North Devon and Cornwall Junction Light Railway

Halwill-Torrington
Route length:	approx. 32 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Dual track :	%
Business:	1925-1982
Legend North Devon Railway Great Torrington Torridge Watergate stop Yard stop Dunsbear stop Marland Works Remainder of the Torrington and Marland Railway Petrockstow Meeth Works Wooladon Clay Pits Meeth stop Hatherleigh Get Okehampton to Bude Line from Bude North Cornwall Railway Halwill Junction Okehampton to Bude Line to Okehampton

The North Devon and Cornwall Junction Light Railway was a branch railway line that was built to service the multitude of clay pits that lay between the London and South Western Railway and the northern branch of the North Devon Railway . After the line opened on July 27, 1925, this particularly heavy material was transported by inexpensive mass transport by rail and not by truck . The line began in the south in Halwill Junction station and ended in the north in Great Torrington and was thus an important link between the North Cornwall Railway and the Okehampton to Bude Line . The reason for the classification as a branch line was less technical and administrative effort. The planning of the route can be traced back to Holman Fred Stephens (1868–1931), an engineer who carried out numerous route planning for various British railway companies, including the Southern Railway .

Passenger transport was of secondary importance and consisted mainly of workers from the clay pits. The most important transshipment station was Meeth Works, where extensive track systems were available for the transport of clay in 914 mm narrow gauge (3 English feet).

The largest town along the former route is Hatherleigh, a market town on the plateau with a population of 1,300 today. Until the nationalization in 1948, the route was in private hands. With the Transport Act 1962 , in which smaller routes were to be reprivatised again and ultimately a third of the British railway lines were shut down, the end also came for this route, as no interested party could be found.

The ten-kilometer northern section of the clay pits in Meeth and Marland, which had already been set up in narrow gauge before the opening of the line , was dismantled and operated until August 1982, so it had existed for over 100 years since its opening on January 1, 1880 .

route

The line was built in the cheapest possible way. It partly followed the narrow-gauge railway that existed in parts, so it inevitably had very tight curves and a steep incline at 1:40 to 1:45 .

The entire route was single track and set on the section from Torrington to Dunsbear Halt to a maximum speed of 20 mph (32 km / h) from there to Halwill at 25 mph (40 km / h).

The timetable for the 1964/65 season indicated two trains in each direction which, in diesel mode, took 80 minutes for the 32-kilometer route. In addition, three freight trains drove between the clay pits and Torrington. There were no trains on Sundays.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Colonel Stephens Railway Museum ( Memento of the original from September 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ^ ^{A b} David St John Thomas (Ed.): Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain : Volume 1 - the West Country. 3rd edition. David & Charles, Newton Abbot 1966
3. ↑ 2001
4. ↑ Michael Messenger: North Devon Clay . Twelveheads Press , Truro 1982; ISBN 0-906294-06-1
5. ^ ^{A b} Working Time Table, Section P, Winter 1964/65, British Railways Western Region, Plymouth
6. ↑ ^{a b} Sectional Appendix, Western Section; British Railways, Southern Region; Waterloo Station, 1960
7. ↑ twelveheads.com