Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

Didn't we do well But of course, the basic trackbed and track were still there.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but were not both the trackbeds of the WSR and the WHR in the possession of one owner at each of the locations?

 

Certainly the WSR was all owned by BR and sold to the county council who leased the operational area to the new WSR PLC. So yes, it was acquired in one batch.
The WHR has a far more complicated history, which I won't pretend to understand but took years to resolve.
Ian

 

Like @ikcdab, I'm not familiar with the detailed history of the WHR's landholdings. However, I do recall discussions on the subject of neighbours occupying the railway's land, and of significant legal work to ensure that the railway could actually rebuild.

 

Each of those have actually built railways though...

 

Here is a bit of bedtime reading

 

Scan reading the Wiki link above it seems most of the WHR trackbed was held by a company in the process of being wound up and it got extremely complex. But it still meant once resolved the trackbed was in its entirety, something we cannot do so easily.

As has been said many times before by so many, the situation at WHR is completely different to the L&B's.

 

Because there was no money the WHR Receiver never applied for an abandonment order and as a result didnt sell any of the land.

When the WHR Company was bought by the FR they bought what in legal terms was still an operational railway, that allowed them to remove any squatters and reinstate the line. No need fot a TWAO, LRO etc

The L&B by comparison was formally abandoned and the trackbed sold off in pieces

 

Very different, yet also similar - an awful lot of work to be done before rebuilding could commence, with very little concrete evidence of progress at first and a hell of a lot riding on the success of a planning inspector whose conclusion was far from certain.

 

Something else to consider which I have just been looking at both the WHR and the Seven Valley Railway and that is the amount of PW wagons and rolling stock, I am not sure what the current total is but I think it is around 12 wagons, I am not sure if we have a ballast wagon from South Africa or not, but this is something else we need to put together so that rail, ballast and sleepers can all be moved at once.

It may well pay to build four new Howard size chassis for this type of work so 1 could become a ballast hopper wagon, a second could become a rail carrier, a third could become an open sleeper carrier and the last could become a Howard van and used to carry all the other odds and ends of PW equipment.

 

Also having a wealthy backer also helped.

 

Sorry, but that is completely wrong. The FR tried to reactivate the existing WHR Company as an extant railway by obtaining some of the shares, but this was thrown out at the first public enquiry. The complicated route to aquire the trackbed using a Transfer Order obtained on 14th March 1995 is detailed in Gordon Rushton's book Welsh Highland Renaissance. The Dinas-Porthmadog section was subject to a TWAO, which was obtained on 21st June 1999 after a second public enquiry. Most of the "squatters" were removed by negotiation and mitigation without resorting to the compulsory powers obtained.
The Caernarfon-Dinas section, which was separate to the WHR trackbed proper, was constructed under an LRO obtained on 9th October 1997. I think this was the last LRO to be obtained before TWAO's came in.

However, the L & B situation is radically different to the WHR as others have said. The one lesson to be learned from the FR's reconstruction though, is that a clear plan, strong leadership, widespread support and finance (through donations, fundraising and grants) are needed to mitigate or overcome objections and get the job done.

 

Making some reasonable assumptions, @62440 , notably:

- ENPA Planning Permission will have Grampian Conditions at least about opening, if not about the whole project - it would be reasonable to allow two years for this;
- CP powers will be required to purchase the Grob's land - they've been very clear, and thankfully this isn't Communist China - and this will require a Public Inquiry which will take around three years;
- The agreement for Devon Highways to accept Bridge 65 and maintain expires in 2024/25 (I don't know the exact date);
- At least some of the trackbed south of Blackmoor Gate will revert to the previous owner if we don't use it in the 2024/25 time period (again, I don't know the exact date);

On this basis:
- Applying to build Bridge 65 this year so that we can get it built next year is step one. Completion: 2024/25

- Purchase all remaining land that can be negotiated in the Bridge 65 - Blackmoor Gate section. Completion: asap.

- Laying track from Blackmoor Gate (OSHI) to Wistlapound Halt to full specification but for railcar operation. Completetion 2024/25

- When available, extend the line from Wistlapound to Bratton Fleming. Timing unclear, but ideally 2027/28? This would shift the centre of gravity and operations to the south whilst running the railcar operation at Woody Bay-Killington Lane, and would need a works being built at either Rowley Farm as previously planned, or possibly outside the National Park near OSHI (planning could be easier, and you wouldn't need to build the tunnel under the road until you linked the railways up.)

- Launch planning permission for Bridge 65 to Blackmoor Gate after a sustained engagement with Parracombe residents: late 2024/early 2025. This means a decision is 2026/2027. This is explicitly to link the two railways (meaning that there would never be the risk of opening to Parracombe alone).

- On the day the Planning Permission is granted if all of the land is not owned, file TWAO to obtain CP powers. This would also involved resetting the planning permission expiry. date. Assuming this was lodged in 2027, a decision after a Public Inquiry will be 2030/31.

- Reconstruct Bridge 65 to Blackmoor Gate and link the two railways which then becomes Woody Bay - Bratton Fleming for the centenary of closure in 2035.

Just my £0.02.

 

SAR ballast wagons? we have two: https://www.lynton-rail.org.uk/story/south-african-wagons-arrival-20th-august

 

Toby, I think you will require more than 2p (or even 2d) to achieve this mammoth undertaking... But seriously...

 

Toby (@Tobbes) has clearly stated (above) that Bridge 65 must be started as soon as possible (money and Trustees willing) to enable Devon Highways to accept it and that work must be started south of Blackmoor to prevent its ownership lapsing. This is obviously very important and the Trustees have to accept this and the need for rapid action. Their associated Plan C to reach Cricket Field Lane is an unnecessary distraction: only Bridge 65 is essential. (Aside to self: Could the Trustees really be so dilatory and unaware as to let the deadline expire?)

Toby's staged plan, to my mind, plots a careful way ahead, though I do not see any particular need to run a regular service between Blackmoor and Wistlandpound, particularly if it requires purpose-built coaches and motive power which would later be of no use. Perhaps a high-season public holiday period with Pilton or Axe and two coaches (perhaps new builds required for the future) to keep everyone happy and provide entertainment for the young and young-at-heart, as Colin (@lynbarn) has suggested? This could act as a demonstration project to see how it affects overall finances (eg OSHI and WB tea room) and the Woody Bay to Killington Lane railway.

A plan of this nature is inevitably piecemeal, or staged if you will. Simon (@21B) has stated the need for concerted action and the Trustees are clearly unable to deliver this. Yes, the obdurate six should go. Yes, there should be a master plan agreed by all the tribes of the L&B: all for one and one for all, as it were. They would still continue to do what they do but under the umbrella of an overall, achievable plan. This would surely bring everyone on board but I just do not see how it can currently be achieved. This is the plight we are facing.

Yet I am still further troubled by the cost. Where will the money come from? (If we were still in the EU we might have been able to secure some remote region funding. Sigh!) Some National Lottery funding would be welcome but is that even possible? Will legacies still be forthcoming? Will new memberships continue? Will a fairy godmother suddenly appear?? I do not feel too optimistic given our current plight. Meanwhile the clock is ticking...

Toby's timeline (if only it could be funded) suggests a neat horizon of 1935, one hundred years after closure, for a reopened L&BR from Woody Bay to Wistlandpound. It sets a goal which could be achievable if the requisite funding can be procured. We can only wait to see how our Trustees might react to such a suggestion...

 

Thanks, that’s helpful. Reading what you say though it seems to me that to achieve all this in those timescales will require a clear roadmap, coordinated effort and exceptional fund raising. A big ask but maybe not totally impossible if everyone gets their act together. On the question of Parracombe Bank, are there any guesstimates?

 

Agreed - not a comparable situation. A small extra tweak to keep the record straight (tho' perhaps a little off topic here except as a general cautionary tale on how complex it can be) - the Receiver had allegedly actually sold a couple of fields , including the trackbed, at Portreuddyn between Port and Pont Croesor - which is why the WHR Ltd. extension had to stop at the Traeth Mawr loop in the noughties. Two new overbridges and four embankments later (at a cost of around half a million pounds, or so the local story went) and the FR/WHR went through - ironically, through a section which most passengers don't even notice......and of course a VERY large amount of cash was in general spent (some, as you say, uselessly on High Court fees in attempting to revive the original powers).
The FR's WHR adventure was definitely a one-off, not to be repeated - the politics between Westminster and Cardiff were instrumental.
And, with reference to prospects for the L&B - it's hard to make the accounts (as far as they are accessible) say anything other than that the new WHR has a job to break even - costs on the restored L&B will be comparable and income possibly less. The L&B has no tourist draw "on the way" comparable to Beddgelert in appeal, and most of the original stations would gather very little traffic indeed (also true now of most of the WHR stations and halts). Promoting walking from station to station is probably a fantasy - you need an intensive service to make that attractive, and such a service does not sit well with most tourists' wish to do an "out and back" experience, have a meal, and then buzz off to another attraction for the rest of the day.
Not a reason not to do it - but with open eyes.

 

A big ask indeed @62440 - but we never said it was going to be easy. On Parracombe bank, I don't know, I'm afraid, beyond the fact that new designs have been prepared to rebuild the bank and drainage.

 

Undoubtedly the costs will be huge. However - many railways have demonstrated sustained major fundraising over the years. What they did have though was a clear strategy, and a clear, staged plan for delivery. Of course, plans sometimes get modified in the light of experience or developing opportunities, but the general direction should be clear. Having a clear, and realistic, plan helps donors and potential donors know that even if the finished vision is perhaps decades away, the individual sub-components are all working towards delivery of that vision in a sensible way.

At the moment I don't see that (and my wallet remains closed ...) It feels there is no vision and no overall plan - instead, if it's got steel wheels and is generally based on Exmoor, it seems someone is championing it. That's just a route to burn through a lot of money failing to deliver anything - not a prospect to enthuse donors.

In other words - come up with a strategic plan, identify all the blockers, and then start to work on developing the funding stream to support the plan. @Tobbes plan may not be perfect, but at least it is a plan, is broken in to manageable chunks, and identifies what will be the key blockers en route. It also has a timescale that, while it may be a hostage to fortune (these things normally are) provides an intelligent intermediate goal of a substantial re-instatement timed for a significant anniversary - which can act as a motivating factor. (By contrast, this year is a significant 125 years since opening - yet where is the great "Jubilee project" from the current Trustees to enthuse supporters?)

Tom