Heritage Railway
In 1968 it was formally proposed to the Ministry of Transport that the line from Paignton should be closed entirely but instead, on 30 December 1972, the line was sold to the Dart Valley Railway Company, which at that time operated the nearby heritage railway that subsequently became the South Devon Railway. A winter service was operated from 1 January 1973 but from the end of that summer it became a purely seasonal operation. The purchase price of the railway was £250,000 and a further £25,000 was paid for signalling alterations at Paignton. Most of this was recouped from the sale of The Royal Dart Hotel at Kingswear and other surplus land.
An independent station alongside the main station at Paignton, known as "Queens Park", was opened to serve the Kingswear trains on the site of the old Park Sidings. The line was marketed at the time as the "Torbay Steam Railway", but this has since been changed to "Paignton & Dartmouth Steam Railway". It remains the property of The Dart Valley Light Railway Company plc.
A loop was reinstated at Churston in 1979 using colour-light signals, and in 1981 the turntable from the British Rail sidings at Goodrington was moved there. In 1991 the control of all signalling was moved to a new panel at Britannia Crossing near Kingswear. A locomotive workshop was opened at Churston in 1993 and a carriage shop opened there three years later.
In 2007 the second track and carriage sidings were reinstated at Goodrington Sands to give more space for storing rolling stock.
The Association of Train Operating Companies included Brixham one of fourteen towns that, based on 2009 data, would benefit from a new railway service. This would be an extension of the First Great Western service on the Riviera Line from Exmouth as far as Churston, which would then act as a railhead for Brixham. It would also serve other housing developments in the area since the opening of the steam railway, and may require the doubling of that line between Paignton and Goodrington Sands.
Read more about this topic: Dartmouth Steam Railway, History
Famous quotes containing the words heritage and/or railway:
“There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man’s life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)