Devon and Cornwall Railways (DCR) must wait for a public consultation to finish before finding out whether it will be allowed to run six trains each weekday between Okehampton and Exeter. It was hoped that the new service, which would see trains running every 90 minutes and stopping at stations including Crediton, could start in May, with a through train from Okehampton to London operating by December. It was then stated that it would be at least late July before the service, which would benefit commuters, shoppers and tourists alike, started. But plans have been delayed further, as the Office of Rail Regulation (
ORR» ) is still considering DCR's application for a European passenger and freight licence.
An ORR spokesman told the Gazette: "ORR needs to verify that a company is able to operate before any licence is issued. A public consultation has begun so that interested parties can comment on the application. We cannot issue any licences until the consultation has finished, and then we will make our decision. We have already issued the necessary safety certificate, and the company will also need to negotiate track access rights so that it can use the railway."
The consultation started on Thursday, August 26, and runs until Wednesday, September 22.
Comments on the proposal to grant the applicant a licence should be sent to
okiemute.mowoe@orr.gsi.gov.uk or Mute Mowoe, Office of Rail Regulation, 1 Kemble Street, London WC2B 4AN, before the closing date.
Dennis Leworthy, duty manager for Dartmoor Railway (DR), which supports trains between Okehampton and Exeter on Sundays during summer only, said that from the time that authority was given it would take ten weeks to get everything in place to run the service, including staff.
DCR, which would run the new service, and DR, which runs the heritage service and does not run trains on the national network, would both work from Okehampton and there would be some crossover in staff. Both companies are subsidiaries of British American Railway Services, a company formed by Iowa Pacific Holdings of Chicago to acquire the assets of ECT Rail Holdings in 2008.
Mr Leworthy said: "Until we get authority from the ORR we are not going to put together the wherewithal to run the service. We are hoping that we will be able to start the service this year. We are on tenterhooks. We have had enquiries about it from Exeter University and the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital and we are keen to get going. We were anticipating that we would be able to start in May, but the ORR is going through everything with a fine-tooth comb. We believe it has been happy with everything so far, but it kept asking to see more and we did not account for these delays."
The line was built in the second half of the 19th century, but the Okehampton to Exeter passenger service was withdrawn by British Rail in 1972 as part of the Beeching cuts, and the main use of the line was then to transport ballast from Meldon Quarry. Regular passenger services were reinstated on the line in 1997 with the inception of the Dartmoor Railway community interest company, whose volunteers help to maintain the line.
Devon County Council gave ^250,000 towards the project to bring the second platform at Yeoford station back into use, as it is a junction, to enable the dream for daily trains to be realised. The grant came from the council's Investing in Devon programme, funded by the proceeds of the sale of Exeter Airport.
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