Britain's railways, off the beaten track
Lelant Saltings is the newest station on the line. It opened in 1978 and from day one was intended as a park and ride facility — Cornwall County Council paid for the station, car park and subsidised train fares.
As a result, the car park is disproportionately large, which made its emptiness on the morning of my visit all the more obvious. Just one lonely car sat in the pay & display. I’m sure it’s a different story during the summer, but on this rainy March morning it felt rather deserted.
My final day in Cornwall and I aimed to capture the St Ives Bay Line. This short (4¼ mile) line branches off from the Cornish Main Line at its penultimate station, St Erth, and winds its way up to the town of St Ives. Although the end-to-end journey time is only about 15 minutes, it has a reputation as one of the most scenic lines in Britain, and I was keen to see for myself.
I arrived at Penzance on Thursday morning, to find another Sprinter simmering away under the cavernous roof. This was the 0857 to St Ives, one of a few trains on the line that start at Penzance rather than St Erth. During the summer the branch trains are rammed with tourists, but on an overcast Thursday morning in March I had the carriage more or less to myself.
I had wanted my entrance to Penzance station to be suitably grand, but my train was the local service from Plymouth, rather than one of the expresses from London. As a result, it was a Sprinter rather than an HST. Shame.
That’s not to say it was an unimpressive experience. After many miles travelling through open countryside, we rounded a curve, passed under a bridge – and suddenly there was the Atlantic Ocean. For the last mile or so the line hugs the coast, so I got to enjoy the sea view for a short time before my train pulled in to Penzance station.
Having sampled Falmouth’s delights, it was time to head back to Truro, starting from the terminus of the Maritime Line – Falmouth Docks.
I headed into the eastern end of town, slavishly following the little blue dot on my iPhone Google Maps display. I was a bit concerned that all the road signs seemed to point to dead-end dock access roads, but a row of terraced houses labelled “Railway Cottages” showed that I was heading in the right direction, and a few minutes later I found Falmouth Docks station, tucked away down an unassuming side street.
A narrow footpath ran between the station and a prefabricated metal building (which turned out to be, somewhat incongruously, an amusement arcade). From this path, by leaning precariously over the railway fence, I was able to get a good shot of the station.
There is a definite sense of faded glory here. At one time, Falmouth Docks boasted three tracks and two platforms, with refreshment rooms and a hotel – not bad for a branch line terminus. Passengers would stream off the trains and onto the packet ships docked in the adjacent harbour. Now, there is just a single track with one platform. The only passenger facility is the canopy, which looks grand but is ridiculously out-of-scale with the two-coach Sprinters that use the station these days.
After Penmere, any station was going to be a let down, and the plainness of Falmouth Town certainly brought me back down with a bump.
This station opened in 1970, when British Rail noticed that the terminus at Falmouth Docks was in a poor position to serve much of the town. This station, therefore, is the upstart newcomer to the line, a modernity which is reflected in the station architecture. There is a basic waiting shelter on the platform and… that’s it. I do like the “wave” motif on the railings, though.
There was precious little of note in the station itself, so I wandered down to the car park where an elderly couple were harrumphing at the lack of facilities (no toilets). I got the required self-portrait, hindered by the sun facing in completely the wrong direction. I was on a busy road with plenty of passers-by to make me feel like a complete tit.
I hopped off at Penmere and watched my train disappear into the distance.
Penmere station is right on the edge of Falmouth town itself. At first glance the station is another faux-retro effort, with the old style running-in board and shelter. I’d seen this combination many times already during my brief time in Cornwall, and frankly it was starting to get a bit repetitive. Then I reached the station car park…
A man on the train was eating breakfast. Not a croissant or even a bacon butty, mind you, but a full bowl of cereal with milk. There were no tables on board, so he balanced his meal on his lap. As we reached Truro, he neatly packed it all away in a little liquid-proof bag. Full marks for creativity – although personally, I would just get up ten minutes earlier and eat at home.
If he wasn’t embarrassed about eating cornflakes, I wasn’t going to be embarrassed about my station-spotting exploits – even if this included (a) doubling back on myself, travelling back to Truro and staying on the train while it reversed at the terminus, and (b) encountering the same guard whom I’d met at Coombe Junction the previous day. She recognised me, and I ended up having a pleasant (if slightly awkward) conversation with her, where I tried to explain what I was doing. It was difficult because I’m not sure I understand my obsession myself. I didn’t mention the blog specifically, but if she does happen to stumble across this site: hello!
The next station on the line is Penryn – the most important intermediate stop on the line, serving a population of 7,000 people and thousands of students at the nearby Tremough Campus.
I was back at Truro station the next morning ready for the 0920 departure down the Falmouth branch – or the Maritime Line, as the marketing people would like you to call it.
My goals were similar to those of the previous day’s Looe Valley roving – visit all the stations on the line. I had carefully done my research prior to coming down to Cornwall, and ascertained that the Maritime Line Ranger would suit my purposes.
Unusually, the booking office clerk did not flinch when I asked for a Day Ranger ticket. What came out of his ticket machine, however, was not a Ranger, but a normal Off Peak Return ticket to Falmouth Docks. I queried this with him.
“The Maritime Line Ranger doesn’t exist any more, but you can use the return like a Day Ranger,” he said. “Just don’t put it in the ticket barrier when you come back here, or it’ll swallow it,” he added helpfully.
Well, that makes perfect sense. Okay then. I suspected this explanation was a lie told to get rid of me – if it was, it worked, because I accepted it and left the ticket office.
A study of the Maritime Line timetable quickly revealed that I would have no issues with Parliamentary stations or uneven service frequencies today. The Truro to Falmouth Docks line is no meandering, sparsely-served branch – indeed, passengers at stations along this route are surprisingly well-provided for, thanks to recent investment by Network Rail and Cornwall County Council. After many years of an hourly or worse service, train frequency was boosted to two per hour in 2009, when a new passing loop was provided at the halfway point, enabling two trains to operate on the branch at the same time (there’ll be more on this in the next blog post).
One station that hasn’t benefited from the increase in services is the first stop on the line from Truro: Perranwell. Not only does it retain an hourly service, with half the trains on the line skipping the station, but it is a request stop to boot. It was the one awkward spot on the day’s plan, and I was glad to be getting it out of the way early.
Compared to the ambling Looe Valley Line train, the Cornish Main Line express was positively Shinkansen-like in its speed. The train was running late due to problems in the Exeter area, but we made up a few minutes and 45 minutes later we were nearing Truro.
The approach to Truro is great – the line is on a viaduct, giving a bird’s eye view of the town. With houses and roads far below you, it’s almost like you’re on a plane coming into land. It’s a genuinely impressive sight – so impressive, in fact, that I forgot to take a picture. Oops.
Truro station is fairly standard for an intermediate station on a main line. It’s a functional structure, with two through platforms and a single bay platform at the western end of the station, for the branch line services. There’s a full quota of cafés and shops which seemed to be doing good business.
The station buildings are a bit of a hodge-podge, with a modern frontage bolted on to something much older.
The train ambled back north along the Looe Valley Line, taking me back to my starting point, Liskeard (pronounced “Lis-card”, obviously).
No calls at any of those lovely little halts on the way back: Sandplace, Causeland and St Keyne all passed by unnoticed. Then we reached Coombe Junction – no stop at the station this time, the driver and guard donned their high-vis vests, operated the points, changed ends and set off again.
As we headed for the end of the line, the single-coach train had to work hard for the first and only time on its journey. The noise and vibration from the underfloor diesel engine increased noticeably as we attacked the steep gradient. The wheels too, complained bitterly – squealing as they followed the tightly curved track. Finally the din subsided and the train rolled up to the buffers of the branch platform at Liskeard.
The Station Master 