South Devon Railway Winter Gala - 2nd-4th January 2026

I agree, it's extremely frustrating, especially if you need to book tickets to get there. It's not the most accessible line unless you're relatively local. The diesel gala last month was the same, and it seems to be the case most years that the timetable only appears the week beforehand. Locos have been hired in, one of which is coming a fair old distance (I doubt that'll be cheap), so trying to attract as many paying passengers as possible should be the aim.

It doesn't need to be a full working timetable with loco allocations etc, just the actual times is all that's needed. It's a simple line - two end stations with a passing loop almost exactly in the middle. It's not like the SVR with uneven section lengths and various permutations of services, so your options are limited with regards what can be run; essentially two full length services and the occasional shuttle. That's pretty much it. I understand what others say about timings, crews, speeds, water, availability, etc, but the timetable that has now appeared has the standard 45 or 60 minute gaps between departures. It's not groundbreaking.

 

All well and good saying the timings are a standard 45/60 minute pattern, but you have shorter runs to Staverton too, and five locomotives to make the best use of.

If they went with the standard loco swaps upon return to Buckfastleigh, Newstead working the 9.45am service (as an example) would arrive back there at 10:59am, swap with 5526, then do nothing until 12.30pm (taking over from 2807) or (if you took 1369 off the 10.30am) even the 1.15pm. It's next run would then likely be the 3.15pm/4pm departure and that would be it. From personal experience as footplate crew, sitting around for 2 hours twiddling thumbs can get a bit tedious. At least as it now stands there's a few quirky movements, without which people would probably complain it is "too boring".

I think there's a huge assumption that doing a gala timetable is 'easy', when actually there's a lot of complexities that do not immediately seem obvious - the wrong loco movement can entirely scupper a timetable (a mistake I have also made!)