Portrait of the PRINCETOWN BRANCH
Photography by R. J. DORAN & R. C. RILEY
Pen-portrait by KENNETH GRANVILLE
THE traveller to Cornwall by the main lines from Waterloo and Paddington skirts Dartmoor to the north or south. On his way into Plymouth he may notice the Launceston branch curving away from Tavistock Junction up the River Plym valley to Yelverton, on the western edge of the moor. He sees nothing of the little train, usually a 2-6-2 tank and one coach, which journeys out from Yelverton across the windswept heather and bog to the town of Princetown, in the very heart of the moor.
The journey from Yelverton to Prince-town by road is six miles, but in its climb from this junction, 500 ft. above sea level, to Princetown, 1,373 ft. up, the train covers 10i miles, and is plodding up a ruling gradient of 1 in 40 to 1 in 50 for almost the whole of its winding and circuitous course. In this direction, at least, a reminder of the branch’s permanent speed restriction of 20 m.p.h. is superfluous. From the branch platform at Yelverton the track visibly rises in a sweeping semi-circle and then sets off up a steady incline for Dousland, the first stop. After traversing the road at a level crossing here, the single line then makes a wide detour around the perimeter of Yennadon Common, avoiding the 950 ft. high ground by a two-mile circuit.
Emerging from a cutting the train pants to a stop, perched precariously high up the side of a valley, at Sheepstor & Burrator Halt, overlooking the man-made lake of Burrator Reservoir, with its pine-flanked banks and backcloth of peaks. Still climb-ing, the train then launches out over open moorland, where graze the long wool sheep and the hardy little Dartmoor ponies, skirting the 1,311 ft. for of Peak Hill to reach Ingra Tor Halt, 1,000 ft. up.
From here the line spirals around the side of King Tor for 2i miles, repassing within a quarter of a mile of itself but some 250 feet above its previous level.
The rest of the journey is a straight climb under the shadow of North Hessary Tor, site of the projected Western Region television transmitter, into Princetown station. In spring, summer and autumn it is an incredibly beautiful ride, but in winter conditions are bleak and often hazardous. Driver Gough, who graduated from the old Metropolitan Line to this part of the world, still recalls with a shiver the winter’s night nearly ten years ago when his engine dug her nose into a snowdrift on King Tor and further progress was impossible. His fireman set out to follow the track to Princetown and fetch help, while the driver stayed on his engine keeping a head of steam to warm his passengers and prevent the boiler freezing. It was not until daylight the next day that they were dug out and the journey completed, after a night on the bare mountain.
IS IT GOODBYE ?—The Dartmoor folk hope that no last farewell to the Princetown branch train is imminent, but the line’s fate hangs in the balance. Immediate plans to close the branch, which operates at a heavy loss, are reported cancelled for reasons connected with the presence of Dartmoor gaol and the problems of alternative transport in mid-winter, but the decision is only adjourned in the probably forlorn hope of devising means to reduce its deficit. Here the camera is trained on 2-6-2 tank No. 4410 and its one-coach train, pulling away from King Tor Halt. [R. J. Doran]
