Lynton and Barnstaple Railway - 'what if'

Hello,

I have a couple of questions about what could have happened to the L&B had it not closed.

Ok, firstly, had it of been open during WWII, would it of been of use to the war effort?

Who would have run the L&B during nationalisation? (Western or Southern region?)

What livery would the L&B stock have likely carried under BR?

Would any infrastucture changes/improvements/extensions including stock upgrades have occured post 1930s had it of remained open and profitable?

What would have made it profitable?

I like me some 'what ifs'

Cheers for now

Chris

 

I love a good cogitate..
For the war effort probably not much. There do not seem to be huge timber reserves up on the moors. I do not recall hearing of any large troop encampments along the route. The terminus of the line was poorly placed to supply goods to make more use of the port.
My guess is that it would have remained under Southern control. No logic to move it to the Western.
Liveries: Brunswick Green with cycling lion until rail blue in the 1970's.. A bit like the VoR.
For improvements to the profitability the logical route would have been diesel locos and/or railcars for the low season and steam only in the Summer. Unmaned intermediate stations with trailable points in low season. Coaches with corridor connections to speed up ticket collection. More effective marketing for the holiday traffic. I am not sure that any extension would have helped as it would only have increased the cost during the long winter season, all logical destinations already had rail connections.
The relatively long journey time did not help it complete with road traffic so making it more of a day out rather than a transport necessity.
It was probably destined for closure anyway but always nice to do a 'what if'

 

Would the locos have been given BR numbers or stuck with the SR ones?

Been pondering about modelling Lynton at either 1946/7 (just before nationalisation) or in the mid-50s.

 

depended how long it would have lasted before preservation/nationalisation - which is up to you as a modeller, but on the SG locos often didn't have there numbers and livery changed until they had major overhauls so you could potentially have each loco in a different livery and it be "accurate." Certainly the L&B locos did not all imediatly get painted into Southern Livery on take over.

 

the thought of a scaled down English Electric, BRC&W or Derby diesel running on a 1960's L&B is an idea to ponder.....

 

As a SR branch line we can presume the L&B would have initially come under control of the Southern region. As with all the branch lines west of Exeter it would also later have been transferred to the Western region - though I can't remember which year this happened.

Whilst the Rheidol tanks were BR Brunswick Green, the L&B MW's would likely have been in a BR black livery, the same as applied to most locomotives on the Southern region. The question with BR black livery is "where would the crest and number go?". When discussing it with James Evans & Paul Lewin whilst looking at a certain (currently) black locomotive we came up with 3 options: crest above name plates and number on cab side; number on cab side and crest halfway between nameplate and number; or crest with number underneath on the cab side.

Numbers under BR would be Yeo 30759, Exe 30760, Taw 30761, Lyn 30762, Lew 30188.... and Lyd 30190!


Charlie

 

Hmmm...to see some pictures....

 

Chaps,

Might be worth having a look at the front cover of this months GardenRail magazine...

Rob

 

But if it had survived the 1930s the war would have closed it, it was fairly inevitable.

 

When I built my model 'County Gate' I spent a great deal of time with 'what ifs'. I felt that the line was doomed unless it had been extended to Minehead. This is what I decided to do and with the longer line length but with greater hope of traffic, I think it would have survived much better.
JdF

 

The great thing about what if's, is that everyone has a different take on what may or may not have happen.

John certainly has one view and to a certain extent I happen to agree with him. Don't forget the reason behind having a narrow gauge railway in North Devon was to stop the GWR from getting to Lynmouth.

One thing which always appears to be strange to me is that hardly any cattle/sheep or other livestock traffic was run on the L&BR (I am not saying it never did) but yet there was no dedicated cattle trucks or wagons built for the line such as the Tralee and Dingle Railway had.

There have always been livestock markets, along the L&BR and you have always had the pannier market in Barnstaple and there must have a been a slaughter house in Barnstaple as well

I am sure that if the L&BR had been called upon to move livestock from North Devon into Barnstaple then it could have done.

The 2nd World War did not help its cause, but if the railway had been set up to be run as a genuine commercial enterprise it would have survived running the above trains at least once a week or on market days.

May be with ex WD WW1 IC locos like the pair on the FR ‘Mary Anne’ and ‘Moelwyn’ the railway could have survived, but this is what makes ‘what if’ so interesting.

 

My dark thoughts are that Newnes, rather than wishing to open up Lynton to the outside world, sought to put a damper on things; in regrettably typical British fashion! No nasty trippers getting drunk, a minimum of mass produced speculative housing and so on. A bijou, slow, little railway whose Lynton terminus was so badly situated that the (equine) motive power of connecting road vehicles would be utterly exhausted by the trudge up to it must have served such a purpose perfectly.

Planned by a professional, the L&B would have been to standard gauge, with basic corrugated iron or wooden station buildings plus facilities for loading animals. The promoters would have then tried to play the G.W.R. off against the L.S.W.R. to get the best terms for operating the line and only if neither were interested would they have expended capital on motive power and rolling stock, which would not need to be of "bespoke" design.

Oddly enough the more overtly agricultural W&LLR took some while to develop cattle traffic and there were only ever four cattle vans, as opposed to sheep trucks. Cattle tended to be driven to Welshpool prior to motor vehicles coming into use. World War ll, with its motor fuel restrictions, saw more cattle on the railway.

PH

 

I agree - and can add that both the W&LLR Beyer Peacocks remained in GWR green untill 1956 when Countess was stored at Oswestry and The Earl was given a coat of unlined black in March 1956 - only six months before the last train.

G.

 

I agree that this is most probable. The engines might also have carried SR wartime black during WWII and/or malachite green afterwards. They might also have carried transitional liveries during the early post-nationalisation years, e.g. malachite green re-lettered "British Railways" with "s" prefixes to the numbers, or lined black with "British Railways" spelt out in full, probably above the nameplate. For coaches, malachite green in the post-war years, carmine and cream until c.1955 followed by a reversion to green is most likely. (Bear in mind the VoR coaches carried carmine and cream for a few years in the early '50s.)
About 1964 (IIRC) the VoR coaches were repainted in a Cambrian-style dark green livery so it is possible that the L&B coaches might also have received a special livery at some point.

There is another interesting L&B might-have-been that not many people stop to think about: what if the line had been taken over by the LSWR before 1923? I'm trying to visualise a complete L&B train in LSWR livery...

 

Lined black, eh?

 

That's what I always thought would look best...

 

Regarding the livery discussions and comparisons with the VoR, bear in mind that they went into black followed by unlined green followed by lined green in the 50s - pretty standard progression under the WR. But we're talking SR, so my guess would be lined black a la Lyd, but with standard sized numberplate and shedplate (although it's possible that a little freedom might have resulted in bufferbeam numbers as on the IoW). I'm sure they would have retained their Southern numbers with 30000 added.

Carriage livery - hmm! The VoR went for blood and custard "mainline" livery to make the stock more visually appealing, but would the L&B? It's reasonable to assume that it's survival beyond the 30s, like the VoR, would be down to tourism - so blood and custard is plausible. But so is plain crimson, which is what they would have been if the rules had been obeyed to the letter. Later on, it's more than likely that they would go into SR green again.

Wagons? Simple: grey for unfitted, BR bauxite for fitted. Usual markings - probably not miniaturised.