Barnstaple and Yeo Valley Railway Trust - B&YVRT

I posted another blog update today.
It's here:
https://yeovalleylines.blogspot.com/2026/08/equipment-purchases.html

Hope you like it.
There will be more news after the open meeting in Barnstaple on September 26th. Any interested party can attend, you don't have to be a member.

 

Excellent to see the progress by the team.

 

Just appeared on YouTube:

 

I have been on that section several times, as both 7.25" and 2ft gauge, with David Moore and Colin Pealling, among others. When I first discovered it, (about 1991?) I was surprised to find that a siding had been built - terminating at the end of the parapet of what I think was Button Bridge! Quite a steep climb for a 7.25" loco, so I'm guessing it was hand-propelled or rope-driven.

 

The new B&YVRT website - https://byvrt.org.uk - is scheduled to launch on Saturday, 26th September, to coincide with our Open Meeting. You are welcome to join us for the final Exmoor Associates Trackbed Walk and General Meeting, celebrating the achievements of the past 23 years, and looking forward to future progress.

Everyone is welcome to come along – bring a guest or two!

Order of the day:

– 10.30am: Trackbed walk, from the car park at Barnstaple Croquet Club, Raleigh Meadow, Barnstaple, EX31 4UX: https://maps.app.goo.gl/JuuLzWCiTcwHbysY7

– 1pm: Buffet lunch at Roundswell Community Centre, Gratton Way, Roundswell, Barnstaple, EN31 3NL: https://maps.app.goo.gl/R3oXozTbCLK5c8pb9

(Cost for lunch is £10 per person, please let us know you are coming by emailing meeting@byvrt.org.uk)

– 2pm: Meeting starts, with a short farewell from Exmoor Associates and thanks for all the support over 23 years, then a welcome to the B&YVRT that will take us to the next level.

– 5pm: meeting ends

 

I don't think the 2ft gauge railway outside of Bratton Fleming is in use anymore, as the loco and rolling stock have now moved to Woody Bay recently.

 

Exciting plans for the Yeo Valley:

 

Also worth mentioning that the Home - Barnstaple & Yeo Valley Railway Trust website is now live, where you can read about the Snapper Track Appeal (if you don't want to watch the video).

 

There's a new post on the Yeo Valley Lines blog, just published here:

https://yeovalleylines.blogspot.com/2026/10/meeting-and-trackbed-walk.html

 

The new website is looking rather good, and when you start to look at how much of the trackbed is now owned by B&YVRT, that too is also very impressive

 

Referencing the latest blog, will there be experimentation with different mixes of concrete for SR infrastructure replications? I notice with early 2oth century concrete the texture and colour are quite different to modern mixes the SR posts look darker and have a rougher surface (this may be due to weathering but I don’t think so), not necessarily in the case of SR concrete products but pea gravel was also used a lot up until the 1950’s in the mix sometimes, I’m sure SR wrote down the exact recipe given how consistent they had to make the products that came out of exmouth junction. Will local stone be used to face visible drainage walls etc? Like how the GWSR uses imperial blues on its drainage projects? Worth looking into.

 

Having just checked in Southern Nouveau, I can't see a mix recipe in the book, but checking with one of the Sages, I am informed that Exmouth Junction would go to the beaches and just scoop up the shingle ballast by the ton and haul it off to the concrete works; apparently after a few years this concrete mix started to fail due ot the fact that the SR did not wash the sea salt off the shingle before they used it, and it used to rot the rebars inside whatever concrete item had used it. All that said, I still don't know what size shingle they would have used; it may well be a case of only being known to those who would do the mixing of the concrete itself

 

During the trackwalk by the Yeo I saw a whole row of former concrete posts with 2ft of rebar sticking out - the rest had crumbled.
But there are also sections where the posts are still good.

That could support the idea that sometimes a bad mix was used.

Here is an example of a post that is still perfectly sound:

 

I'm pretty sure those are original L&B (more tapered) rather than later SR posts. Interestingly, as I understand it, the L&BRT, where they've reused posts of either style, have rotated them through 90 degrees, so the fence wires are clipped to the holes with bent wire fixings, rather than strung through the holes - makes for much easier fitting and replacement.

 

It looks like a higher percentage of ballast was used back then, plus I wonder if they used a lot more lime mortar in the mix; it would be an interesting project to look into.

 

You might want to watch this over a cuppa

 

If using beach Shingle as Ballast, besides any chemical reaction, you will get Smoothing of the stone producing rounded stones. Whereas what you need in ballast is angular stones that lock together.
For an example try shovelling Shingle out of a sleeper bed then try the same amount out of a normal ballast bed.

 

Has something being hacked Bryan, I get a Thai gambling site over the top of the link in your sig?