Cornish Main Line

The Cornish Main Line is a railway line in Cornwall and the south-west corner of Devon, in England. It runs from Penzance to Plymouth, crossing the county boundary on the Royal Albert Bridge over the river Tamar at Saltash. It is the southernmost railway line in the United Kingdom and the westernmost in England.

The line forms the backbone for railway services in Cornwall. It serves Truro, St Austell, Bodmin (by a Parkway station) and Liskeard; branches from it serve St Ives, Falmouth, Newquay and Looe. Directly connected to the South Devon Main Line at Plymouth, it also carries direct trains to/from London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Edinburgh.

History

The Cornish Main Line was originally built by two separate railway companies: the West Cornwall Railway between Truro and Penzance, opened in 1852, and the Cornwall Railway between Plymouth and a separate station in Truro, opened in 1859. The West Cornwall Railway was itself based on the Hayle Railway, opened in 1837 as a purely local mineral railway.

Rail travel from Penzance to London was possible from 1860, when the West Cornwall company was given access to the Cornwall Railway’s Truro station. However, the West Cornwall trains were standard gauge and the Cornwall Railway was broad gauge, so through passengers had to change trains there and goods had to be transhipped into wagons of the other gauge at Truro.

The impecunious West Cornwall company sold its railway to the more powerful broad gauge Associated Companies, dominated by the Great Western Railway, and the new owners converted the West Cornwall line to broad gauge. Through goods trains started running in 1866 and passenger trains in 1867.

The Associated Companies merged into the Great Western Railway and, in 1892, the Great Western converted all its broad gauge track to standard gauge, a process called the gauge conversion.

Both the West Cornwall and the Cornwall railways had numerous timber trestle viaducts; these were cheap to build but very expensive to maintain, as the timber decayed. The iconic Cornwall Railway viaducts were eventually all reconstructed in masonry, masonry and wrought iron, or sometimes by-passed.

The most iconic structure on the route, however, is the Royal Albert Bridge spanning the river Tamar, which was opened in 1859; it remains in use to the present day.

During the later decades of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, the Great Western Railway was famous for providing transport to holiday destinations in Cornwall and there were numerous branch lines served from the Cornish Main Line giving access to the resorts. The physical limitations of the steeply graded line imposed severe problems during the busiest times, not least for goods train operation. Equally famous was the line’s use for transporting vegetable produce from Cornwall, including broccoli and cauliflower, and cut flowers from the Isles of Scilly.

To cope with the increasing traffic, the line was gradually doubled between 1893 and 1930.

Many branch lines were closed during the second half of the twentieth century but, in Cornwall, the Looe, Newquay, Falmouth Docks and St Ives branches remained open to passengers; service frequencies on all have been increased in recent times. A fifth branch starts at Plymouth and crosses the Tamar en route to serve Calstock and Gunnislake. During the summer, the Newquay branch is also served by inter-city trains to London, the North of England and Scotland. A further branch from Lostwithiel still carries local china clay trains to Fowey docks, while there are more china clay lines from Burngullow, west of St Austell, and as spurs from the Newquay and Looe branches.

Recent history

The 7.5-mile (12.1 km) section from Burngullow to Probus (between the current stations at St Austell and Truro) had been a double tracked, but was singled in 1985 due to subsidence from closed mines. It became a major cause of delays in the region, requiring trains to wait for preceding trains to clear the singled section before proceeding. The section was redoubled in August 2004, at a cost of £14.3 million that was funded by Objective One, Strategic Rail Authority and Cornwall County Council.

In late 2010s, there was a programme of improvements to along the line, including 21 new signals and upgrades to level crossings. These improvements allowed trains frequency to be increased from hourly to half-hourly from May 2019, coinciding with the introduction of the new Class 802s on the line.

Route

The communities served are: Plymouth (including the suburbs of Devonport and St. Budeaux), Saltash, St Germans, Menheniot, Liskeard, Bodmin, Lostwithiel, Par, St Austell, Truro, Redruth, Camborne, Hayle, St Erth and Penzance.

In addition, there are five branch lines with passenger services:

• Atlantic Coast Line - links Par with Newquay
• Looe Valley Line - links Liskeard with Looe
• Maritime Line - links Truro with Penryn and Falmouth
• St Ives Bay Line - links St. Erth with St. Ives
• Tamar Valley Line - links Plymouth with Bere Alston, Calstock and Gunnislake.

The stations at St Austell and Penzance lie adjacent to bus stations. In addition, integrated bus services operate from Bodmin Parkway to Bodmin, Wadebridge and Padstow; from St Austell to the Eden Project; and from Redruth to Helston and RNAS Culdrose.

The route has a large number of viaducts, but the most significant structure is the Royal Albert Bridge which crosses the river Tamar at Saltash.

At Truro, the viaducts give sweeping views of the city and River Fal; further west, the north coast can be seen near Hayle before the line swings onto the south coast for the last mile or so along the beach at Marazion, giving a good view of St Michael's Mount.

The nominal line speed is 65 mph (105 km/h), but there are local restrictions at many places. The route is nearly all double tracked and cleared for trains up to W7 and W6A gauges.

There are three remaining sections of single line track, all of them 1.2 mi (2 km) or less. One of these sections is between St. Budeaux Ferry Road and Saltash over the Royal Albert Bridge, another is on two viaducts near Liskeard, and the final section is on the approach to Penzance, alongside Long Rock depot.

Usage

The number of passengers travelling on the Cornish Main Line has increased in the last few years. Between 2004/05 and 2011/12, with the exception of Keyham and Menheniot, all stations have reported an increase of at least 33%; Hayle, Par, Saltash and St Budeaux Ferry Road were all reported to have been calculated to be in excess of 200%. The busiest stations are Plymouth, Penzance and Truro, which all handle more than one million passengers arriving or departing each year. St Austell, Redruth and Liskeard all had more than 300,000 passengers in 2011-12, increases of around 50% or 60% over 2004/05.

Accidents

The Cornwall Main Line has been a very safe railway for passengers, with only a few accidents occurring in the 19th century; these include:

• Grove Viaduct, St Germans – derailment, 6 May 1859
• St Austell – runaway train, 29 October 1872
• Menheniot – collision, 2 December 1873
• Bodmin Road – derailment, 13 April 1895.

See also

• Cornwall Railway
• Cornwall Railway viaducts
• Disused railway stations on the Cornish Main Line
• Great Western Main Line
• West Cornwall Railway

Citations

Sources and further reading

• Bennett, Alan (1990). The Great Western Railway in East Cornwall. Cheltenham: Runpast Publishing. ISBN 1-870754-11-5.
• Bennett, Alan (1988). The Great Western Railway in Mid Cornwall. Southampton: Kingfisher Railway Publications. ISBN 0-946184-53-4.
• Bennett, Alan (1988). The Great Western Railway in West Cornwall. Cheltenham: Runpast Publishing. ISBN 1-870754-12-3.
• Binding, John (1993). Brunel's Cornish Viaducts. Penryn: Atlantic Transport Publishing for Historical Model Railway Society. ISBN 0-906899-56-7.
• Central Publicity Unit (Winter 1979). Railway Electrification. British Railways Board. pp. 0–2, 8.
• Hesp, Martin (7 July 2008). . Western Morning News. Archived from on 25 November 2010.

External links