Hello Everyone and welcome to this new video:
‘All Aboard The Dartmouth Steam Railway’.
Recorded on Tuesday 25th June 2024.
Running Time 26 minutes.
In this video I will be travelling along one of the finest steam railways in the country.
The scenery along this picturesque line is breathtaking from the splendour of English Riviera coastline through to the picture-postcard view across the River Dart to the maritime port of Dartmouth.
The journey from Paignton to Kingswear is almost 7 miles long and opened on 10th August 1864. Isambard Kingdom Brunel had originally intended to take the railway to Dartmouth. This would have required a bridge to take the railway across the River Dart about a mile and a half upstream at Greenway. However, the admiralty objected and so the railway was taken to Kingswear on the opposite side of the River Dart. The solution was to use a floating bridge in the form of a chain ferry to take passengers to and from Dartmouth.
A railway station had already been built at Dartmouth but the station never had a railway in the first place, no tracks, nothing! Today, it operates as a restaurant/ bistro, but railway and riverboat tickets can still be purchased from an adjacent kiosk.
To this day there are two ferry’s in operation carrying both passengers and vehicles along with a foot passenger ferry carrying passengers between Kingswear Station and Dartmouth which is included in the price of the train ticket.
I thoroughly enjoyed the whole trip. The railway has some fascinating rolling stock and it is easy to see why thousands of tourists and railway enthusiasts visit the railway every year.
Thanks very much for watching.