There is a difference - or was then - between an independent railway which has become the victim of circumstances, and one which has formed part of big system. The former became ever more senile and decrepit, while the latter were usually sprightly to the end.
This morning the Lynton and Barnstable did not at first look sprightly, though it was not decrepit. Two very small narrow gauge coaches, alone without their engine at autumnal daybreak, look rather forlorn and certainly as we took our places the compartments seemed peculiarly narrow and hard, bringing home to us the fact that a passenger railway cannot live by quaintness alone. But the little carriages seemed to warm, and even to swell, as the London newspapers were loaded aboard the, and when "Yeo" backed on, the train was truly alive. Just now, there had simply been empty carriages, of ancient and diminutive sort. Now there was “The Newspaper Train”! Yeo's" crowned chimney soared proudly above her squad front end: her big round dome shone with polish lovingly bestowed. In the leading coach the first class smoker, all magnificent with buttoned-in-leather seemed to be awaiting a nabob or at least a magnate.
Alas, it went on waiting; we were still the only passengers as that strange tilde train leapt into motion, abruptly as a buck rabbit and scuttled round the curve to the riverside. "Lew", the new engine built for the Southern Railway in 1925, was outside the shed at Pilton. This and the “Yeo”, which had hauled the first on. on May 10, 1898 were fated to haul the late one together, a few days hence (September 29. 1935). I am glad we did not wait for that. How vain and futile are these ceremonial last tourneys, when a town turns out with its brass band to take a farewell ride on the train it has neglected for years, and all goes off with volleys of fog-signals.
Now we bucketed up the valley as normally and as noisily as if the train had another half century ahead of it. The engine shouting her aubade to the rising sun, the carriages rolling mercer on their 1ft 11½ in gauge. We swung round the sharp curve and over the viaduct into delightful Chelfham, and as we clicked over the rail joints the wheels seemed cheerfully to be singing "As of yore - Evermore - As of yore - Evermore", Oh, that ‘twere possible!
At each station the London papers were dumped out. Who would carry them next week, and how much later would they be for some people? Who knew? At Bratton Fleming, where the station building crouched under rock, we crossed the 07:03 out of Lynton with .Exe" going bunker first, immediately followed by a first class observation car, likewise back to front. On we went through the rock cutting and over the shoulder of Exmoor, with "Yeo” spurning her nine miles at I in 50 as if she would cross the Andes, given time. The train seemed never to go very slowly: One of the attractions of the very narrow gauge was that being so near the rocks and the ground you seemed always to be going much faster than in fact you were. So breakfasting out of basket on more ham than one dared thank of in later years we came to Woody Bay and the summit of the line, 1.000ft abort sea level. It was indeed the summit of all the Southern Railway system, being higher than that anonymous spot between Malden Junction and Bridestowe. (It most he about Aliceford). Thereafter the train slid, more gently, it seemed than it had climbed, down to the terminus of Lynton, where it sat, still perched high above the ordinary world, on a haunch of the greet hills.
We had the morning to Way with. It was a pleasant place, especially when treated as a sort of helter-skelter. You simply kept on going down, one way or another, and when you wanted to get back there was always the Cliff Railway, that soaring funicular which is now the Two Towns only railway. It had tweed into a beautiful warm autumnal day, and so it was when we made the return to 'Barum’. This indeed, was the more pleasant ride of the two. The train was well filed with late holiday makers; nothing suggested that the railway was about to receive its kiss of death from Waterloo, and the afternoon sunshine on the wooded coombes about Chelfham made them very lovely. This time we rode in a compartment with completely open sides above the waist, with four wooden seats, one in each corner, and was a good thing to remember about this delightful railway which I had never seen before and would never see again. Near Snapper Halt we stopped while the driver of "Exe", humanely eschewing the use of his cowcatcher, persuaded some pigs to remove themselves from the track.
All the engines wore out except "Lyn", the Baldwin 2.4.2 tank which was the last survivor of the American engines sent to the British Isles during the great locomotive shortage of the late nineties. We found her in the tiny erecting shop where she had first been assembled from her crated components, long ago in 1898. She was never in service again; they were to take her out and break her up with "Exe". "Taw" and Yeo", the three Manning Wardle 2-6-2 tank engines of 1898. Only 'Lew" survived, to go to a coffee plantation in Brazil, after working the demolition train. The planter said he would have bought the others had he known of them.
Many people came to bid farewell to the Lynton & Barnstable Railway. There was John Dorling, who wrote its obituary article and who. I discovered had been a student with my father in Cologne and Bonn, over 50 years before. There was Henry Williamson who lived thereabouts writing 'Solar and Salmon’, and who brought his children. "Goodbye little railway!" he wrote afterwards “The Children of Shallowlford loved you”.
So did we, so did I, who saw it only that once. We discouraged melancholy with a good, stuffy Devonshire high tea. The Great Western received us with as usual courtesy; when I grumbled at the two-coach non-corridor train which was to take us back to Taunton, the guard caused to be added an aged but adequate corridor carriage out of the siding. Then there was Taunton, and an up Plymouth express, healed by a 'Hall' and surprisingly composed of thirty-year-old "Cornish Riviera” carriages very warm with plenty of room. We were very tired; apart from a dim awareness of Westbury, we slept solidly to Paddington. When, at the end, Lord Ashfield's bus bumbled down the King's Road, the Chelsea Town Hall clock showed five minutes to midnight. It had been quite a day.
This morning the Lynton and Barnstable did not at first look sprightly, though it was not decrepit. Two very small narrow gauge coaches, alone without their engine at autumnal daybreak, look rather forlorn and certainly as we took our places the compartments seemed peculiarly narrow and hard, bringing home to us the fact that a passenger railway cannot live by quaintness alone. But the little carriages seemed to warm, and even to swell, as the London newspapers were loaded aboard the, and when "Yeo" backed on, the train was truly alive. Just now, there had simply been empty carriages, of ancient and diminutive sort. Now there was “The Newspaper Train”! Yeo's" crowned chimney soared proudly above her squad front end: her big round dome shone with polish lovingly bestowed. In the leading coach the first class smoker, all magnificent with buttoned-in-leather seemed to be awaiting a nabob or at least a magnate.
Alas, it went on waiting; we were still the only passengers as that strange tilde train leapt into motion, abruptly as a buck rabbit and scuttled round the curve to the riverside. "Lew", the new engine built for the Southern Railway in 1925, was outside the shed at Pilton. This and the “Yeo”, which had hauled the first on. on May 10, 1898 were fated to haul the late one together, a few days hence (September 29. 1935). I am glad we did not wait for that. How vain and futile are these ceremonial last tourneys, when a town turns out with its brass band to take a farewell ride on the train it has neglected for years, and all goes off with volleys of fog-signals.
Now we bucketed up the valley as normally and as noisily as if the train had another half century ahead of it. The engine shouting her aubade to the rising sun, the carriages rolling mercer on their 1ft 11½ in gauge. We swung round the sharp curve and over the viaduct into delightful Chelfham, and as we clicked over the rail joints the wheels seemed cheerfully to be singing "As of yore - Evermore - As of yore - Evermore", Oh, that ‘twere possible!
At each station the London papers were dumped out. Who would carry them next week, and how much later would they be for some people? Who knew? At Bratton Fleming, where the station building crouched under rock, we crossed the 07:03 out of Lynton with .Exe" going bunker first, immediately followed by a first class observation car, likewise back to front. On we went through the rock cutting and over the shoulder of Exmoor, with "Yeo” spurning her nine miles at I in 50 as if she would cross the Andes, given time. The train seemed never to go very slowly: One of the attractions of the very narrow gauge was that being so near the rocks and the ground you seemed always to be going much faster than in fact you were. So breakfasting out of basket on more ham than one dared thank of in later years we came to Woody Bay and the summit of the line, 1.000ft abort sea level. It was indeed the summit of all the Southern Railway system, being higher than that anonymous spot between Malden Junction and Bridestowe. (It most he about Aliceford). Thereafter the train slid, more gently, it seemed than it had climbed, down to the terminus of Lynton, where it sat, still perched high above the ordinary world, on a haunch of the greet hills.
We had the morning to Way with. It was a pleasant place, especially when treated as a sort of helter-skelter. You simply kept on going down, one way or another, and when you wanted to get back there was always the Cliff Railway, that soaring funicular which is now the Two Towns only railway. It had tweed into a beautiful warm autumnal day, and so it was when we made the return to 'Barum’. This indeed, was the more pleasant ride of the two. The train was well filed with late holiday makers; nothing suggested that the railway was about to receive its kiss of death from Waterloo, and the afternoon sunshine on the wooded coombes about Chelfham made them very lovely. This time we rode in a compartment with completely open sides above the waist, with four wooden seats, one in each corner, and was a good thing to remember about this delightful railway which I had never seen before and would never see again. Near Snapper Halt we stopped while the driver of "Exe", humanely eschewing the use of his cowcatcher, persuaded some pigs to remove themselves from the track.
All the engines wore out except "Lyn", the Baldwin 2.4.2 tank which was the last survivor of the American engines sent to the British Isles during the great locomotive shortage of the late nineties. We found her in the tiny erecting shop where she had first been assembled from her crated components, long ago in 1898. She was never in service again; they were to take her out and break her up with "Exe". "Taw" and Yeo", the three Manning Wardle 2-6-2 tank engines of 1898. Only 'Lew" survived, to go to a coffee plantation in Brazil, after working the demolition train. The planter said he would have bought the others had he known of them.
Many people came to bid farewell to the Lynton & Barnstable Railway. There was John Dorling, who wrote its obituary article and who. I discovered had been a student with my father in Cologne and Bonn, over 50 years before. There was Henry Williamson who lived thereabouts writing 'Solar and Salmon’, and who brought his children. "Goodbye little railway!" he wrote afterwards “The Children of Shallowlford loved you”.
So did we, so did I, who saw it only that once. We discouraged melancholy with a good, stuffy Devonshire high tea. The Great Western received us with as usual courtesy; when I grumbled at the two-coach non-corridor train which was to take us back to Taunton, the guard caused to be added an aged but adequate corridor carriage out of the siding. Then there was Taunton, and an up Plymouth express, healed by a 'Hall' and surprisingly composed of thirty-year-old "Cornish Riviera” carriages very warm with plenty of room. We were very tired; apart from a dim awareness of Westbury, we slept solidly to Paddington. When, at the end, Lord Ashfield's bus bumbled down the King's Road, the Chelsea Town Hall clock showed five minutes to midnight. It had been quite a day.
Captions for photographs.
Due to the difficulty in reproducing pages from The Mercury the photo captions are reproduced below for clarity.
Due to the difficulty in reproducing pages from The Mercury the photo captions are reproduced below for clarity.
Captions for photographs.
- Barnstaple Town Station. London & South Western Railway. c. 1900 taken from contemporary commercial Postcard. The standard gauge track on the right is the L.S.W.R. line across the River Taw to Barnstaple Junction, and thence by either the main line to Exeter or the branch line to Torrington, or even over the connecting link to the Great Western Railway line for Taunton. Behind the photographer the L.S.W.R. line runs to the hillside terminus at Ilfracombe some 13 miles away. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- The same scene some 30 years later. Note the change in both clothing styles and the livery of the locomotive; in this Instance 2-6-2T No. 761 'TAW'. Building work has now obscured the L.S.W.R's River Taw bridge, whilst widening of the main road to Braunton has removed the trees. Note the train makeup, with a bogie open wagon coupled to the bogie carriages and a bogie van. (LENS OF SUTTON
- 'TAW. Again. Manning Wardle 1363 of 1897, in late Southern Railway days. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- 'TAW' ready to depart for Lynton with a packed holiday train, again in Southern days. Note the change in the Station Master's attire from 1, and the fact that most participants in this scene are wearing hats. Even as late m the last World war, you were not considered properly dressed in public unless you wore a hat - whether on holiday or at work. The coach nearest the camera is one of the 7 compartment all Thirds. SR 2469 to 2472 / 15810 Nos 11 to 14. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- E762 'LYN', the American Baldwin built 2-4-2T (No 15.965 of May 1898), runs round its train off the headshunt at Barnstaple in 1934. 'LYN' was the only ex L&BR locomotive to carry buffer beam transfer numbers in Southern Railway days. Only E188 (‘LEW') of the 2-4-2T's, the Southern built example, also had this feature. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- 759 ''/YEO'. Manning Wardle 1361 of 1897, shunting alongside the transfer dock at Barnstaple Town in 1934. The small 4 wheel wagon is one of the SR series 28304 to 28311, rebuilt by the L&BR with side hung doors from their Original flap door configuration. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- Baldwin 241-2T 'LYN' at Pilton in 1912. By now she had lost her original smokebox ash removing equipment when the original boiler was replaced by a new Avonside one in 1907. Numerous other detail modifications have been made from her original condition, including the fining of conventional British style smokebox door. In the background is one of the Composite open-end Observation Saloons, L&BR Nos 1 & 2 (SR 6991 & 6992) in original livery. (LCGB KEN NUNN H 1801)
- Now In Southern livery as E762, 'LYN' simmers at Pilton in 1930. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- An interesting detail shot of Manning Wardle 1362 'EXE' at the water standpipe in Pilton yard, c. 1920. Note that the original wheel and lever smokebox door handles have yet to be replaced by the Southern-style two lever handles. The Hudson-style 'V' Tipper Wagon In the right background is worthy of note. None of the published histories of the railway mention any of these vehicles remaining In service once the contractors, James Nuttall of Moss Side, Manchester, had relinquished their occupation of the line. (LCGB KEN NVNN 2741)
- The arrival of E188 'LEW' (Manning Weed,* 2042 of 1926) new from the makers on an L.M.S. well wagon, at Barnstaple transfer siding. Note the buffer beam numbers. 'LEW' being the Only 2.6 2T locomotive to carry these throughout the Southern Railway period. IPHOTOMATIC 1876)
- 'LYN' at the beck of the locomotive shed, receiving minor attention. Detail fanatics should note the layout of the lathes, overhead belting, plus the timber Jack-packing pieces and tools along the right hand well. (LENS OF SUTTON!
- ‘YEO’ undergoing a general overhaul and re paint sometime between 1933 end 1935; 1933 being the year in which carriage steam heating pipes were first fitted to the locomotives. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- ‘YEO,' once more, shunting in Pilton yard c; 1930. The carriage is SR No 2468, ex L&BR No 10, one 4 Open Centre type 50 seat, 7 section Thirds. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- 'EXE' alongside the coaling hoist at Pilton c. 1934/5. Note the shed roof and vent detail in the background. Even though most of the main line had been relaid with bullhead rail by the Southern, Pilton yard retained the original L&BR screwed down flat bottom roil and soleplate track to the very end. Note the alarming rail dip in the left foreground. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- TAW’ at Pilton in 1934, less than a Year before she was cut up for scrap! Note the small capuchon on her chimney, a feature which she and 'YEO' acquired in the mid-1920's and retained to the end. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- Pilton sheds in the Summer of 1936, just ewe the track had been removed by the scrap merchant, Mr. S. Castle of Plymouth, Devon (PHOTOMATIC 33)
- The last mortal remains of the bodywork of coach 6365 (ex L&BR No. 6), Bristol Carriage & Wagon Works 6 compartment First/Third Composite of 1098. The underframe accompanied the sole survivor of the locomotive fleet, 2-6-2T 'LEW’ on her trip to Brazil for further service on a coffee plantation. (PHOTOMATIC 37)
- The 8-arch CheIfham Viaduct, between Snapper and CheIfham Stations, from the East in July 1936, shortly after the track had been lifted. IPHOTOMATIC 331
- The sylvan charm of Bretton Fleming in Autumn 1934, with less than a year to go to abandonment. Because the station passing loop was sited on the slope, the goods siding bearing off to the right foreground cut through the Down (Lynton) platform. In order to keep the siding track on the level. (PHOTOMATIC 1988)
- Chefham Station with 'EXE’. departing for Barnstaple in August 1920. Note point rodding and signal detail plus the platform Coloza oil lamp. (LCGB KEN NUNN 2747)
- 7 compartment Third, SR 2469/L&BR No 11, packed with people on Sunday. 29 September 1935, the very last day - standing at Blackmoor Station. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- Woody Bay Station (Wooda Bay until 1901) in 1934, well maintained to the last. A simple passing loop with w single siding off a headshunt at the Barnstaple end. (PHOTOMATIC 305)
- ‘YEO’ and Barnstaple train about to leave Woody Bay for Caffyns Halt. September 1933. Note the typical Southern Railway cast concrete station signboard. A three-piece all concrete construction, two posts and the board with cast-on letters, made at the Southern's own pre cast concrete plant at Exmouth JunctIon. (LCGB KEN NUNN 6210)
- TAW leaving Woody Bay for Lynton. September 1933. The carriage steam heating pipes had been disconnected by this time. Behind the locomotive is one of the 47042-5 series bogie vans. Some of this series had the original double diagonal cross braces replaced by single angle iron and braces. (LCGB KEN NUNN 8207)
- ‘TAW’ entering the bay platform at Lynton, Autumn 1933. Most arriving trains used the main platform with its run Ground loop. Note the LSWR style 4-start spiral electric platform lamp. (LCGB KEN NUNN 6205)
- Looking down the platform towards the buffer stops at Lynton, 1934. The bogie open wagon IJ.F. Howard. built, 1927, SR 28316/9 series) sandwiched between coaches on the Say line appears to be carrying some form of produce, as it would be darigarOuslY Overloaded if carrying ballast. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- 'LEW’ on arrival with a three coach train at Lynton in 1934. Open Centre type 7 section 50 seat Third, L&BR 7 to 10/SR 2465 to 2468; formerly open ended - now enclosed - Composite. L&BR 3 & 4/SR 2473 & 2474: Brake Composite 1 compt 3rd + Saloon & Open Ended First L&BR 1 & 2/SR 6991 & 6992 (LCGB KEN NUNN 6204)
- 'LEW' in ex-works condition at Lynton in 1926. Named after a mid-Devon stream somewhat remote from the line, she took the number of an ex-LSWR 0 4 4T 02 Class locomotive shipped to the Isle of Wight in early 1925. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- 'YEO' entering Lynton with an afternoon 'mixed' in 1925. Note the Bristol Carriage & Wagon Works built bogie flat (L&BR 20 & 21/SR 29314 & 28315) behind the locomotive.' YEO' is in the early SR livery of lined Olive Green. (LENS OF SUTTON)
- ENVOI – ‘YEO’, out on Exmoor with s mixed train on a bright summers day, the line as some of us remember it. (LENS OF SUTTON)