I haven't seen this mentioned on the forum and only first learned of it today - more details here - https://www.cornish-times.co.uk/news/cornwall-rail-connection-plans-gain-momentum-with-kernow-connect-scheme-906262
Interesting. It raises many questions!

A useful infographic on the project is attached

 
new electrified railway from Okehampton to Bodmin via Launceston.........

Won't be holding my breath...

https://www.cornish-times.co.uk/news/cornwall-rail-connection-plans-gain-momentum-with-kernow-connect-scheme-906262

 
With thanks for posting this news almost simultaneously, alexross42 and old original, I've merged your posts here, for clarity and continuity.

CfN. 

 
I am pleased to report that all porcine aviators are fed, watered and ready for action.

 
Going off at something of a tangent again, I remember this television advert from nearly 20 years ago: from YouTube, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7laPLF5w3Ys (Please bear with the rubbish quality of the images from those days).

CfN. 

 
Is this the new Go-op scheme?

 

... cough, splutter ... 

 
A hundred and fifty years sgo, this was the sort of project that not only got support and investors, but actually reached fruition and came into existence, making perhaps a living - and certainly bringing propsperity to the area served - for around 100 years.  And within my memory, the roads from Exeter through to serve Cornwall have been re-engineered / replaced out of all recognition.  This proposal had me turning back to look at the "Withererd Arm" - the South Western line beyond Exeter, via Okehampton and Launceston to Wadebridge (you could change for Bodmin) and Padstow.

We are not of an age in the UK to bring back that railway in that form - it's far too late and so much has moved on. Modern railways take different courses, being far less dependent on the layout of the countryside with massive tunnels and viaducts where previously twisty, turny, incredible routes were engineered to the limits of the day, including an ability to go round corners which take time on fast lines, but an inability to fall amd climb as steeply as passenger lines can do these days.

I do not see a line from Exeter through to North Cornwall opening in my lifetime - but in another 100 years, who knows? Exeter - Okehampton - Lydford - Launceston - midCornwall, with a branch from Lydford to Tavistock and Plymouth? If we were in Spain, France, Germany, Benelux, Turkey, we might already be finding major rail construction to replace or supplement some of the lines with more challenging characteristics. But in our current generation and UK situation, North Cornwall is unlikely.