Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

Train operations commenced at Killington Lane in 2006, since when I have heard differing opinions of several L&B members relating to Bridge 65. In my opinion, I must suggest that until the actual digging starts around the bridge, nobody will know for sure what surprises await discovery beneath the surface.

 

Surprises? Who knows - maybe Lew will be found buried there.

Peter

 

When the first digger hits metal, I can imagine the suspension, especially if the penetrating radar showed a cylindrical object, followed by the what is it, Then the down cast looks as it turns out to be an old septic tank , or worse an old ford Anglia , but as we are talking Devon shire people, its most likely going to be an ford model T.

 

...or it might be a stray WWII bomb - a quick thump with a hammer, a very loud bang and hey presto a self-excavated cutting !

 

...demolishing the forgotten and long-buried bridge with it. Oops!


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Shades of Dr. Barnes Wallis's finest:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-54533860
Quick plug for Brooklands Museum, Weybridge, which has examples of Tallboy and Grand Slam (and masses of other aircraft, cars etc.). (I visited last year with a friend whose father worked there in the 2nd WW. Fortunately for him he was in the car park when the Luftwaffe paid a visit.)
Going OT, I know. Sorry.
Pat

 

Maybe a remote-controlled Great Panjandrum could be used to clear the trackbed south of Parracombe ???

 

Are there any other railway parts that are buried but still exist just got covered up anyone knows about. I have a picture on the guessing location picture puzzle game Fred at the moment which has been buried too. No ones has guessed it yet!

 

Blimey, are they still active? I thought all that malarkey finished in 1945 ...

Tom

 

Depends who you ask - there are plenty who don't seem to realise WWI's over yet...

 

That is not correct. The GWR had running powers over the 'loop line' between the GW station at Victoria Road in Barnstaple originally a terminus, and the LSW's Barnstaple Junction Station under an agreement of 3 July 1885, but not the Ilfracombe line. The loop line was then built and opened on 1 June 1887. The GW undertook to use no other route to Ilfracombe. The GW only acquired the right to attach it's through carriages to LSW trains on the Ilfracombe line. GW engines were not seen on the Ilfracombe line until the exigencies of train operating required them to do so during WW1. The first regular GW trains appear to have been those in the SR working timetable operating from 1 July 1923. There were none in the LSW working timetable for the summer of 1922.

 

Oh dear, my friend Cate's father Reg was in the car park. Several of his friends weren't so lucky.
Pat

 

Giant Viper might be more effective.
Or the newer Python.

 

Bit better than what we had-which was F all except crawling on your belly, prodding mother earth with a bayonet

 

I’d like to know Why was there never any tunnels on the lyntown and Barnstaple please? As it’s lots of hills is confusing why they didn’t put one in. It would have been an interesting feature

 

Tunnels are monumentally expensive to build and to maintain. Tunnels are a last resort in railway building, and were, are, and always shall remain to be avoided.

 

And if I remember rightly, once you get clear of Birmingham NS, there are no tunnels on the WCML between Birmingham and Aberdeen. Engineer Joseph Locke avoided them, so the line instead goes up and over Shap and Beattock summits.

 

That's an interesting fact that had not occured to me, but then I remember the tunnel at Hillon Junction, Perth - but I cannot think of any others.

Sorry, a bit OT here. I forgot this is the L&B thread.

Peter

 

The reason is the use of sharp curves by using 2ft gauge. Also helped with 1 in 50 gradients. If a proposal in 1883 for a Standard Gauge line by roughly the same route (except at Wistlandpound) had got through Parliament and been built it would have had 5 tunnels. There were none on the original L & B plans of 1894, but the tenderers for the construction contract were obliged to state how much they would add or deduct from their price for a 220 yard tunnel at Martinhoe just north of where Wooda Bay Station was built. The contract gave the Company the option of a cutting or a tunnel. The successful contractor deducted £1, but the option was not taken up. If it had been built the revivalists would have the prospect of an easier time going northwards towards Lynton, with no bridge to replace under the main road (SR No 69) and only a comparatively small amount of cutting at the Ranscombe end to clear. More detail on this, including drawings of the proposed tunnel and its portals etc., and a whole lot more on the railway in a forthcoming pair of books on the history.

 

Shugborough? As ever though we are drifting.