UK: Regular passenger services between Okehampton and Exeter are to be reinstated, after the Department for Transport confirmed the provision of £40·5m of funding under the Restoring Your Railway initiative on March 19.
The initial service will start by the end of this year, with an improved timetable to be introduced during 2022.
The journey time of 40 min is estimated to be around 30% quicker than by car or bus, encouraging modal shift to help reduce congestion and pollution on the busy A30 road.
Reopening of the line is expected to attract inward investment and greater numbers of visitors, with the development of Okehampton station as a transport hub to provide greater access to nearby attractions including the Dartmoor National Park.
DfT said the railway would also provide better access to and from the wider mid and west Devon and north Cornwall areas, and support people who live in or near Okehampton and need to travel to Exeter to study or work.
Enhancements
GWR Managing Director Mark Hopwood said ‘returning regular, daily services to this line has been a long-held ambition of ours and it was the most sought-after of the additional routes in our most recent franchise consultation’.
Heritage services between Okehampton and Meldon Viaduct were operated by the Dartmoor Railway Community Interest Company between 1997 and 2019, however it entered administration in February 2020.
A special service between Exeter and Okehampton has been operated by GWR for many years on Sundays between May and September, with the trains in 2019 carrying a record 7 800 passenger journeys. The service did not operate in 2020 because of Covid-19, and will not run in 2021 whilst the line is being renovated ahead of formal reopening.
Since the beginning of 2020, Network Rail and GWR have been carrying out detailed investigations to understand what infrastructure and control system improvements are needed to bring the 22 km route between Okehampton and the connection with the Exeter – Barnstable line at Coleford Junction up to the required standards for regular services.
Now that funding has been confirmed, Network Rail is to undertake a range of drainage, fencing and infrastructure works, renew more than 17 km of track, improve several level crossings and install GSM-R masts.
Despite it being nearly 50 years since daily passenger services last ran, Okehampton station remains largely intact. It was thoroughly restored by Devon County Council and partners in the 1990s for the introduction of the summer Sunday services. The latest modernisation will be sympathetic to the heritage of the facility, and will incorporate many of the existing features, enhanced to reflect its appearance in the 1950s.
New facilities will include a ticket vending machine, help point, public address system, information screens, CCTV, free wi-fi and making the station fully accessible. A pay & display car park will also be developed.
Train services
Services are to be operated using Class 150, 158 and 166 DMUs, offering up to 130 seats per service and complying with current accessibility standards.
The initial service to start by the end of 2021 will see trains between Okehampton, Crediton and Exeter St Davids running every 2 h seven days a week. Approximately half of the weekday services will be extended to and from Exeter Central, including the key peak services, with weekend services extended where possible at a later date.
Additional infrastructure works are to take place on the route to enable GWR to increase the service to hourly during 2022.
It is hoped that some services will serve Newton St Cyres, and there is an aspiration to open a parkway station at the east end of Okehampton in the coming years, subject to further work and funding bids. Other stations on the route, such as Sampford Courtenay, are not planned to open under the current scheme.
