Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

That link still shows the new sections (19 & 21) as being privately owned, but a new version should be online shortly. As of March 2023, of the 15.43 km (9.58 miles) between Pilton and Wistlandpound, 4.87 km / 3.02 mi (31.6%) is owned by Exmoor Associates, 0.98 km / 0.60 mi (6.37%) by the L&B CIC, 1.24 km / 0.77 mi (18.05%) by statutory authorities. The remaining 8.33 km / 5.17 mi (53.98%) is privately owned.

 

The amount of trackbed owned between Barnstaple and Chelfham is really impressive. Does strike me though that there is one particular section between Chelfham and Bratton Fleming that I cannot for a second imagine the owner would sell - unless they were a train fan!

 

Hello,

Am I correct in thinking there is a section of the trackbed that is owned privately but the landowner has relaid track on it?

I'm sure I saw some pictures a few years ago of a section relaid through a really wet cutting?

Chris

 

Section 32

 

Progress with Yeo and Exe from about 5 minutes into the latest F&WHR Moving Pictures video -

 

I believe you are thinking of the section immediately North of Bratton Fleming Station (section 32 in this link: https://www.exmoor-associates.co.uk/ownership/ ) I believe the track has since been lifted.

 

There was a youtube video some years back which was taken without permission from the landowner - it no longer esists. As someone has already said it is section 32 which is owned by the L and B Trust.

 

Just for clarification, I believe "Section 32" is just a number allocated by Exmoor Associates on their sectional ownership maps ( see https://www.exmoor-associates.co.uk/ownership/ ) - it may mean nothing outside of that context.

 

Hearty congratualtions to Mike and EA for this latest success in acquring more trackbed. Excellent stuff!

 

Good the unauthorised video has finally been removed, but there is still an authorised BBC filmed clip of the former private track 18mins in

 

The track was 7.25" gauge at this time. There was a very steep hand-hauled "branch line" leading up the embankment towards the roadside at Button Road Bridge. The track was later relaid to a more authentic 2ft.

 

Martyn, what is this new "The Greater Lynton & Barnstaple Railway Project" you are projecting ??

 

Chris,
Since you asked, it's not new - it's been around since I first learned of it in the 1980s, if not before. It's the dream - slowly becoming reality - of reinstating the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway between, er, Lynton and Barnstaple - as currently being enabled by numerous local authorities, companies, charities, groups, and individuals working towards a common purpose...

 

It ought to be mentioned (in the interests of accuracy) that one was killed and the other was badly injured and died of his injuries in the North Devon Infirmary a week later. And there had been another fatality previously in 1910 when a platelayer operating the Braunton Road crossing gates in the dark early one morning was struck by one of the gates which the engine had hit and was killed because he was late opening them (for whatever reason). Unfortunately the employee working for the signalling maintenance contractors had removed parts of the locking mechanism from the gates and not told the General Manager who would have been aware that it rendered the locking lever in Pilton signal box ineffectual and as a result the signalman pulling the signals off. Of course there were several injuries during construction 1896-8, often due to earth falling on workmen in cuttings or due to being injured through accidents with contractors' wagons; many of them would not have been recorded, but I have found 2 fatalities - one in August 1897 after a landslip, and another in December when a workman was crushed between wagons. As far as is known no passenger was ever killed on the line.

 

Talking of videos on youtube, the two programmes made by the BBC in Bristol in 1987 called 'Little Train to Lynton'. now on there, will not have received permission to be put on there by the BBC. The BBC has never issued them on video, if for no other reason than the fact that film used was copyright (and maybe still is). I know this because I was involved in arranging the use of some of it along with newspaper cuttings and historical photographs. (and hence the credit to me at the end of Part 1) So, much as people would like to see old L & B footage or invade other people's private property for their own interests, some are lacking morals. The same appears to have happened with LT Catchpole's films included on a video issued by the Oakwood Press. I am reminded of the owner of Coach No 2 (now at the NRM) finding people in the garden of his house. Would they have been annoyed if that had happened at their own home ?

 

thanks for pointing that out Michael, i forgot about that poor chap at the crossing

 

If there had been a problem with 'Little Train to Lynton' it would have been removed. From
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6411017.stm
"Some media firms, most prominently Viacom, have recently demanded that YouTube removes tens of thousands of clips from the site that they own the copyright for.
Mr Highfield said the BBC would not be hunting down all BBC-copyrighted clips already uploaded by YouTube members - although it would reserve the right for example to swap poor quality clips with the real thing, or to have content removed that infringed other people's copyright, like sport, or that had been edited or altered in a way that would damage the BBC's brand."

When the Bratton Fleming station was brought
https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2020/1...inally-in-the-hands-of-exmoor-associates.html
“As the station is going to be someone’s home, we would ask that their privacy is respected; however, they have agreed that all Friends of Bratton will be invited to open-days at the station (once this COVID crisis is hopefully a thing of the past) when they will be able to visit and inspect what they have helped to buy.”
Guess the same applies to the adjacent "section 32" to the north of the station. There have been L and B work parties to tidy it up, https://www.lynton-rail.org.uk/story/march-2017-spring-working-weekend-day-1
but the privacy of the owner is also to be respected. In the 'Little Train to Lynton' part2 it was mentioned the running of his little train is purely private.

 

And, if it counts as a railway related accident, a chap hung himself inside the carriage shed in the 20s. The late Fred Kidwell, recalled in the 90s with some emotion, opening up the shed doors one morning and finding him. Not something you are liable to forget. And Fred had a splendid turn of phrase and with his Devon accent, a fascinating tape recording.

 

If we're counting that then we probably should count the post-closure suicide of the ex-station master at Bratton - also by hanging IIRC? As with all these things I'm sure there was more to it, but it was certainly written up as a broken heart after the end of the railway.

 

You are probably right - he apparently visited the station after he retired in 1931. And there is a photograph of him on the platform afterwards, and again with the station record books when the last train went through. I asked the niece of the man killed in the 1913 accident, then her nineties about him, and she thought that his second marriage to a lady after his first wife died who served as Station Attendant after he retired was not very happy.