Fantastic, I've been waiting for years for somebody to post a film of this lovely line lost to us back in the 70's. I used to stand at braunton gates as a boy and see these giant warships thunder by. Great memories! Well done
What a smashing clip of a railway no more,We were up at woolacombe back in may of this year and i took the dog for a walk along the old trackbed and thought about the trains....such a shame it's all gone
lovely piece of film of a line that should still be there. With good marketing it could be busy 9 months of the year and reasonable for the rest. The diesel hydraulics look good too!
Thanks for the comment burnleyfan11965. I wouldn't pretend that the situation in winter was anything other than pretty grim. Elsewhere on YouTube I have posted a poor quality piece of film entitled 'Winter Train to Ilfracombe' which on arrival at Ilfracombe shows only the postman waiting for it.
Now that was a busy line that summer saturday,what it was like on a wet and windy tuesday afternoon in january we dont know,but there was a case for at least running it during the summer with maybe a restricted service on non summer weekdays
What a great piece of film, not being old enough to remember these lines its amazing to see what they were like whilst open, having been to Barnstaple recently its hard to believe the railway ever passed over the river at all as so little evidence remains.
Thank you for your comment and interest. Yes indeed most of the branch lines around the south west suffered from British Rail's flawed method of accounting. Sadly everything west of Barnstaple is gone now and the former junction station reduced to a single line. Not even a run-round loop so loco and stock trains are no longer a possibility. As for the junction yard, it is now occupied by a Tesco supermarket.
Great footage! Looks like there was plenty of passenger demand for this line but it is clear from the amount of recent singling of the track that the route had been deliberately run down just months - a few years at most - before this was filmed. Was this line, one wonders, a victim of the old "not many tickets bought here" accounting argument - when most users would obviously have held tickets *to* the resort town of Ilfracombe rather than *from* it?
Fantastic, I've been waiting for years for somebody to post a film of this lovely line lost to us back in the 70's. I used to stand at braunton gates as a boy and see these giant warships thunder by. Great memories! Well done
pongokliem 4 months ago
What a smashing clip of a railway no more,We were up at woolacombe back in may of this year and i took the dog for a walk along the old trackbed and thought about the trains....such a shame it's all gone
MiLLwallpaul231258 4 months ago
Great . I was on the last train that ran on that line as a boy .Many thanks
Tony
Toneslope 4 months ago
lovely piece of film of a line that should still be there. With good marketing it could be busy 9 months of the year and reasonable for the rest. The diesel hydraulics look good too!
dodger5450 6 months ago
Very , very nice piece of film, thank you.
MICKTHEMERC 6 months ago
Thanks for the comment burnleyfan11965. I wouldn't pretend that the situation in winter was anything other than pretty grim. Elsewhere on YouTube I have posted a poor quality piece of film entitled 'Winter Train to Ilfracombe' which on arrival at Ilfracombe shows only the postman waiting for it.
cgpaddock 8 months ago
Now that was a busy line that summer saturday,what it was like on a wet and windy tuesday afternoon in january we dont know,but there was a case for at least running it during the summer with maybe a restricted service on non summer weekdays
burnleyfan11965 8 months ago
What a great piece of film, not being old enough to remember these lines its amazing to see what they were like whilst open, having been to Barnstaple recently its hard to believe the railway ever passed over the river at all as so little evidence remains.
Thanks for sharing a wonderful film
50012Benbow 9 months ago
Thank you for sharing with us - the insanity of closing the line beggars belief!
MrAdrianharding 11 months ago
Thank you for your comment and interest. Yes indeed most of the branch lines around the south west suffered from British Rail's flawed method of accounting. Sadly everything west of Barnstaple is gone now and the former junction station reduced to a single line. Not even a run-round loop so loco and stock trains are no longer a possibility. As for the junction yard, it is now occupied by a Tesco supermarket.
cgpaddock 11 months ago
Great footage! Looks like there was plenty of passenger demand for this line but it is clear from the amount of recent singling of the track that the route had been deliberately run down just months - a few years at most - before this was filmed. Was this line, one wonders, a victim of the old "not many tickets bought here" accounting argument - when most users would obviously have held tickets *to* the resort town of Ilfracombe rather than *from* it?
dajwilkinson 11 months ago
What a fantastic piece of film. Very busy too for a line that's about to close, clearly another stupid decision
sleepyrider 1 year ago