Okehampton ‘Dartmoor Line’ is an instant hit – and wins first award
MORE than 10,000 people travelled on the Dartmoor Line in the fortnight since its reopening for regular year-round, all-week passenger services linking Okehampton and Exeter on Saturday, November 20. The Dartmoor Line has been recognised with a national award for its work informing people about the reopening of the Okehampton-Exeter line and involving the community.
The reopening of the Okehampton branch – previously used by the Dartmoor Railway for heritage services – is the first of the Government’s Restoring Your Railway schemes to bear fruit, and was made possible thanks to more than £40 million of Government investment.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, who dispatched the first weekday passenger train to run on the line for half a century, as reported last issue, said: “The Dartmoor Line has been a huge local success story – and these numbers show it.
Under budget
“This link is already incredibly important to Okehampton, Exeter, and Devon, and to people from further afield visiting Dartmoor.
“It was brilliant to open the line, delivered two years early and
£10 million under budget – now delivering for the local community.”
Great Western Railway managing director Mark Hopwood said: “I am delighted to see that the line is starting to flourish in its first two weeks. The reopening has been a key aspiration for the community and the rail industry for some time, and the demand for services shows just how important good rail connections are for the community they serve.”
Already the reopening has carried off its first major accolade. At the Community Rail Awards, held in Southampton on Thursday, December 9, the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership, GWR, and Network Rail won the award in the Best Communications category.
Judges praised the official DartmoorLine.com website, which provides detailed travel information and unique behind-the-scenes footage of the work to restore the line. It also records how Network Rail achieved record-breaking efforts to lay 11 miles of new track in under four weeks, and looks back at the history of the line and the vital contribution of OkeRail, the Dartmoor Railway Association, and others. It has so far been visited by 75,000-plus people.
Meanwhile, a petition has launched in the village of Yeoford, calling for trains on the Dartmoor Line to stop at its station between Crediton and Okehampton, which is currently served by trains running on the Tarka Line from Exeter to Barnstaple.
The second platform, however, has fallen into disuse, although the new Dartmoor Line trains are passing through it on a separate track from the Tarka Line.
Doubling back
At present, people in Yeoford planning to get the train to Okehampton need to double back on themselves to Crediton, to then get a train back westwards towards Okehampton.
Villager Olivia Lott, who has set up the online petition, said: “It is aimed at Devon County Council (on behalf of various stakeholders) to at the very least seek funding to conduct and publish a feasibility study into the restoration of the second platform and access at Yeoford station.
“We hear of proposed restorations at Tavistock, Wellington, and Cullompton, but feel that Yeoford has been overlooked.”