SOUth DevOn SetS OUt itS Stall FOr BUCkFaStleigh reDevelOpment
Plans have been unveiled for a major redevelopment of the South Devon Railway’s Buckfastleigh headquarters. Planning applications have been submitted to Teignbridge District Council for a new restoration building – titled ‘The Restoration Hub’ and incorporating a new carriage and wagon workshop – and a new running and maintenance shed. Tenders are being sought for the construction of both buildings and the SDR is exploring grant funding, with a ‘50th Anniversary Appeal’ and a possible share issue to be launched.
‘The Restoration Hub’ has been given a modern appearance because, says the SDR, it is “outside the daily operational area and a direct backdrop to the public area… it is not a building that would have existed in the old railway company days [and] provides an attractive screen to the working areas and existing utilitarian workshop building.” However, the new three-road running shed has been designed to resemble a Great Western Railway building with a “family likeness” to Didcot.
An option has been included for a brick building to house a new messroom and running maintenance workshop, when funds permit, while the shed will also have a canopy to cover the dining train on the adjacent siding. The current platform by the run-round loop could also be extended to here at a later date. Built by the Dart Valley Railway in the 1970s, the existing locomotive shed is described as “life-expired” and had half its roof removed earlier this year because of corrosion from coal smoke. The development began last year with the erection of a carriage shed to the north of the station (SR470). Since then, the railway’s permanent way gang have laid sidings for the new buildings, using bullhead rail from the main running line. The SDR has a 25-year programme to re-lay a quarter of a mile of the latter with flat-bottom rail each year.
In a separate move, the railway has reached agreement to purchase the field on the west side of Buckfastleigh station.