Bodmin & Wenford extension plans?

And if someone shows Wadebridge Council the rises in passenger numbers for Liskeard, Lostwithiel, Par and Truro, which all feed network branch lines, they'll realise even more what they're missing. They've got Bodmin Parkway ready made, after all.

see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_Main_Line

 

I just can't get it out of my head that Bodmin Road sounds so much nicer.

 

=D> It'll always be Bodmin Road to me. Many a happy time spent there munching a pasty and watching the hydraulics go by.. Can still remember the way their growl grew steadily louder, piercing the country silence, as they climbed up from Lostwithiel.

 

What you want to be on the other last train? You may have to wait a while :smt003

 

Me too - it used to be my local station when I was a kid, lots of happy memories of the place in 'Hydraulic' days. (Out of interest; I was on the last train to Wadebridge - would very much like to be on the next one too!!)[/quote:1oog7ioi]

The railtour in 78 or thereabouts or do you mean the last train in 67? It's too bad the station site's been redeveloped as the old buildings there are wonderful and would've made a super terminus for the B&W preserved line. At least they've been tastefully restored and put to good use. It's ironic that they and Padstow survived sans railway whereas the old buildings at the termini on other surviving branch lines in Cornwall - St Ives, Newquay, Falmouth & Looe - have all disappeared

 

I hugely regret missing those trains in '78 but won't miss the next one!

 

I'm old enough to remember Wadebridge in full swing with the North Cornwall line still open; I just missed out on T9s and the Beatties, but what a place it was even in summer 1964. It even had its own little bookstall/newsagent stall. The shed was host to Bulleid pacifics, N Moguls, standard 2-6-4T locos and the little pannier tanks from Weymouth Quay. Steam finally ended in the New Year on 4 January 1965. I did go on the last regular passenger train on 28 January 1967 - D6309 doing the honours. Lions Club organised the dmu specials in December 1978. Waiting fore the next one, but I believe a Beattie well tank is set to show up in a field to commemorate 175th year of the Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway.

John

 

Sustrans seems indeed to have at least a slightly self-righteous attitude - it seems with the idea that cycling should take precedence over anything else. But I'm glad to see Cornwall CC referring to these trails as MULTI trails, hence for pedestrians and horse-riders too, and why not trains? From a tourist attraction point of view, I should say that cycling is for the fit (and mainly, young) while steam railways cater for everyone from the family dog to great-grandmother. So certainly cycling should not take priority, though it can co-exist. The Bodmin & Wenford are finding it is taking an age to move the project forward to Wadebridge; in the meantime, public services get worse (more bus subsidies cut this year) and fewer people can afford (or wish to) travel by car. Also, and what the councillors etc still with the 'sixties' attitude to railways do not seem to understand at all, the railways are seeing a great and growing revival, in which more people want to travel by train, and to go on holiday by train; not surprising, then, that services on the Newquay branch are being greatly improved this year and that there are plans to take the local service to St Austell rather than Par. You only have to go into Wadebridge or Padstow in the summer to see the way cars completely clog up these attractive places, yet the councils have been shortsighted enough to allow building over the trackbed in Wadebridge - which has been a nuisance for cyclists as well as creating great problems for restoring the railway.

If it was possible, it would be best to reinstate the line right through Wadebridge by use of CPOs and route-sharing through the town (aka Porthmadog) so that the railway could be reinstated to Padstow.

 

You do not explain what prompted this posting after more than 3 years! Could you tell us what was the trigger please?

 

Partly BECAUSE it has been such a long time, I thought it about time to update. The trouble for the B&WR is that there's an awful lot of politics involved - too many people with their fingers in the pie. You may know, HowardGWR, that Wadebridge Council's approval for the line to extend beyond Boscarne Junction and onto the former SR route was only carried by the chairman's casting vote. Anyway, I'm planning to look in there tomorrow so we'll see how it's all going. Currently, the B&WR is actively planning an extension to Nanstallon Halt, which is only about 1/2 mile from Boscarne, but it will be the most significant 1/2 mile on the line, because it will be the proof or otherwise that the railway and the cycle trail can co-exist, and doubtless all these interested parties will be watching closely.

 

Thanks for the update. In addition to its modern-day significance, I'd say this extension also has major significance from a historical perspective as an extension from Boscarne to Nanstallon would not only take the Bodmin & Wenford onto Southern territory but also mean that a part of the original Bodmin & Wadebridge line, one of the earliest railways in the whole of Britain, is returned to life.

 

If I remember correctly, it was actually North Cornwall District Council which approved the extension scheme by one vote; NCDC is now part and parcel of Cornwall Council. CC own not only the Camel Trail, but the current trackbed of the B&W too, and it has taken a significant time for the B&W to agree a new lease after the expiry of their original lease (though I am uncertain if they have yet got the new lease 'done and dusted').

CC hasn't been too steam railway friendly recently, but having had their fingers burnt by their experience with another Cornish railway, they are starting to take steam railways more seriously. We'll see how things go with regards the Bodmin extension, but I'd put money on another railway/trail scheme in Cornwall being built before the Bodmin to Wadebridge bit.....

 

Hopefully, the successful opening of another rail/trail scheme would go some way to persuading CC that the B&W proposals are viable. Success to both!

 

Did I read in Steam Railway years ago that any / an extension would pass near to someone's house - as in passing the front door or am I dreaming / confused?

 

Very close indeed to housing, This takes on a new level of having a railway in the garden

 

I'd live there.....

 

So would I actually and very much welcome the trains (hey could even ask for special stopping orders outside my frint door)