BUSY BODMIN GENERAL STATION TO GET A SECOND PLATFORM
Bodmin General station is to get a second platform for the first time in its history – to cope with rising passenger numbers on the Bodmin & Wenford Railway. With its peak summer trains, dining services and special events increasing in popularity – but restricted by the single six-coach platform at the GWR branch terminus – the BWR Trust is leading a £295,000 project to build the four-coach Platform 2, together with trackwork and signalling alterations to allow trains to arrive and depart from either platform. The scheme will also include the reinstatement of the canopy over the front entrance to the station building (removed by BR after the end of passenger services in 1967) using original drawings. The railway plans to submit an application for Heritage Lottery funding towards the project, and has also opened discussions with Cornwall Development Company (Cornwall Council) regarding LEADER or EAFRD (European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development) Growth Programme Rural Tourism grants. It is hoped that the new platform could be operational by 2020. With passenger numbers increasing from 46,000 in 2016 to 58,000 in 2017, BWR plc Chairman Phil Hawke said: “Various alternative timetables have been considered, but with little success in increasing the frequency of trains or providing a more flexible service, other than by having the use of two platform faces and the ability to send trains from either platform to Parkway or Boscarne. “If we are to provide a service that does not become overcrowded in the peak operating weeks, an expansion of our facilities is essential.” The BWR worked on a ‘one engine in steam’ basis until April 2011, when new semaphore signalling was commissioned at Bodmin General, permitting trains to run over the branches to Bodmin Parkway and Boscarne Junction simultaneously. The BWR is also proposing to build a public viewing area for the locomotive shed, accessed by a footpath behind the signal box.