Great Western Coffee Shop

Thanks to bobm who pointed me to this.

A journey from Truro to Falmouth filmed by Westward TV* in 1976.
https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-truro-to-falmouth-on-the-maritime-line-1976-online


*Anyone else still miss Westward's Gus Honeybun?  ;D

Gosh - that was fabulous - thank you for sharing the link!

I see that a similar film for the St Ives branch is here https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-cornwalls-st-erth-to-st-ives-railway-branch-line-1975-online (https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-cornwalls-st-erth-to-st-ives-railway-branch-line-1975-online)

The reporter implies that these two films were part of a series covering other (all?) west country branch lines. I do hope the others will appear on the BFI website some time....

I have a VHS of these videos (and still have a player too).  Certainly he went to both Looe and Barnstaple and then went back to a number of the lines around 1990 (he went to Gunnislake then too which I don't think he did in 1976).   Hope the BFI post the rest.

How evocative is the sound of the DMU!?   

Here we are - all of these short films are on this DVD

https://www.panamint.co.uk/scenic-branchlines-of-devon-cornwall-dvd#:~:text=DVD%20Region%200%20PAL.,and%20presented%20by%20John%20Doyle.

Oh yes.  Gus was the boss!

Yup, I remember Gus Honeybun. Whenever we visited my Grandad in Cornwall or stayed in a static caravan in West Wales* we’d see Gus on the TV.

*The aerials on the caravans were always pointed towards Devon and Cornwall. Clearly didn’t rate Welsh TV in those days.

Gus was a highlight of my childhood visits to Grandma's. She lived in a part of Taunton that got Westward/TSW from Stockland Hill transmitter rather than HTV West from Mendip.

But it made you appear a genius when University Challenge was shown at different times on the two channels and you seemed to know all the answers second time round.