GWR’S Okehampton station restoration work is complete
JUST OVER a year after regular train services returned to the Dartmoor Line between Exeter St David and Okehampton by Great Western Railway, a celebratory event was held to mark the completion of restoration work on the station building at Okehampton.
As reported in our Dartmoor Line feature in the December 2022 issue of Railways Illustrated (238), the building has undergone an extensive transformation over the last 18 months. It was previously refurbished in the 1990s but has now been brought up to modern standards while fully respecting its Southern Railway heritage.
Although Okehampton is unstaffed by GWR and tickets for the trains are obtained from a vending machine on the platform, the building now contains toilets, a heritage-style waiting room, a shop for the Dartmoor Railway Association, a Dartmoor National Park Information Centre and a café.
Additionally, next to the booking hall is the former booking office, both of which have been restored to include period posters and signage. It is now redundant for the sale of tickets but has been restored to show how it looked in the late 1950s/early 1960s.
Parc Signs, of St Austell, led by creative director Paul Bryant, provided the signage, and fitted out both the hall and office.
Funding for the signage and fitting out the rooms was obtained from GWR’S Community Rail Major Project Fund, the Railway Heritage Trust and the Community Rail Development Fund, a joint initiative of the Department of Transport and the Community Rail Network.
Former train driver and county councillor Richard Westlake cut a ribbon to open the heritage display in the old booking office on December 21. His railway career began as a steam locomotive fireman at Okehampton in 1964, and his father, Arthur Westlake, was the last member of British Rail staff employed at the station before retirement in 1982. Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership manager Richard Burningham said: “I am so proud of what our joint collaborative effort has achieved at Okehampton. I am especially proud and pleased that the public are using the trains in such numbers.
“Thanks particularly to GWR for allowing all the heritage work to take place and thanks to the funders for making it possible.
“All of this builds on the bedrock of what Roy Gibbs, Devon County Council and others achieved in the 1990s. “I know that people were worried at the very beginning of the reopening project that all the heritage would be swept away and as can now be seen, quite the opposite has happened. In a small way, the old Southern lives again!”
GWR Dartmoor Line reopening project manager Ian Mundy added:
“It is hard to believe that it is already a year since we and our partners reopened the Dartmoor Line, ahead of time and under budget.
“With the building now fully restored to its former glory, the success of the project is testament to the hard work of so many who campaigned for the line’s reinstatement and of those who worked day and night to deliver the project £10 million under budget. “The continued demand shows just how important good rail connections are for the community and the economies they serve.”
The Dartmoor Line reopened in November 2021. In the first year, GWR services have carried more than twice the number of passengers originally forecast.