Manorbier Railway Station Building For Sale

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Is it East Grinstead?

Yes indeed ... just the London line left to the north.  West to Three Bridges, East to Tunbridge Wells and south to Horsted Keynes all lost - through that latter has been restored by the Bluebell Railway.

Noting that East Grinstead has the same population as Melksham, I may have wondered why it retained a complete railway to serve it and Melksham didn't keep even a station on the Lin passing through.  Amongst the suggestions are (a) its nearness to London and (b) that a  Dr Richard Beeching lived there and commuted from there.

Looking "up thread" - yes, Taunton has lost four local services .. but it has retained trains in three directions and not just the one of Barnstaple and of East Grinstead.  I did wonder about Kings Lynn ... and outside the south east about Bishops Auckland.  There are some doubtful cases too - Whitby used to have train to Redcar, Scarborough and Pickering - just one line remains via Battersby.  However, I'm not sure if I would count the Pickering line out of Whitby, since it shares the first few miles with the line that's still open.

Of course, if you look right across the British Isles you'll find towns with a single line where you could have caught trains in three extra directions in the past - to Fenit, Listowel and Dingle, and a city with just a single service remaining and terminating where - from other stations in the city - you could have travelled to Burptonport or Cardonagh, to Strabane or Omagh, and to Stronalar, Donegal and Killybegs.

[stuving]

I think King's Lynn quite likely does have it - four abandoned lines and one extant. But that depends on your not limiting this to post-war line closures.

In 1884 three lines left King's Lynn station, and two divided before any station to go: west to Sutton Bridge (and thence Spalding), southeast to Swaffham, northeast to Fakenham, north to Hunstanton, and the line south to London. Then a direct line was built from the westward line at the junction at South Lynn, via Gayton Road, to join onto the line to Fakenham. The direct link from King's Lynn to this eastward line was lifted before 1904. (And that's not on Richard's map!)

Spalding has also lost four lines, but kept two.

[Lee]

There is currently no heritage branch into Carhaix, but the hope is that there will be in the not too distant future, as the line from Carhaix-Loudeac is being gradually revived on that basis. The section from Gouarec-Bon Repos has already been completed, with extensions west towards Rostrenen and east towards Mur-de-Bretagne via the iconic Bon Repos viaduct next on the radar.

The trackbeds of the other lines have been preserved as Greenways, for the benefit of the walkers and cyclists of today, but also explicitly with the aim of keeping them available to be reopened as railways if and when this becomes viable. The restoration of the Gouarec-Bon Repos section was a successful example of how this will work in practice. There was no competition between the modes for who should get priority - The restoration of the railway and the renovation of the existing Greenway were planned jointly, and a parallel road improvement scheme was specifically configured to ensure enough room for both restored railway and renovated Greenway alongside.

I am very pleased indeed to be able to confirm that Reseau Breton heritage passenger trains between Gouarec and Bon Repos will begin operating from Sunday 23 May