Under The Control of The Great Western Railway
The Associated Companies were in effect the Great Western Railway. A West Cornwall Committee was formed, consisting of two former West Cornwall directors and two Great Western directors to manage the line under Associated Companies ownership.
They then proceeded with the work of laying broad gauge rails (i.e. converting the main line to mixed gauge) and to improving the very poor quality infrastructure on the West Cornwall main lines. Broad gauge goods trains started running on 6 November 1866 and passenger trains from 1 March 1867, with two through London services each way daily.
Some narrow gauge trains continued to run, and from November 1871 until the abolition of broad gauge, some goods trains ran as mixed trains, conveying wagons of both gauges in the same train.
The Associated Companies amalgamated as the Great Western Railway in 1876 and the West Cornwall system was then formally a part of that company.
The West Cornwall line was still in a weak condition, with timber trestle viaducts and poor quality track; Barlow rail and the original T-section rail on stone blocks persisted on the original branches, and the line was single throughout. The branches all remained narrow gauge only (except for a mixed gauge deviation on Hayle Wharves, opened on 3 October 1877).
The timber trestle viaducts were replaced by masonry or by masonry and iron structures in the period 1885 - 1888, with the exception of the Penzance viaduct. This was largely washed away on 31 December 1868, and the railway was diverted inland until a new viaduct was completed, opening on 28 October 1871.
In May 1892 the Great Western Railway undertook the upheaval of gauge conversion, in which all broad gauge lines were converted to standard gauge. The West Cornwall system was already mixed gauge, so this only implied eventual removal of the unnecessary broad gauge rails. The opportunity was taken to reconfigure the track at Penwithers Junction, where the Falmouth line crossed the Newham line on the level. There had been two independent tracks from Truro, one narrow leading to the West Cornwall line, and one broad, leading towards Falmouth. From 1893 the two single tracks were converted to form a double line, with a full junction at Penwithers for the divergence of the Penzance and Falmouth lines. At the same time the Newham branch, now only carrying local goods for Truro, was directly accessible only from the Falmouth line.
Doubling of the single line sections started, and by 1904 nearly 11 miles of the 25 miles of West Cornwall main line had been doubled: Chacewater to Scorrier, Redruth to Gwinear Road, Hayle to St Erth, and Marazion to Ponsandane (near Penzance). By 1921 only Scorrier to Redruth and St Erth to Marazion remained single.
The reconstructed Penzance viaduct of 1871 had 51 spans, originally of timber construction but with some later steel strengthening. In 1920 the viaduct was replaced with a stone faced embankment carrying double track. The Penzance station site remained very cramped, with only two short passenger platforms, and in 1937 a new goods station was opened at Ponsandane, just outside Penzance, serving the whole catchment area of Penzance, about 100 square miles, motor cartage having been introduced. This freed space at Penzance itself for enlargement of the passenger facilities there, and a considerable area of the foreshore was reclaimed at the eastern end of the station. This incorporated a new extended sea wall and in collaboration with the town Corporation, a public promenade was formed on it.
This enabled the passenger station to be extended to have four long platforms, and new loading banks for fish and flower traffic were built to remove these activities from the passenger station. The work was completed in 1938.
The original West Cornwall Railway branches continued in operation, but closed during the twentieth century; the Portreath and Tresavean branches closed in 1936; North Crofty closed in 1948; Roskear in 1963; Newham in 1972 and Hayle Wharves and the Phillack stub in 1982.
The main line from Penzance to Truro continues as part of the Cornish Main Line to this day.
Read more about this topic: West Cornwall Railway
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