3. Okehampton’s only connected and operational platform is No.3, the former Up main platform.
The tracks of the former and still signed plats 1 and 2, looked after by the small band of station friends, stretch west into the overgrowing wilderness of hope and despair.

In the next few weeks many Rail Freight Staff will be paid to stay at home, through lack of work/trains to run.
The Construction and many other businesses  shutdown for two weeks or so over Christmas/New Year.

Under BR^▸ (British Rail(ways))/ a joined up railway these staff would have had great flexibility and been used to fill uncovered turns resulting in far fewer cancelled passenger trains.

On the face of it, it’s rather surprising that an emergency hourly TT for the many hundreds of commuters etc to Bath and Bristol has not been planned to run between Trowbridge and Bristol TM^‡(resolve) and VV serving all stations, with trains running empty between Trowbridge and Westbury North to cross over.

8. All had GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Hotels.

3C = Tom Hanks

3B = Colonel Holman Stephens

According to Real Time Trains the 1725 Oke left on time, struggled and arrd Crediton 66 late and St D 69 late.

The  2115 St D actually ran and left on time and is currently braving the 13 mile ‘high Risk Tree Tunnel’ from Coleford to Okehampton, the highest rly stn in Southern England at about 720 feet above sea level.

Rather surprisingly with the main line closed between Plymouth and N.Abbot from approx 1130 Sunday until early today ‘due flooding between Ivybridge and Totnes’ ( at again ? S. Brent rail over river Avon Bdge with an unresolved river bed scour problem ? ) that two NR^» (Network Rail - home page) Engineers trains were allowed to run through operated by the Freightliner FOC^▸ (Freight Operating Company); the 1500 Goonbarrow ( ex Nqy) to Westbury and the 1007 Westbury to Goonbarrow (for Nqy ).

This is regretfully nothing new and has been going on intermittently for several weeks; thus giving misleading and confusing information to passengers on the information screens on stations and scrolling screens on local trains.
GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and its Contractors seem unable to completely rectify these problems.

The weight of heavy snow is known to bring trees and tree branches down and if allowed to grow unchecked ( as has been the case on many mainly secondary lines for several years) problems as experienced today in numerous places on the Okehampton and North Devon lines
are inevitable.
Network Rail, through ‘Mitigation’ directives from over powerful Natural England has in last year or two had to spend hundreds of thousands /more than a million pounds acquiring land ( including over the odds prices paid for good agricultural land) adjacent, or in at least one case a few miles, from the Crediton to Okehampton line.
This former mainly agriculture land is being planted with thousands of mixed species trees, with it is understood non degradable plastic tree guards.

If only some of this money had been spent to remove the obvious safety hazards these trees pose, which are very evident to railway staff and passengers, along in particular the
13 mile ‘tree tunnel’ between Coleford Jn and Okehampton, then cancellation of train services as experienced again today could have been avoided.

 

I am reassured when on the Cornish main line that where the double line goes to single
line at Largin East with a 1 in 57 falling gradient towards Bodmin Road, there has historically, for
obvious good reasons, been a trap point and long sand drag.

Dawlish: Lifts out of order
The (NEW) lifts will be out of order between Platform 1 and Platform 1 from now until further notice at Dawlish station.
Last Updated:04/10/2024 17:40

0540 Pz/ Cdff ( IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train)) not calling Dawlish on the face of it seemed over cautious, start of winds approx 20 mph SE today take some hours to build up to a threat to these failure prone trains at and a few hours either side of high( especially Spring) tides with S/SE winds of above about 15 mph.

 Quote from NR^» (Network Rail - home page) Media and PR^▸ (Public Relations) Contractors:-

“We use tried and tested methods for keeping trains moving through autumn as well as different techniques and new technology in some parts of the country.”

A simpler method for a start would be to re establish the 5 metres back from the cess flail strip railway standard, to at least remove the now widespread tree, bushes, buddleia and bramble etc lineside growth that increasingly comes into contact and scratches trains paintwork etc.. viz IETs^▸ (Intercity Express Train) on the Newquay branch as just one example.

Currently with the line west of Exeter St D closed UFN^‡(resolve) the nearest railhead for Cornwall is OKEHAMPTON !

Assuming that 1Z99 is an IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train) the odds are that it too will fail ..but I hope this proves wrong.

It’s noted that the local Exe/NA etc buses ARE running at Dwl .