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Steam Around Devon and Cornwall by Peter W. Gray Hard Cover
Steam Around Devon and Cornwall by Peter W. Gray
Hard cover
Copyright Peter W. Gray 2001
Introduction
Welcome to another celebration of steam in the South West peninsula, as seen through my camera lens during the latter years of regular steam operation. In presenting this further volume, which contains many branch as well as main-line scenes, I have consciously tried to present fresh views, repeating as few as possible of the locations featured in my previous books.
Our journey commences close to Burlescombe, near the Devon/ Somerset border, and proceeds at first in a generally westward direction, with diversions to cover most of the branch lines in Devon and Cornwall. We visit the CuIm Valley, Tiverton and Exe Valley lines before making an excursion into East Devon, including Lyme Regis, and Exmouth trains.
In those days local passengers had the alternative of the coastal route from Exeter to Newton Abbot or the very rural Teign Valley line, with connection at Heathfield onto the Moretonhampstead branch. We cover both, before journeying down the Kingswear branch to its nerve centre at Paignton.
From high summer at Goodrington beach, we move to Christmas frost at Newton Abbot, before scaling the heights of Dainton Bank, and taking a trip beside the cool waters of the River Dart to Ashburton. Beyond Totnes, there is Rattery Bank to ascend before diverting at Brent to visit the Kingsbridge branch and from Plymouth taking a frosty trip to Launceston.
A reminder of the Southern's erstwhile local services to Plymstock and Turnchapel is followed by views on the Callington line and Southern main line near Brentor.The scene now moves east to Coleford Junction, where the Southern's Plymouth and Ilfracombe lines part company, for a journey towards Ilfracombe, before returning to Torrington, and then hopping across country to Okehampton, whence the so-called 'Withered Arm' can be savoured, concluding with a Beattie well tank venturing out to Wenford Bridge.
The run home commences from Penzance, via St Ives, Hayle and Helston, to St Agnes and Truro. The clay line to Drinnick Mill is not forgotten, nor the 'main' Newquay branch from Par. Much of the charm of Cornwall lay in its short branch lines along river banks to the sea shore, so the Fowey and Looe lines are both visited, along with the overland route to Wadebridge from Bodmin Road.
We leave Cornwall over the Royal Albert Bridge, appropriately in one of the 'sandwich' auto trains which serviced Saltash before the road bridge brought eternal traffic jams, and continue 'over the banks' to terminate our journey at Newton Abbot, where we run out of pages!
I'm sometimes asked how I used to get about while taking these pictures, and, while some were taken while travelling by train, the majority came from the saddle of my water-cooled 200cc LE Velocette motor-cycle. While this was not fast, it was fast enough for the roads and lanes of those days, and utterly reliable. This was, of course, well before helmets became compulsory, and I have fond memories, from the very hot summer of 1959, of setting off from Torquay for Cornwall in the early hours, clad only in shirt and trousers, with the cameras in a haversack, knowing it was going to be hot and sunny all day. And it was.
One advantage of taking a motor-cycle to Cornwall early on summer Saturday mornings, was knowing that you could always get on the first Torpoint ferry, whereas before the road bridge cars could spend two or three hours in the ferry queue on the Plymouth side, waiting to cross the River Tamar.
Reproduction is from original slides, mainly Kodachrome I, with Kodachrome II taking over from 1962, and a couple each of High Speed Ektachrome and Agfa CT18. The latter were only used in order to keep going during the winter months, because at a speed of 8 on the Weston meter, Kodachrome I was almost impossible to use other than in good light.
The cameras used were a Voigtlander Vito Ila with a f3.5 Color-Skopar lens, until early 1959, and then an Agfa Super Silette with a f2 Solagon lens and that was in turn replaced by a Pentax S1a during 1965. The first two were both fixed-lens cameras and the fastest shutter speed I could use on Kodachrome I with the Vito Ila was 1/125th sec. The f2 Solagon was a tremendous advance, giving good depth of field and crisp definition to the edges, even at f2. Without it, many of these pictures could not have been taken.
In passing, we must not forget the legion of permanent-way staff who kept the vegetation in check on an annual basis, not on the 30-year basis that seems to be the rule nowadays.
Thanks also to Eric Youldon for the background to the Exeter Central picture, to the publishers for their confidence in asking for another selection of my West Country pictures, and most of all to you, the reader. I hope you will enjoy the selection I have chosen.
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