The Scotsman – Friday 13 March 1891
The experience of some of the travellers and officials on the branch lines of the Great Western Railway were most alarming. One train from Princetown to Yelverton, on one of the wildest parts of Dartmoor, was snowed up from Monday night until Wednesday morning. The train left Princetown 
at 6.35 PM on Monday with four men and two women passengers. A train was missed on Tuesday morning, but owing to the fearful whether no one could venture out of it.
At 9.00 that morning J. Butland arrived at Dousland Station with the “staff” and informed the station master there that the train was in the snow near Peak Tor. Two men bravely started off with provisions for the beleaguered passengers and succeeded in reaching them.
The second night was passed by the passengers in the most utmost wretchedness. The windows were tightly closed, the ventilators fastened, and the curtains drawn, but the snow got in in all directions. Add daylight on Wednesday the weather cleared and they were espied by a Farmer who was rescuing his sheep from the snow, and who gave friendly assistance. His house was only 200 yards from the train, but the snow had been falling so thickly that he had not notice the train.
Some other passengers, after being attended to, were able to walk to Dousland, and then to Yelverton: that a man and his wife remained at the house seriously ill from exposure and privation, the refreshments brought to them on the Tuesday morning only enabling them to have one piece of bread and butter and one piece of cake each.
A special train despatched from Truro to Plymouth on Tuesday afternoon was snowed up to 16 hours between Standsill and Par and Henderden on the Great Western. two engine drivers and a fireman named William Coleman, John Murray and Samuel Moore, were dug out of the snow just in time to save their lives. The latest information was that Coleman and Murray were very ill – Murray, who is badly frostbitten, being delirious. Traffic on the Tavistock and Launceston branch is not expected to be renewed until today at earliest, and unless a thaw sets in there may be no communication with Princetown for another week.
