A group pushing for the reopening of the railway from Exeter to Plymouth via Okehampton and Tavistock is seeking funding to prepare a Strategic Outline Business Case. Tavistock Okehampton Reopening Scheme (TORS) says this will enable outstanding work on route options, service plans, environmental and social benefits and community and stakeholder engagement to take place.
Plans are already in place to start passenger services between Exeter and Okehampton. At present only a summer Sunday service runs ( see above)
Tavistock Okehampton Reopening Scheme (TORS) says the full reopening of the route as an electrified railway will provide transformative transport links to large parts of Devon and Cornwall, with direct trains to London. It also claims the reopening will improve access to education and jobs for communities in West, Mid and North Devon and North Cornwall, as well as serving the growing leisure and tourism market. By extending existing Waterloo-Exeter trains over the reopened railway to Plymouth, TORS argues that the connectivity and benefits would be higher than any previous proposals. The existing services from Plymouth to Gunnislake and Exeter to Barnstaple would be retained and enhanced, while express bus links to Torrington, Holsworthy, Launceston/Bude and Wadebridge/Padstow from the railway could provide faster public transport links in those areas than ever before.
The Exeter-Plymouth via Okehampton and Tavistock railway closed as a through route in 1968, with stubs retained from Exeter to Meldon and Plymouth to Bere Alston. Picture above shows the end of the line looking north from Bere Alston in 1985.
The ‘Northern Route’ – or ‘Dartmoor Line’ as the section to Okehampton is being formally named – could also act as a diversionary route when the coastal main line is closed by extreme weather or for maintenance – and by enabling longer closures of this route for engineering works to take place, make Network Rail’s wider resilience programme cheaper, easier and more effective.
There is also considerable potential, says TORS, for freight trains to take long-distance lorries off the roads by providing an all-weather route. Trains of supermarket products already run to Inverness, and the distances from distribution hubs to Devon and Cornwall mean similar trains could cut lorry miles and reduce carbon emissions in the South West.
TORS envisages that the existing Exeter to Okehampton and Bere Alston to Plymouth railways would be upgraded with double track and in cab signalling, with a rebuilt railway through Dartmoor and Tavistock. The route would be electrified throughout. Costs are still being determined, but TORS expects full reopening and route upgrades to be comparable with or less than other major transport schemes on a cost-per-mile basis. In 2014, Network Rail estimated the cost of a full double-track railway at £875m, with a 66% contingency.
A two-stop journey time of 65 minutes is achievable on the electrified railway, with non-stop journey times of 59 minutes between Exeter and Plymouth. Journey times from Okehampton to Exeter of 22 minutes, Tavistock to Plymouth of 22 minutes and non-stop are also achievable.
TORS director Jim Collins – who was also Strategic Rail Authority Head of Franchise Planning, Managing Director of Thameslink and Manager of Plymouth and Cornish railways – says: “While there is further work to be done on the fine detail of the timings, we are confident in our analysis. The strategic impact of the full route reopening would be very significant under our proposals and would actually help Network Rail’s long-term resilience programme for the coastal main line, which remains the region’s overwhelming transport priority.”
Fellow TORS director Andrew Roden – a Cornwall-based railway journalist who led 2005’s campaign to save the ‘Night Riviera’ sleeper train from closure – added: “Reopening of this route has been examined for many years but has always foundered on the grounds of operating costs and revenues or journey times. This proposal developed by rail industry experts is based on solid and proven engineering and operating experience – and while much work needs to be done in a Strategic Outline Business Case, this railway has the potential to transform the economies of huge parts of Devon and Cornwall, with diversionary capability for the main line a very welcome bonus.”
Jon Shaw, Professor of Transport Geography at Plymouth University and TORS’ third director, has studied the impact of climate change on the coastal main line at Dawlish, and concluded that by 2080, under current low emissions scenarios the coastal railway could be disrupted for up to 84 days per year. Scientific opinion is increasingly of the view that the high emissions scenario is more likely, with a total of 120 days of disruption per year by 2080. He said: “We do not believe there is another single scheme in the UK which offers a better transport response to climate change caused by global warming: this is where sea level rises are biting hardest on our transport network”.
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