Friday 30 January 2015

Ilfracombe - I'll be back!


(Ilfracombe 1975 copyright Peter Brabham)


During the insane rail closures of the sixties culling a few uneconomic branch lines wasn't enough for the people in London and their intentions soon switched to destroying main lines. Devon suffered a great deal from this madness, losing the main Bere Alston to Okehampton line, the branch to Bude (the last couple of miles were of course in Cornwall), the Kingsbridge branch, the Taunton to Barnstaple cross-country route, and, from Barnstaple Junction south and north to Torrington and Ilfracombe.

By the time the Ilfracombe line was closed in 1970 the heart had been ripped out of Devon's railways, particularly the ex-Southern routes. The Ilfracombe line was a sad shadow of itself; once the busy terminus of two routes from London in its last years it was a long single-track siding with a DMU shuttling between Barnstaple and Ilfracombe, its previous passengers forced off onto far less glamorous and efficient transport - cars, buses or, increasingly, aeroplanes taking holidaymakers off to the sun.

Even in 1970 it was clear the closure was madness and that the line needed reopening quickly. The track stayed in place for 5 more years and a preservation group was soon set up, a group that pretty much everyone assumed would easily succeed, but it wasn't to be. Financial shenanigans and outright fraud destroyed the new baby, and the line was lifted, leaving Ilfracombe stranded from modern transport. 

And that remains the situation to this day. Except of course things are stirring everywhere, people are shouting for their railways back. A Facebook group has grown enormously in recent weeks and the members are about to set up a real functioning restoration group. Forty years on from the collapse of scheme I scheme II is about to launch into a very different world, where trains have never been as busy, roads are failing and people want their communities back.

Ilfracombe is part of a much bigger thing, it can be both part of that and a leader in rail restoration. I recommend everybody join as soon as the group is launched (which will of course be announced on here!)

 

(Barnstaple Junction 30.8.1972 copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)


(Barnstaple Town copyright Rail Thing)


The Ilfracombe Branch of the London & South Western Railway (LSWR), ran between Barnstaple and Ilfracombe in North Devon. The branch opened as a single-track line in 1874, but was sufficiently popular that it needed to be upgraded to double-track in 1889.

The 1-in-36 gradient between Ilfracombe and Mortehoe stations was one of the steepest sections of double track railway line in the country, and was most certainly the fiercest climb from any terminus station in the UK. In the days of steam traction, it was often necessary to double-head departing passenger trains.

'Named' trains like the Atlantic Coast Express and the Devon Belle both started and terminated at Ilfracombe.

Despite nearly a century of bringing much-needed revenue into this remote corner of the county, passenger numbers dropped dramatically in the years following the Second World War due to a massive increase in the number of cars on Britain's roads, and the line finally closed in 1970.
Much of the course of the line is still visible today, and sections of it have been converted into public cycleways.

History

On 20 July 1874 a railway link was opened between Barnstaple and Ilfracombe. The line was originally laid as a single-track light railway, which restricted the type of trains that could use it.
Popularity led to expansion, and much of the line was converted to double track between 1889 and 1891. This was a major exercise, requiring the rebuilding of most stations, and cutting a second bore for the Slade tunnel.

The line was mentioned as a candidate for closure in the Reshaping of British Railways report (The Beeching Axe) review, in 1963, but it was not closed by British Railways until 1970. Indeed, steam-hauled passenger services and freight operations ceased on 7 September 1964 (with one special running on 3 October 1965), and the rationalisation of the line began. DMU services began, the Waterloo through services were stopped, and the line was down-graded to single track on 25 November 1967.

It was in May 1967, that the Network for Development Plans were issued by Barbara Castle, the then Labour Minister of Transport following a study. Where lines were at the remunerative end of the scale, such as the main trunk routes and some secondary lines, these would be developed. But those that failed to meet the financial criterion, but served a social need were to be retained and subsidised under the 1968 Transport Act. The problem would be for lines that were not in the above mentioned categories could be candidates for closure as they did not form part of the basic railway network. The Ilfracombe line was one of those that fell into this category. It was a line that may well have carried considerable traffic, and perhaps made a small profit, but it did not meet the Government's social, economic and commercial criteria for retention.

The line was closed on 5 October 1970 the last train being on 3 October. The final train, an 8-car Class 118 DMU, was packed to bursting point.

There was an abortive attempt at saving the line, in the early 1970s, but the preservation movement was in its infancy and the project was to founder as it could not raise the required sum to purchase the line outright. This was because BR had valued the line at £410,000 in 1974, and certainly BR was criticised for charging market values for a potential heritage railway that wanted to preserve it. It must be appreciated that the BR board was under instruction from the Ministry to fix the highest price possible in an attempt to recoup funds to offset the deficit that the line produced.

The last train was formed of a single inspection saloon hauled by a Class 25, 25 063, on Wednesday 26 February 1975. This carried engineers inspecting the condition of the track for possible reinstatement of services. However this was not to be and track lifting commenced in June 1975. The following link has a number of rare pictures of the last train on the line.

The distinctive curved steel girder bridge over the River Taw in Barnstaple was demolished in 1977, adding a significant cost to any future reopening scheme.


Sunday 11 January 2015

penkridge 1986


47 527 Penkridge 12.5.1986


86 237 Penkridge 12.5.1986


47 206 Penkridge 12.5.1986


86 219 Penkridge 12.5.1986


304 011 Penkridge 12.5.1986


310 047 Penkridge 12.5.1986


47 XXX  Penkridge 12.5.1986

(All copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)


Back in 1986 I had the perfect job for a railway photographer - driving a lorry around the UK on a  week to week basis with loads of spare time every day (especially in the evening) together with free passage around the UK!

Over the four years I did find a few favoured places for photography - one was on the West Coast Main Line just south of Stafford, at Penkridge. It was an unstaffed station on a double track line with plenty of trains coming through and lots of variety. The sun was also just right for the afternoon, which is normally when I was there.

On a lovely late Spring afternoon in May 1986 I got these shots (with more to follow) featuring a  range of express, locals and freight. Remember this was back in film days when you had to think about every shot - but the location made this easy!

Saturday 10 January 2015

Itchen Abbas 4.2.1973 (part 2)












(All copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing 4.2.1973)


A few more shots from my trip to Itchen Abbas on the last day of the Mid Hants Watercress line.
I still feel guilty to this day that I never actually paid for this journey! I had a ticket to Eastleigh but tight connections meant I couldn't get to the ticket office there to pay for the onward journey! Of course from that point the train was so packed that there was no chance of buying a ticket on board.

It was one of those dull February days which, back in 1973, pretty much guaranteed that your photos would come out overexposed or hazy or generally flat. For some reason these seem to have captured the sombre atmosphere of the day and didn't come out too bad either, so 42 years on I'm still quite proud of them as I'd only been taking pics for about 18 months and was just 16.

Itchen Abbas must miss its railway, and look jealously at Ropley and Medstead and Alresford that still have trains, albeit steam ones. I do think this piece of the route will eventually reopen, it's far too valuable a route to lose and it certainly would never have closed had it lasted a few years longer. But for now it's a backwater, stuck in a sort of transport limbo for a while longer.


A few years later - 24.6.1976 (copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

Thursday 8 January 2015

Itchen Abbas 4.2.1973









(All copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing 4.2.1973)


A late (and stupid) closure was Winchester to Alton, which missed electrification, provided an excellent (if difficult) alternative route, served the large town of Alresford and a lot of commuters, yet still was sacrificed as late as 1973.

I'd travelled on this lovely line a couple of times before closure, once to continue on to Bentley from Alton for a long walk down to the remains of the Longmoor Military Railway, which in 1970 was still in situ (but at 14 I didn't own a camera!)

So on the last day rather than travel the whole line again I decided to get off at Itchen Abbas, the first station on the line. It was a good choice as the station wasn't crowded with enthusiasts so I could get some decent shots - albeit square format and on a very cheap camera - without having to nudge my way through. The trains were strengthened for the last day.

We didn't know then of course that most of the line would later be saved, but Itchen Abbas, at the moment is still on the 'lost' stretch of route, and hasn't seen a train (other than demolition trains) for almost 42 years now.