Lyme Regis Branch Line - The Route

The Route

The line was 6 miles 45.6 chains long. Starting from Axminster station, at the level of the River Axe there, it climbed, running broadly southerly to Combpyne, where the only intermediate station was sited. Turning broadly east, it now descended to Lyme Regis, crossing an arm of the River Lim on Cannington Viaduct, and passing through the village of Uplyme: the gradient was too steep to permit a station there. The station at Lyme Regis was inconveniently located on the northern margin of the town, because immediately beyond the line's buffer stops the mand falls steeply towards the sea.

The ruling gradient was 1 in 40 in each direction. It was single throughout, with a passing loop at Combpyne. At Axminster passenger trains were accommodated on the Up (north) side of the station in a bay platform, and the line swung south across the main line by a bridge. However the goods yard there was on the down side, and at first there was a goods line access to the branch line on that side, controlled by two ground frames, one at the yard exit and one at the connection on to the single line, higher up. This required departing goods trains to stop and restart on the steep gradient twice while the ground frame was operated, and this difficult arrangement was taken out of use on 5 September 1915, after which down goods trains shunted to the Up side at Axminster and used the branch line itself.

Phillips states that at first the line was operated on the "one engine in steam" principle, with the run-round and yard points at Lyme Regis being operated by a key on the train staff; and that in 1906 Tyers no. 6 instruments were installed, enabling electric train token working, with two sections meeting at Combpyne.

Mitchell and Smith say that Combpyne "originally"—this probably means "after 1906"—had a passing loop, and a fourteen lever signal box. They say that only four levers were ever used, (confirmed by Maggs, suggesting an absence of running signals, implying that the loop was for shunting goods trains off the running line; however the same authors refer to the station having had two platform faces, implying passenger use. Phillips refers to four specific signals operated from the signal box—there were fixed distant signals. The 1910 public timetable reproduced by Mitchell and Smith shows no passenger trains crossing at Combpyne; nor does the July 1922 public timetable.