing and by the looks of it needs to already.
Although a development is on the platform area, behind it in theory one could simply have the platform on the opposite side of where the once double tracks were.
The car parking area is of course in just the right place and apparently the big Police Station is coming down so it will be a bit of a lost opportunity there.
I did find the remains of the buffer stop in the undergrowth.

 

The present L&BRT long-term plan is to return to a new Terminus at Pilton. The North Devon Local Plan protects the L&B route from any development only as far as Pilton.

Whilst nothing is impossible, and a tramway for occasional use could perhaps be developed - albeit at considerable cost and very little benefit - as at Portmadoc on the FR/WHR, I would say any extension beyond Pilton is very unlikely.

In the meantime, we have plenty to do before we reach even the outskirts of Barnstaple.

I too took photos of the stop-block hidden in the undergrowth, but that was back in the early 90s!

 

That sounds sensible, unless the Ilfracombe line is reinstated - in which case the case for going back to the Town station becomes much, much, stronger. Stranger things have happened, after all.

 

Porthmadog, please

 

Unless something significant changes in Barnstaple by the time this becomes a consideration, I think the railway would be playing with fire given the traffic at Pilton.


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There are old people's apartments built where the town station was, the old civic centre and the police station are on the monkey island area and the old goulds yard warehouse has just been turned into apartments which extend over the old trackbed if you get a jumper on the new bridge this area of the town is instantly gridlocked. in my opinion even Pilton yard as a station would be pretty compact, from what I can see on aerial photos the inner relief road now takes up part of the old formation making the run out of Pilton pretty tight for a decent length platform and run around loop

 

Want to be directly involved with this project?

The Lynton & Barnstaple Railway at Woody Bay Station requires a Full-Time Commercial Manager. Will suit someone looking for an interesting and varied occupation. Email CV and covering letter to recruitment@lynton-rail.co.uk

Feel free to share.

 

Just thought I'd share this lovely view of Snapper in the recent snows:
http://www.exmoor-associates.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2018-03-news-05.jpg

More here:
http://www.exmoor-associates.co.uk/2018/03/news-report-march-2018/

Enjoy!

 

Great pic. Bench ex-WSR, and before that ex-Barnstaple area. Now brought back to (SR) life by the good folks at Chelfham. A priviledge to have helped in a small way.

Worth laying some cosmetic track through the platform?

Robin

 

Not if the track is only on land owned by the railway, and is not actually used. I gather that Exmoor Associates may do this one day.

 

I can’t see that cosmetic tracklaying would. IMHO Exmoor Associates and the Railway in general are doing a fine, careful job and I appreciate might not want to set ‘hares’ running. But it is a lovely location, well worth a visit if you are in the area, albeit that it requires some careful parking.

It is interesting to visit the ‘sites’ along the whole L&B which I have done with a few visitors to Station House. Perhaps an occasional coach tour would be a fundraiser / interest raiser for the Railway? A couple of times a year?

Robin

 

I was looking at this post and had the leftfield thought that the L&B could potentially extend along the Ilfracombe line. As mentioned, stranger things can happen. Given the comments about traffic above, I've no idea what the problems might be.

 

We have to leave something for the preservationists of the 22nd century to do!

Robin

 

Looking at the map, if you are proposing to go to Pilton, you wouldn't need to cross the river here. Great picture though!

 

That "something" is to get satisfaction from renovating something which has already been restored once but has worn itself out again.

PH

 

Hasn't that already started?

 

You wouldn't, but a brief walk from Pilton to Barnstaple Town would illustrate in a way that a map can't quite how disruptive that last 3/4 mile would be. That is without considering the issues associated with reopening a railway on what has become the Tarka Trail, with the Ilfracombe branch itself (the location and use of Ilfracombe station, absorption of trackbed by homeowners in Braunton, the damage done by the abortive preservation scheme 40 years ago), or trying to run what would be a 40 mile railway.