Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

Yes, I do wholeheartedly approve of the B&YV style of operations. Also, I don't think the pair of Indian Pacifics will be seen in Devon in my lifetime, but as they say, never say never and also be careful for what you wish for.

But since I have a very long wish list, I doubt that I will see any of it happen.

 

The point of my post was not just about their excellent record of land acquisitions but to ask your opinion of B&YVRT's new approach. They're now proposing to rebuild unconnected sections of the railway on the lands they own, gradually linking them together as more sections are obtained. Building the track, and maybe stations, but not running regular trains (except occasional special events) until they have bought and built a length viable enough.

I'm still not optimistic the L&B Trust'll get permission for the latest version of the CFL extension so perhaps they could then adopt the same approach. Apply for planning permission just to relay the track to Parracombe and restore the station. No loop (keep the existing one until no longer required), and run no trains other than an occasional 'members only' special until either the further extension to Blackmoor is built; or the Parracombe residents clamour for it after a year or two of looking over the fence and seeing it's not so bad after all.

As I said before this approach would prove (to potential future supporters & funders, local authorities - and residents) the Trust(s) seriousness about getting as much as possible of the railway rebuilt in the long term and of managing construction projects, and special events, in a neighbourly, professional and environmentally sensitive way.

Never mind about what rolling-stock until the need is actually on the horizon. And if the project is exciting enough who knows what might be offered.

 

As I see it, there are two major problems with that approach:-

1. There will be a length of track and a putative Halt that may stand idle for goodness knows how long, meanwhile needing regular maintenance that will divert resources from elsewhere and risk falling foul of the ENPA's stance of not wanting to be left with incomplete railway construction sites littering the Park .

2, You can not rebuilt the railway and Halt at PE without first demolishing 'The Halt' - the bungalow on the site (owned by the Trust). It would not be very good for relationships with the local population if the railway evicted its tenants for no good reason other than to be able to run "oocasional specials" once every proverbial blue moon :--(

 

One thing to note however is that the length of such an extension, while it would add significantly to the current L&B operable track by proportion... wouldn't be terribly long in terms of actual distance.

If you operated to Cricket Field Lane regularly, with maybe once or twice a weekend stops at Parracombe, the latter stop would be less than 1,000 feet away from Cricket field. That, in my mind, could be a manageable enough section to operate irregularly.

If there's no Cricket Field halt, different story. That's around 7 tenths of a mile or so away from Killington lane, nearly half of the railway from Woody Bay to Parracombe wouldn't be useable.

I think the idea of having irregular services to Parracombe could work... but only if Cricket Field Halt exists.

 

To be frank, the only realistic reason to have a Halt at CFL would be if we could not get to PE - period. But then we would have to solve the problem of stopping a train on a steep gradient 'cos we can't raise the trackbed at CFL (been there, tried that etc).

Being realistic IMHO it is either PE or nothing. How many times can we continue to throw time and money at planning applications before it becomes apparent that we need to try something radically different?

 

I am sorry I misunderstood your point regarding the restoration of the various sections of trackbed. Personally, I think it will all depend on where the section is. I think it will require us (as a whole Railway) to have several different outcomes available.

Realistically, as things stand, I can't see us being allowed to reopen all of the old route. The one section I think that we need to look at again will be the Barnstaple Town to Snapper Halt section. Barnstaple itself has grown since the railway was last in operations there and from what I remember, there may still be various vested interests involved in and around that section of the railway which would make it almost impossible to get reopened. That said, If an alternative route was to become available then of course I would look at that as well.

I like your idea about comparing rebuilding the L&BR to rebuilding a canal, to be honest I don't know enough about the canal scence to make a judgement call on if it would work for the L&BR. there area two things that come to mind:

1) If we own a substantial continuous section of trackbed, then it would make sense to seek planning permission to restore it to and to make it ready for track laying.

2) If it is an isolated section, but it requires some civil engineering work to be carried out to make it fit for use, then again, this has to be another lets get it done.

Where I think it would do more harm is to fence off the land, and for the railway to do nothing with it for years on end.

While we all would love to see more of the railway open, to do the above will cost money and I would rather leave that bit of the discussion for another day.

Finally on this point it is good to see that the land is being managed since we want to be known as good neighbours, so it would be in our own interest to make sure that the trackbed does not become overgrow and look abandoned and create problems for our neighbours themseleves.

The more I look at any extension to Parracombe the worse the nighmare becomes, the first thing we all need to understand is that if we build any railway from Kilington Lane towards Parracombe Halt then we lose the Killington Lane run-round station as that is part of the agreement we had with the landowner, and we can not have both at the same time it is one or the other only.

I am sure we don't own the Killington Lane station site, but we do lease it, we do however own the trackbed.

Should we then decide to build the railway back to Parracombe then the whole line would then become one long siding from Woody Bay to Parracombe Halt to keep the operations simple it may well be that we top and tail the train with the steam engine at the Woody bay end of the train and at the Parracombe end have one of the Diesels.

Also as things stand I can see there would be some local objections to people walking to Parracombe Halt and taking the train to Woody Bay, if that was to be part of a new planning permission, we would lose a place where people could walk into Parracombe from Killington Lane.

For what it is worth I have come to the conclusion that it may be better for the L&BRT to built its railway from Blackmoor to just south of Parracombe which would form a stalingrad pincer movement, what is the old saying? give them enough rope................

If for no other reason than we still find ourseleves in stalemant with Parracombe and there is still a desire to make the Woody Bay operation longer, I would start to seriously look at going all the way back to Lynton. it certainly won't be cheap and we may have to think outside of the box on this extension.

I total agree with you about being good neighbours all round, if the B&YVT can do it, why can't the L&BRT?

I did say I wanted to leave the issue of fundraising for another day but this is going to be a big project and raising the sort of mney it will need is not for the faint hearted.

 

I've followed the trials and tribulations of the L&B restoration for a number of years now. Having visited Woody Bay a few years ago, I was impressed by what I found and would dearly love to see it extended.

Looking at the recent discussions, it seems to this distant observer that a great solution would be a "long siding" to Parracombe Halt that, just like the Llangollen's extension to Corwen (before it was completed, of course), is operated top-and-tail on special occasions, but otherwise operations are limited to Killington Lane as per the current arrangement. It worked extremely well for the LR and look what they now have...

An argument is made that it would be lightly used track that would need maintaining, but without wishing to be rude, the existing mile of track is not exactly a huge running line to keep maintained, so surely it could be done? I also understand there is a question about lifting the run-round loop at Killington Lane once the line is extended, but would it not be possible to approach the landowner to see if the agreement could be altered?

It just seems to me that there is no perfect solution here because of the disjointed ownership of the trackbed and local opposition in some places, but this scheme would get the line extended (albeit only for occasional use), and other railways have shown that demonstrating the ability to extend, even if in small increments, can lead to bigger and better things.

Just a thought!

 

I think you will find that relinquishing the site of KL station is not so much a result of any agreement with the landowner, but as a condition of the original planning permission from the ENPA.

 

Ok, that's a detail a did not appreciate, but my general point was that there is surely scope for at least exploring if that condition could be varied...? If the question is never asked, the answer will never be known.

As I see it, there is no chance of (a) a run-round at CFL, or (b) a run-round loop at (what was) Parracombe Halt. Neither option would reinstate the L&B as it was originally and it's been made clear by the planning authorities that this is the only thing they will support, and I happen to agree with that stance. Therefore, the only option, if an extension is to made to the Woody Bay operation, is a long siding to Parracombe Halt and reinstate that precisely as it was. I agree that top-and-tail operation is not ideal, which is why I suggested operating using the same model that the Llangollen did when they were reconstructing towards Corwen. It seems to me that it would tick so many boxes (e.g. a running line between two original L&B stations) and if there's a will, there's a way.

Anyway, just my two pennies' worth.

 

It is a planning condition, but planning condition time limits s can be amended, as we have seen at WB, so that shouldn't necessarily preclude this approach. The landowner is paid a rental for the KL site, so is likely to be in support of such an arrangement.

 

James Hewett is right. If we take the heritage railway enthusiast side of things out of the question (for now) and rebuild the Woody Bay operation into a long siding, then yes, I agree, most of the visitors to Woody Bay are not die-hard railway enthusiasts, and I guess most couldn't tell you the difference between one type of steam locomotive and another. But they certainly would remember the different colours*.

* I think someone once told me that the Tallalyn once asked which loco the people at the time liked; they had a choice of either a green or a red loco. The result was that most would be willing to wait to travel behind the red engine.

I come back to my old theme, in that as much as I really do like the Heritage Coaches and all that goes with it, most people probably don't really appreciate all the work that has gone into recreating that atmosphere and ambience in the first place, a ride behind a steam locomotive and looking out of the windows and gazing upon the North Devon Countryside is what remains of the memories from the whole visit.

With a visit to the gift shop, cafe and the WCs as the second-highest priority for most visitors after a ride on the train. I guess you could do the whole thing in two hours.

If you want to try and extract yet more money from the visitors, maybe a financial/marketing link to use the OSHI at Blackmoor might need to be promoted when a ticket is purchased at Woody Bay, a lot more (if it isn't already).

I think we can all agree that rebuilding the L&BR is not going to be easy, but some civil engineering issues will need to be addressed before any extension can or should be attempted. I know some don't want to hear me repeat the idea of selecting the various civil engineering targets that will bring the most benefit in the short term to the railway, but having both a clear, continuous trackbed, which is owned by whatever part of the L&BR Family, must become the priority right now if we can get ourseleves in to such a postion that with the purchase of say three or four small sections of trackbed opens up a decent length of the railway then I am sure that most members would see this as a far better option rather that continuing to bang our heads up against an unremovalabel brickwall of Parracombe.

I am convinced that the more trackbed we can own and have operating, even if that also means having a second battery-powered railway service on a second section, will give the railway a louder voice in the community at large. has to be a good thing.

 

Wow lynbarn - not summat I often hear! (Your opening phrase....) Agree with all you say. I also appreciate the WB coaching stock - and (presumably because that's the main part of their experience) the general public DO enjoy proper heritage stock. I took a non-enthusiast to the FR last summer, and he poked his nose into a lot of carriages - in the end he was so impressed by ambience of the ex-L&B Snapper coach that we settled in there for the journey.
Often (and on that occasion) the WCs, cafe and shop were in fact more important than the actual ride. James

 

Same conclusion I came to two and a half years ago. (See post #10921.)

You wouldn't need to demolish it any time soon though. Get permission to do so, build the extension up to just short of it, and just keep renting it out until such time as the tenants leave and/or some massive maintenance bill becomes due. And in the meantime, you've built enough to lock in the permission to demolish it when the time is right. If you can't operate a train on the first bit in the meantime, fair enough, but I reckon you could get permission for the occasional top & tailed special, which shows progress.

The trouble is, nobody really knows if Parracombe is an immoveable brick wall, because nobody has applied to extend to there... even though that is precisely what the local plan says you should be able to do. It's the constant trying to shoehorn extra unnecessary things into the plans which is so infuriating about this project. Apply for the bare minimum, keep strictly within the guideance so nobody can reasonably object, get it done, live with the restrictions for a few years and then see where you can go after that.

As for acquiring trackbed and joining the pieces up - exactly as has been happening in the south - yes, I agree, that is important, but there is no rush unless it's needed for an imminent extension, and creating some false sense of urgency will only push the price up. And I don't know why you would embark upon expensive civil engineering work (which I take to mean reinstating missing bridges and so on) unless there was operational track going down any time soon. The ones near Blackmoor were OK, as they locked in planning permission for that section, but otherwise it's a waste of money.

 

While I agree with your sentiment about distracting projects, we do know that there was great hostility to the proposal to vary the 2018 planning permission to permit operation to just Parracombe - although I accept that the failure of the application was on a legal technicality to do with varying existing permission.

I'm in the camp of needing to go south because the rime is not right to keep refighting the planning battles of Passchaendale Parracombe.