The British Railway Station Where You Can Only Travel By Boat
Вставка
- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- The historic maritime town of Dartmouth does not have a railway. It has never had a railway. But despite all that, it has a railway station. It's been there for nearly 160 years and it still hasn't seen a single train. So how does it work? I went to the gorgeous south Devon coast to find out more...
INSTA - / the.tim.traveller
TWIT - / thetimtraveller
FACE - / thetimtraveller
IMAGE CREDITS
Salcott Creek Salt Marsh by Matthew Barker - www.geograph.o...
Collett GWR 0-6-0PT Steam Locomotive by Charlie Jackson -
www.flickr.com...
I don't know about any other stations without a railway, but I do know about a former airport without any planes or runways. From 1984 to 2000 the Swedish city of Malmö used to have a second airport located at the harbour near the Central railway station. The airport was just a terminal equipped with check-in facilities, a duty free shop, a lounge for first class passengers etc. just like any other airport terminal. Instead of serving flights the airport served SAS-Scandinavian Airlines's Hovercraft/catamaran service between Malmö and Copenhagen Airport for connections onwards on the SAS network. The Hovercraft/catamaran service would operate as a flight, with a flight number, flight attendants and even Business Class and Economy Class seating. The terminal building is still there today but it's sadly abandoned
There is a Scottish Island that has a scheduled flight service with no airport or terminal, the planes land and take off on the beach at low tide, the terminal is a shed with a telephone and a desk (possibly a computer as well now). The only place that flight times are set by the tide times. Flight time to neighbouring island 5 minutes.
Minor nitpick! The boats were hydrofoils from 1965 to 1977 and catamarans from 1977 to 2002. There were never any hovercrafts on the route.
@@wasmic5z I think you've mistaken the route between Malmö and Copenhagen Airport with the service between Malmö City Centre and Copenhagen City Centre. The hovercrafts operated on the first between 1984 and 1994 when the Catamarans then took over until 2000 when the bridge across The Sound opened.
The Ryde-Portsmouth hovercraft describes its journeys as flights. Which is technically correct I suppose.
@@tonys1636 I've used scheduled services in the Cook Islands like that, albeit without the tides being a factor. An airstrip and a small shed (probably just to keep the lawnmower in!). Two flights a week.
San Francisco's been dealing with this for a while also. Every train company on the bay offered ferry service to the city and the SF ferry pier was often set as mile zero for the whole line. Even when the actual rail head was 30 miles away.
There are even places like Sausalito and Tiburon that used to be rail termini, but are now just for the ferries (remnant of the former train service).
So basically, reaching Halstatt in Austria is pretty similar - you buy tickets to Halstatt, but train will drop you off on another side of the lake, then a boat will take you across for no additional fee. The difference is that they didn't build a railway station building.
I am never this productive when I visit family. You are an inspiration.
The Torbay reference with the Fawlty Towers theme in the background?
Epic! 10/10! 👍
Loving the sneaky Fawlty Towers theme at the mention of Torbay
I always make sure to visit paighton on holiday and I always get the train so it's nice to see something familiar on one of these
Hull Corporation Pier station (Great Central Railway) was very similar 🙂
Is that the same train in that one Tom Scott side-channel video where everyone's favorite Gary Brennan, Gary Brennan rode in the front of?
Arès, near Bordeaux, has an ovniport without any OVNIs, if that counts? (OVNI - French for UFO).
nice "Fawlty towers" piano cover in the background
That's actually interesting. I didn't think there are train stations like that. Actually looks like fun!
£20 return?! I’m not surprised it’s profitable!
Hull Victoria Pier railway station until 1985 was a railway station without a railway
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_Victoria_Pier_railway_station
Upon reflection, the "BEWARE OF TRAINS" sign at this station isn't ironic at all. Moreso than at any other station, if you see a train there, something has gone _terribly_ wrong.
Not if it is a model train.
…you make a great point! 🤣
@@patrickreuvekamp
I know some very dangerous model trains,
so "BEWARE OF TRAINS" is appropriate,
no matter what the size or scale of the train may be.
😁😁😁👀
@@ZGryphon
Excellent point, sir - chapeau🎩❗
The Amur-Yakutsk Mainline is a 1213km long railway in russia that stops on the wrong side of the river from the city of Yakutz (a city of about 300thousand) Which means a ferry ride during summer to do the rest of your journey or in winter you can get a bus over the ice. A good few months of the year when the ice is too thick for the ferry but too thin for the iceroad a helicopter is used!
Wow, haven't heard of the helicopter service despite riding that ferry once! But I have heard that in a few towns/cities in the far north (e.g. Anadyr) people use a helicopter to get to their airport that is located on an island.
BTW, Yakutsk will hopefully soon get a bridge (or a tunnel) across the Lena and finally be connected to the railway and highway network, although the progress is slow.
@@OlegDorbitt/videos Oh, that is wonderful news, only a few centuries due, but let's hope it'll be built.
(Could you guys please take a few of those huge boring machines from us in Moscow before our ground becomes like cheese? we seem to have a dozen too many...)
*sk
No ekranoplan ferry? I am disappointed.
That's got to be the world's only train-helicopter connection.
Me, an American: haha silly Tim, I've heard of Dartmouth too! That's a university!
Me, 20 seconds later, learning there's a River Dart and the town sits at the mouth of the river: wait what hang on
and Plymouth is at the mouth of the river Plym
@@martinstephenson557 The river what now
@@gearandalthefirst7027 Ply maybe?
Confusingly, Dartmouth is the British Norfolk... home to a major naval base (and the Naval Academy, but there's no British place called Annapolis I don't think)
Although I’m an American, “the British Norfolk” only made me think… isn’t that just Norfolk? Which is in Britain? There’s an American one, sure, but it’s not a place that has any cultural meaning to me.
If the line had crossed the river to reach Dartmouth, the Admiralty would have demanded a huge vertical clearance for their 19th century sailing ships to pass under, like Brunel's Royal Albert Bridge over the Tamar at Saltash. The trainless station as it is in the current very central position could never have hosted trains as the route to get there would have cut off access to the inner harbour and wharves, and possibly required quite a bit of the historic town to be demolished. The alternative site would probably have been quite a bit further upstream and at a higher level near Britannia Naval College, so not so convenient for visitors really. The boat solution is very elegant and convenient really with a high combined frequency of local authority lower vehicle ferry (also carries walk on passengers) and the dedicated passenger ferry run by the rail company. Single passenger fares on each are the same but as usual in UK there's no interavailability for returns or multitrips. When the private Dart Valley Railway took over the line from BR in 1973, they inherited a local authority contract for school transport to Churston Grammar, so for the first year or two pupils from Paignton and Dartmouth rode steam trains to school, and the railway had to operate all year round in term time. Eventually local bus companies took over the contract.
Ah great comment - thanks for all the extra detail!
+
They could perhaps have built a low level bridge with a swing or lifting span.
@@thomasburke2683 Maybe, but it's a very busy river and still is, so opening up for every vessel on demand would not be conducive to good rail timekeeping!
A tunnel could have been a possibility.
I love Dartmouth. Last time I was there, we hired a boat and my mate Ruairi tried to ram a yacht. Good times.
A cheeky bit of destruction of rich people's property is always a good thing in my book.
Any chance of a video on the place with some more history and stuff?
Was he reading a map at the time ? (Mapmen, mapmen, map, map, mapmen.)
Great. I was just coming to terms the fact that Tim has made a video about my home town without my knowledge - I live about 200 yards away from the station and work even closer - and now I discover that Jago lurks around these parts too. Did neither of you think of dropping in for a cuppa?
Last time I was in Dartmouth my grandpa made me drive the boat into the river from the ocean during peek summer its madness
This exact situation happened with the Terreiro do Paço station in Lisbon, Portugal. The river Tejo was technically difficult/impossible to cross with existing technology of the time, so that station, despite being built as part of the national rail network and being operated by the national railway company, CP, never saw any trains, only boats departing towards the city of Barreiro on the southern shore of the river, where the trains bound south could be taken. About 60 years later, the rail line crossing the river at the 25th of April Bridge was finally opened, allowing for direct crossing of trains to the south regions of the country. The boats and the old line remain open as a commuter service, but the boats are no longer operated by the railway company.
Ah amazing! Is that this building? de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissabon_Sul_e_Sueste#/media/Datei:Terminal_Terreiro_do_Pa%C3%A7o_(51215404296).jpg
@@TheTimTraveller It is, exactly!
@@WhyFi59 oh wow, I think I've walked past it and had no idea! That's brilliant, many thanks for leaving a comment about it :)
I took the ferry on that station for 2 weeks daily and never knew about it! That's so neat!
Oh, that's quite interesting, was my first thought. An hour later, I realise that we have the same arrangement on my island of Bornholm (Denmark). You can in fact buy a ticket from any railway station in Denmark to the practically rail-free Bornholm. Currently, you do have to change trains in Sweden to reach the fast ferry.
There is even a former railway station on the harbour in Rønne on Bornholm fairly close to the ferry terminal.
Used to live on Bornholm in Denmark. The island had three lines. West (Rønne) to east (Neksø), West to north (Allinge-Sandvig), and from the middle of the Island (Aakirkeby) to the north (Gudhjem)
It's a shame that it was removed, but many old station buildings still exist, and although Rønne Station still has the station board on the wall it is a restaurant now.
I do reccommend visiting the island. They do call it Little Scandinavia as it features somewhat everything you find throughout Scandinavia. It has a rich history as well. Another frequent name used is Sunshine island, as it has the most sunshine hours per year in the region.
Bornholm lies in the Baltic sea, east of Copenhagen, between Sweden and Germany.
Did you know, that when the WW2 ended, The West liberated Denmark, but the Russians "liberated" Bornholm? Until April 9, 1946, the Russians occupied Bornholm, and left only after the agreement to never let Nato use the island.
Would love to see you make a trip there Tim.
My memory of Bornholm is of the dark red buses with bicycle racks on the back which replaced the trains. Does anyone know of a book about Bornholm's railways?
Birnholm is a lovely island which if it still had steam trains would be close to my idea of heaven.
@@JoOtterH Only know of books in Danish sadly..
Despite it having no trains, the station master at Dartmouth was always a senior (and better-paid) position than his colleague at the 'proper' station across the river at Kingswear. Because such things were determined by the passenger and parcels/baggage traffic levels, and since the railway offered through tickets (via the ferry) to Dartmouth, Dartmouth was a 'busier' station than Kingswear despite having no platforms, no goods traffic and no trains. This was especially because the station at Dartmouth handled nearly all the passengers, parcels, luggage and VIPs connected with the naval college on that side of the river.
In terms of stations without trains, there is the story of the 'station' at Dalaman in southwestern Turkey. It goes that in the 1900s the Khedive (viceroy) of Egypt, Abbas II, had an estate at Dalaman and wanted to build a hunting lodge there. At the same time he was also overseeing the construction of a new railway station in Alexandria in Egypt and he employed the same French contractors to design and build both buildings. The tale goes that the ships with the plans and all the pre-prepared building materials were accidentally sent to the wrong places - the one carrying the stuff for the station went to Dalaman and with the stuff for Abbas' hunting lodge went to Egypt, where the French overseers dutifully hired local workers and built what the plans they had said to build with the materials delivered. So outside Dalaman is a railway station 120 miles from the nearest railway station, while in Alexandria is a station that was intended as a nobleman's summer residence. I'd love to know how true that story is (or isn't) - it seems unlikely in so many ways yet also strangely plausible. Especially since the building that still stands outside Dalaman certainly looks like a 1900s railway station, while you could easily imagine the station building in Alexandria also being Abbas' mountain retreat. The building in Turkey is officially called 'Dalaman train station' and is something of a tourist attraction, so at some level the story has official backing, at least!
Ah cheers for the extra info Jack! And yes the Dalaman station story is brilliant - you will not be surprised to learn it is already on my to-do list :D
Yet again a reminder of just how much I appreciate you including wheelchair access information in all your videos. Thank you ❤️♿️
was gonna mention how Amtrak has created an unknown-to-me-but-HUUUUGE number of these types of "train" stations, all served by buses - San Francisco to Yosemite has two that I've done, Seattle to Vancouver, BC, and so on and on and on... but yeah, these feeder routes are not fun and charming like this Dartmouth station, they're just kind of a grim exercise in endurance [and occasional uncertainty?] in order to get to a train... although to be fair, I've never had any trouble with any of the Amtrak connector buses in 30+ years of travel, so I've been lucky that way, I guess. Well, there was that time that someone puked in the back of the Yosemite connector...
As a wheelchair user and traveler myself, thank you so much for putting accessibility notes in your videos! They're very much appreciated.
Tim
Thanks for posting your video of Dartmouth railway station. If your video was filmed on the 20th July I was on the footplate of 75014 (the 11.50 to Paignton). It was a 2 year covid delayed 70th birthday present from my sister-in-law and her partner. I found out that my wife had been speaking to your mum and dad on the way to Paignton and they wished me a happy birthday on our arrival. By coincidence we were all in the same carriage coming back from Dartmouth and your mum gave me a little card wishing me all the best and an introduction to your posts, which I have recently viewed and thoroughly enjoyed. Keep up the good (and interesting) work. Watch out Paul and Rebecca Whitewick!!
Ah brilliant! Cheers for leaving a comment - I hope you had a fab (delayed) birthday. And yes I should probably get off Paul and Rebecca's turf now before they come over and kick me out... :)
This was quite common. At the Mosel we had the so calls "Saufbähnchen" (best translated as "drinkers train" or so...) because of the possibility to get any vine produced between Bullay, Bernkastel-Kues and Trier, and that are many sorts as anyone who likes vine knows...
Anyway, as the Mosel Valley is very narrow and curvy, there where many stations that where located on the opposite site of the viallges. Some where connected by bridges, but most had a ferry running between the village and the train station. There are some nice videos here on UA-cam, just search for "Saufbähnchen". The track was closed and removed in the 1960s, so only a few meters of track are left in Bullay. Oh, and many villages with a "Bahnhofstraße" and no train any where in the vicinity...
Similar story with the airplane was in Ukraine. In 2019 if you book an airline ticket between Vinnytsia and Kyiv you would find yourself on a bus despite the fact that there was a perfectly fine, yet small airport in Vinnytsia. Ukrainian international airlines just realised after some time doing that connection, that the passenger flow is so small that they can avoid flying to the city, because it's only 200 km away.
You should be deeply ashamed for giving the Belgians new ideas for their tram systems!
Not gonna lie, I was actually expecting the train to board the ferry.
Not too long ago, anyone booking the German high speed train from Hamburg to Kopenhagen would have been in for a bit of a surprise along those lines... ua-cam.com/video/qpEOhHgiBYU/v-deo.html
@@windowseatplease Having taken that train, I think the designation 'high speed' is a bit too princely 🤣 Lovely ride though.
The last train ferry in Britain was the Night Ferry (London Victoria to Paris Gare Du Nord) which ran until 1980. I have done Korsør to Nyborg in Denmark, before the bridge opened in 1997. I have not done the one from Villa San Giovanni to Messina in Sicily. Regards from London, England.
@@windowseatplease I was on that a number of years ago, and I *was* absolutely stunned lol. "wait, are we on a BOAT? whaaaaaaat"
That would have been very cool, if at least for a gimmick.
In the US, Amtrak services to “San Francisco” actually terminate at Emeryville, on the opposite side of San Francisco Bay. Amtrak has buses to take passengers to the city proper (or they can connect to the BART system via local transit).
I had a rude awakening making that trip to SF via Amtrak - the bus across the bay broke down and required the better part of three hours for a relief bus to arrive. Good times! (yes, that was sarcasm).
@@kitchentroll5868 Stories like yours are why I never rely on Amtrak for anything other than a train ride.
Mine is there was a very minor fire (deliberately set by someone) in one of the cars in the Empire Builder, resulting in the car being pulled from service, so Amtrak decided to unload all the passengers going to Minneapolis and all their luggage into a bus to make capacity for the rest of the route.
@fishflake1209 Ah yes I've done that trip! And the Ferry Building (where you arrive in San Fran) even looks like it could have been a grand terminus railway station in another life. Good shout!
Never underestimate the US’s ability to be shite at trains
@@TheTimTraveller It definitely was…by proxy! Southern Pacific operated tons of passenger services out of San Francisco via the ferry connection to the “Oakland Mole.” Daylight Trains up to Oregon and the “long” way to LA, and even trains to Chicago like the City of San Fransisco, the Overland, and I believe the original California Zephyr
In Croatia we have the rail line between Rijeka and Lupoglav. While both stations have trains, there are no tracks between them and there never was. The railway network of the Istrian peninsula is completely disconnected from the rest of the network. During Yugoslavia this wasn't that much of a problem as you could always just go through Slovenia, but now it is a problem. So the railway authorities created a fictitious railway line for the purpose of ticket sales and you will be transported over (or, rather, under) the Učka mountain by a "replacement" bus.
As an additional fun fact, the rail line between Metković and Ploče in the far south of the country is also completely disconnected from the rest of the national network, so the Croatian railway network is made out of three disjoint chunks.
You weird Euros! Lol.
@@jed-henrywitkowski6470 we have that too, it's called the island line and the hovercraft is the replacement bus
I went to secondary school in Dartmouth. In order to get there I has to get to the town bus stop to get a coach to Kingswear, ferry across the Dart and then a double decker up to the top of town.
I can say that in the middle of winter whilst stood on the pontoon shivering sufficiently enough to open a dimensional doorway, I was cursing whoever had sent me there.
Summer was nice though, apart from the time Roman Abramavich parked his superyaught right in the middle of the ferry route.
Had I been a Dartmouth ferry pilot at that time, the urge to go to ramming speed would have been almost irresistible. So it's a good thing I wasn't one of those. :)
@@ZGryphon One of those "Your [boat] is more expensive than mine, you really want to play this game?" scenarios.
Well, he would wouldn't he!
When I was younger, taking the train from Halifax, Nova Scota to Quebec City meant getting off the train in Levis - across the St Lawrence River from Quebec City - at 5am and taking a ferry over. Quebec City had a train station but it was small and limited to local trains on that side of the river. It was deemed too expensive to build a bridge for the train traffic. Flash forward to modern times: A bridge is now used and the train arrives at Levis, crosses the bridge to Quebec City and, due to track configuration on that side, the train then spends close to 20min as it runs BACKWARDS across the bridge and then continues on its way to Montreal on the original track.
The Quebec Bridge opened in 1919, linking trains to the other side of the St Lawrence, and Quebec Gare Du Palais. If you are 103 years young, I wish you well Sir ! (Must be all that sea air in Nova Scotia.) I know VIA's Ocean (Montreal to Halifax) now runs via Quebec, but back in 2009 when I did Halifax NS, trains ran direct. Kind regards from London, England.
This doesn't include a ferry ride (alas), but at Denver the train also has to back out of the short spur line that takes you from the main line into Denver's station, in downtown Denver. I think this also applies in NYC's Penn Station, and probably in other cities. I assume it's because Amtrak shares tracks with freight lines, which would have yards outside the downtown area, not where most passengers want to be dropped off!
The irony that this line ALSO goes to another Dartmouth lol
@@davyman2000 for which you would need to take a ferry to get to from the Halifax train station, as Dartmouth is on the other side of the water.
@@elainechubb971 Penn Station has through tracks, but only Amtrak uses it that way, NJ Transit and the LIRR uses it has a “terminal”, like Grand Central. (Chicago Union Station is mostly configured as a double end terminal (to the south and to the north, but there is at least one or two through tracks used for moving equipment. There’s plenty of stations where trains must reverse out, even in Europe, as through running trains in certain locations is impossible or impractical.
For years the station master at Dartmouth was a higher grade (rank) then the one who worked at Kingswear, despite not having any trains! Dartmouth was fully staffed by GWR staff.
When I hear about "unprofitable" railway lines getting shut down, I can't help but wonder when they are finally going to shut down all the unprofitable roads.
It never was unprofitable as such, but a commercial organisation made a bid that worked out as better value to BR so it was sold off, with the main line continuing to run to Paignton (until recently covered by both the ex Western Region and the Southern Region (the latter service being cut back to Exeter now)
@@highpath4776 You just missed the point.
It depends on the country I guess. In my country the main railway operator is a state-owned company. It operates at a huge net loss each year, and that's taxpayers' money.
@@Darwinek So how much road tax is your country collecting, and how much do they spend on road construction and maintenance?
@@Welgeldiguniekalias Not much, that's why many of our roads look like from the 1980s. :)
Anyway, railroads are cute but it doesn't really make sense to sustain some connections used by 20 people a day when a bus can do the job. We had a wave of lines closures in the late 90s and 2000s especially in mountainous areas. Locals complained, then got used to it. Some lines reopened later when it made sense because of tourism.
My grandparents retired to that area of Devon so when I went to see them as a kid we'd often go to Dartmouth. It's strange to watch a channel like this for novel and strange places and see a video on a place I know really well! As a kid, I never thought it weird that you bought a train ticket to get on a boat, but yeah that is kind of odd.
Similar, but different: Galashiels on the Waverley line didn't close when the trains stopped. Right up to at least the late 80s it was still there, big red BR sign out front and Red Star depot and all, staffed by people in British Rail uniforms, and no trains had come for twenty years
There was once a similar arrangement in Hull, Corporation (later Victoria) Pier Station, owned by the Great Central Railway, with the only access from their trains being via New Holland Pier station on the southern side of the river Humber.
Came here to make sure this was mentioned
Ah! Memories of being stuck on a sandbank in the middle of the Humber waiting for the incoming tide to float the ferry off. A planned two hour visit to Hull reduced to just minutes.
Corporation Pier station is still there though now converted to flats. New Holland pier is now inaccessible to the public though still in use as a commercial port.
New Holland Pier station was fascinating as it was connected to New Holland Town by continuous platforms, you could only walk to New Holland Pier station by going to New Holland Town then walking between the two stations. Or you could go there by boat from Hull of course! The Humber Bridge said goodbye to that, and we are left with a rather odd shuttle service from Cleethorpes to Barton Upon Humber, which is allocated to one franchise but operated by another (I forget which way round!).
I believe New York City used to have a similar arrangement for railroads on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. In the late 19th century you could buy a ticket to "New York" but it would take you to a station on the NJ side of the river (each company had their own) and you would take a ferry, owned by the same company, to that company's ferry terminal in the Lower West Side of Manhattan. So, a lot like this, but several times over. Nowadays Penn station exists (opened around 1910, i think) and eventually most rail service runs thru the tunnel, but today a few lines still serve the last remaining terminal on the NJ side, Hoboken Terminal. There is still ferry service to NYC from there, but sadly you can no longer buy a combined ticket (as that concept is foreign to transit agencies in the area)
I literally just toured that area a month or so ago and rather taking the train I instead cycled the whole way from Paignton to Kingswear and back. I did use the ferry to and from Dartmouth (one of the nicest towns in the country imo) and was also quite surprised to read about how the ferry used to being part of the GWR.
Also noticed your subtle Fawlty Towers reference when talking about Torbay. While in the area I did manage to pay a visit the retirement home at the site of the Gleneagles hotel which still has a sign on its front door saying that its old manager was the inspiration of Basil Fawlty.
My word, you must have got very wet.
I literally just toured there last year....
There was a railway station in Pajala, Sweden from 1930's until 1970's. The railway from Övertorneå to Pajala was never built, but the Swedish State Railway ran regular bus service between those stations with rail fares to connect with trains
Why am I watching this? I've just got home from work...in Dartmouth! 😂 My office is literally 60 seconds from the station. It's funny watching the coach parties turn up, everyone walks 50m to the cafe in the station, they have a cup of tea, then they get back on the coach and leave, having not seen anything else of Dartmouth
Love the Fawlty Towers music!
And the Oh Doctor Beeching theme tune too
A similar thing happened in Ecuador. There's a train line that goes from the Colombian border, along the Andes via Quito down to Guayaquil on the south-eastern coast. Except it doesn't end at Guayaquil, but in the town of Durán. Guayaquil was only accessible by ferry until 1970, some 65 years later.
How delightful to hear the Fawlty Towers theme when you mentioned Torbay!
Fawlty Towers was set in Torquay, so this might have been a reference to a "Not the Nine O'Clock News" sketch about the "Life of Brian" where Torbay was used as a substitute for Torquay in a plagiarized Fawlty Towers.
In Scotland it's possible to buy railway tickets to several islands that don't have railways, these tickets allow for travel to the port by train and then take a ferry. It's not the same as they don't really class the ports on the islands as railway stations, but they're still "stations" you can buy tickets to. I bought a ticket to Castlebay (Barra) for example, which just was a railway ticket showing "Off-peak single Glasgow - Castlebay" in the same way as any normal train ticket. This got me on the train from Glasgow to Oban and then on the ferry from Oban to Barra.
And in reverse? Can you buy a combined ferry+train ticket from the island?
@@barvdw Yes, you can. Not done it myself in the other direction but I believe it's either through Scotrail online or at the ferry port ticket office.
The same applies for all the Isle of Wight ferry routes (even the hovercraft) including those where the island-side port has no railway station or even ever had one (looking at you, East Cowes and Fishbourne).
That's more or less the Swiss approach to the matter: All kinds of public transport in one fare system, trains, busses, boats, cable cars...
A few years ago when I was going to North Wales at short notice, I discovered that a ticket from Glasgow to Dublin via Holyhead was considerably cheaper than a ticket Glasgow to Holyhead.
My family lived in Kingswear when I was a kid (long ago when they had main line train service). Always loved riding the ferry to Dartmouth. Once we had to stop mid-river while a submarine passed by on its way to the Royal Navy Officer's College in Dartmouth - you can imagine how thrilling that was to a little kid! My father told me the Kingswear-Dartmouth passenger ferries were used in the Dunkirk evacuation; I'm not sure if that's true because, well, you know how dads are ;-)
He was right, sort of! A couple of the vessels that later ran services on the Dart, occasionally substituting on the ferry service, definitely did take part, notably MV My Queen. There's an even better story about the regular ferry at the time, though, a strange looking but beloved vessel called The Mew. When the call was made for boats to report for service, the GWR made her ready to send her up the Channel to do her duty. Word got around and a large crowd of locals, including the mayor and dignitaries gathered to cheer and wave her off as she steamed out of the harbour. Not so glorious was her return not long afterwards - rejected by the Admiralty as "unseaworthy".
@@danielferris7960 Was the MV My Queen the boat depicted in the film Dunkirk a few years back? I recall that one of the first boats to be greeted by Kenneth Branagh's character said they'd come from Dartmouth.
(your father, not grandfather - apologies!)
@@danielferris7960 Shows how eager everyone was to help in any way they could though, and be disappointed when what they had to offer wasn't suitable. I feel like these days in the USA, if there were such a call most entities would deliberately make their vessels less seaworthy so they can continue business as usual and making a profit.
Ferries from a lot further away than Dartmouth were commandeered for the Dunkirk evacuation, so is be surprised if your dad was wrong (at least in that instance)
In Hallstatt, Austria it‘s pretty much the same. The train stops at the other side of the lake and the ferry gets you to the town. Before splitting up the Federal Railways, those ships used to be part of the Federal Railways and had the same train number as the train itself, you could also buy tickets in the town to all the national network. Now the ferry is privatized though.
St. Wolfgang on the Saltzkammergut line was the same. You got off on the opposite side of the lake to St. Wolfgang and the mountain railway (cogs and all). That closed because the local governemtn decided that the Saltzburg - Bad Ischl line was no longer worth running. Since then they have been talking about reopening it again!
@@grahamdavidcowley it is still an integrated service though. In the 1980's we used to get a through ticket from St Wolfgang to Salzburg. First leg of the journey was an historic paddle steamer across the lake from St Wolfgang to St Gilgen, timed to catch the bus into Salzburg. The return ticket, (hin und zuruck), brought us back later in the day.
When you got to the ferry 'I'm on a boat' by The Lonely Island came to mind and you used it. Travel, trains, and novelty rap. Can't ask for more!
There might be more of this sort of thing soon in Europe, thanks to the EU's intermodal transport plans. It's already possible to book flights to German cities and find yourself directed towards the railway station when you arrive in Frankfurt, to board a DB train with a Lufthansa flight number as your onward connection. Let's just say Mannheim International Airport may have fewer planes and runways than you would expect...
If you're still in Devon you should visit my hometown of Crediton! It's the last (or at least one of the last) stations in the UK where the driver has to physically exchange a 'key' with a station worker before continuing their journey. I believe it was so as to confirm what trains were and weren't allow to travel down the railway? It's probably not video-worthy, but for train enthusiasts it's interesting to see the driver lean out the window for the exchange.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crediton_railway_station for more information, the bit I was talking about is in the last two sentences of the "Signalling" section.
In Switzerland there are a number of stations that are fully integrated into the national transport system but are only served by cable cars or funiculars e.g. Bettmeralp, Riederalp or Montana. You can buy tickets from there to all destinations you could buy tickets to from a normal train station, even international. Then there is Lausanne-Ouchy which is the wharf for boats on lake geneva. The quickest way to get from nearly anywhere in Switzerland to Evain-les-Bains or Thonon-les-Bains in France is by boat and through tickets are avialable.
There are also train lines that (aside from being regular trains) simultaneously operate as aeroplane connections, complete with flight numbers and everything. This sort of thing mainly exists to provide additional connections between airports while avoiding very short flights (e.g. Bregenz-Zurich and Geneva-Zurich).
@@baumgrt As from today, 1st August 2022 DB (ie German Federal Railways) is a member of the Airline 'Star Alliance'.
I am actually on my way to Riederalp in a couple of weeks! It's ridiculously pretty and a fantastic place for relaxing.
Switzerland does not have this troublesome 'sea' issue either.
@@Fan652w does this mean I can get flight miles for using the train in Germany? 🤣
Judging by the title Tim made use of Tom Scott's AI UA-cam video generator. Love it!
Did Tom's AI generate "The Rail Station that Refuses to have Trains"?
Aarhus in Denmark has always had a traditional main line railway station served by traditional trains. But (until the Great Belt fixed link opened in 1998) Danish Railways also had a Dartmouth style station without trains at Aarhus harbour. From that 'station' I in 1994 caught a high speed catamaran to Kalundborg on Sjaelland, and then continued by train to Copenhagen. This journey was quicker than by direct train. That was because, until 1998, trains from Aarhus to Copenhagen trains had to be loaded onto ferries to get to Sjaeland from the rest of Denmark.
Or you could do the train ferry from Korsør to Nyborg, until May / June 1997. That is how I did København to Arhus (and Hobro) when I first did your beautiful country. Kind regards, from London, England.
@@vicsams4431 Actually I am English resident in Nottingham! In 1994 I took a holiday in Copenhagen. My outward journey to Aarhus was on a train which used the ferry. The return journey was boat to Kalundborg, then train.
@@Fan652w Kalundborg is a nice place to visit, with a five-spired church and medieval town centre.
Is Aarhus in the middle of Aar-street? (Pedant corner: it's a madness lyric reference)
You can buy a railway ticket to/from Cowes, Isle of Wight. That has no railway line but is a terminus on the National Rail Network, and only accessible by boat from Southampton. Although not strictly a railway station, you can buy a train ticket there but cannot get there by train.
And it used to have a train station! And even better, the Network Railcard works all the way to Cowes !!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowes_railway_station
Berney Arms station does have a railway, but other than by train, you can only get there by boat. The nearby pub has no road access.
Such a pretty part of England! All of Cornwall looks like this. Next time I'm around London, I shall try to visit and take a gander. Here in America, we also have a famous Dartmouth--Dartmouth College, one of the eight universities that comprise the Ivy League. I have a few friends who attended back in university days. It's also beautiful in its own way, along with the town it sits in--Hanover, New Hampshire. But this is the original Dartmouth and now I know why it's called that way--the town sits at the mouth of the Dart River. I learned something new! :D
Yes, if you like Dartmouth you'll love Fowey and Polruan in Cornwall.
Sorry, but Dartmouth is in Devon not Cornwall.
I learned the exact same thing 😂
Don't know if it's just the way you phrased it but there's an implication there that you think Dartmouth is in Cornwall. Which it definitely is not, way to make both sides (Cornwall and Devon) equally indignant :) But actually you're correct, much of the Cornwall and Devon coastline is scenically similar, in fact I guess much of Wessex is. (Wessex is a large and vaguely defined area of the south-west of England, stretching from Hampshire to Cornwall, and owing its origin in its current form to the novels of Thomas Hardy. I'm not sure if any other region has been named by a novelist. Yes there was a Wessex in Anglo-Saxon times, probably where Hardy got the name, but it was offset way to the east from what we would now call 'Wessex'.)
@@cr10001 Back in 1978 we spent three weeks exploring the South-West of England. From the South coast all the way the Lands End (I've heard that has turned into a terrible tourist trap). Up along the West coast and inland through Cornwall and Devon. I was only 7 at the time with my parents, my sister and a cousin all packed into a Mark 1 Transit Van Camper. I still have great memories from that trip. Even as a kid I would appreciate the cute villages, playing in the sand (sometime coble stones) and surf and visiting manor houses, castles, historic railways, etc. I would love to do it again and it's sad I haven't been able to make it back there yet, but it's on the list of places to get to within the next 10 years.
Thanks for another great video, we visited Dartmouth last summer and enjoyed getting the ferry from Platform 1 to pick up the train from Kingswear to Paignton. It was a lovely surprise to see you on the train a couple of weeks ago with your Mum and Dad, I hope you are enjoying your time back in sunny England! Best wishes from Steve, Lynn, Ruth and Eva
When BR closed the line in the early seventies for a few months the same timetable prevailing at closure was operated by steam hauled trains belonging to the heritage railway at the same fares as those charged by the outgoing BR.
This may be a stretch, but the ferry building in San Francisco was served by the ferries from at least three railroads: the Southern Pacific from their Oakland Mole, the Northwestern Pacific from Sausalito and Tiberon and the Key System from their ferry pier off the Oakland shore. Service was both local commuter traffic and long distance trains. Ferry service was replaced by buses in the late 1950's.
Antwerp used to have a pair of "train" stations like that (Antwerpen-Linkeroever and Antwerpen-Waas). Sadly they were later connected to the railway network on the second side of the river (so neither of them was boat-only after that), then one of the train stations was removed when a pedestrian tunnel opened under the river, and even later the other was also removed in favour of a railway tunnel a bit further south.
I recently went looking for traces of the old station on linkeroever, but apart from a café terminus there's nothing left. the newer linkeroever station is still there though.
It's not quite the same thing and nowhere near as quaint, but you can buy an airline ticket with Air France\KLM to take you to and from Ottawa, Canada's main train station, which is nowhere near an airport. Neither airline actually flies to Ottawa, but they do fly to Montreal, so they offer a bus service that will take you the two hours into Ottawa instead. So to sum up - an airline offers tickets to a city they don't fly to via a bus that stops at a train station.
St. Blasien in the German Black Forest had a train station which never saw trains. It was a fully fledgeg train station operated by Deutsche Bundesbahn with ticket office, baggage handling and goods depot. There were several projects to build a railway line to this tourist hotspot, all very complicated due to the mountains. After none of these projects materialised, they build a train station anyway to accomodate the considerable tourist traffic. The station was closed in the 1980s, but it is still possible to book train tickets to St. Blasien including the bus trip from the nearest railway station.
Not quite the same, but it's still possible to buy railway tickets to Tilbury Riverside (in its heyday a key interchange for ocean-going steamers, as well as the erstwhile Tilbury - Gravesend Ferry) even though it closed at the end of November 1992 and the building is now used as the "London Cruise Terminal".
Two of the conditions of closure being that British Rail had to contract a replacement bus service (currently operated by Ensignbus as their route 99) that ran at least as frequently as the trains, and that they'd have to go through the full railway closure process again to withdraw the bus! (Rail tickets to/from Tilbury Riverside are accepted on the bus, which also calls at Tilbury Town station, as are c2c and Greater Anglia staff passes.)
I did both Tilbury Town to Tilbury Riverside and Tilbury Riverside to East Tilbury by train. BR should not have closed this, and many other rail/sea interchanges, like Weymouth Quay, Southampton Oceanliner Terminal, Newhaven Marine, Folkestone Harbour, Dover Western Docks - all of which I have done.
This is an awesome story and video! If you ever get to California, you can do the U.S. version of this tale. Milepost zero for the First Transcontinental Railroad was at the (still existing) San Francisco Ferry Building. Technically, there were streetcars and cable cars on standard-gauge tracks on the land side, but otherwise the story is much the same.
At 2:09 the Fawlty Towers theme starts to play as soon as Torbay is mentioned 🤣
It’s been a long time since I’ve been there, but the city of Vancouver in British Columbia has something similar, called the Seabus, which I believe was first established around 1900. It operates as part of Vancouver’s transit system, so no cars, but I think bicycles are permitted (I may be wrong, as I haven’t lived in greater Vancouver since the last millennium). Hopefully more recent residents of Vancouver can confirm and elaborate.
yes seabus started in 1976 and you can use your tickets on the skytrain and bus it crosses to north vancouver bikes can go on it same as wheelchairs baby buggys i was born and rasied in vancouver been on the seabus lots of times.
Was looking for this.
To begin with, from 1900s to 1950 they are seperate systems (back then the streetcar is streetcar, and ferry is ferry), so not unified like this "railway"
However, similar to this "railway", the original plan for the Seabys is to build a tunnel beneath the seacrossing for freeway. But after that plan was cancelled, the money was instead redirected to re-establishing a passenger ferry service between Vancouver and the North Shore, and open in 1977.
Now what makes Seabus a bit different, and similar to this "railway" line, is:
1) It's part of Translink, the regional transit system
2) With a minumum of 2-zone ticket, you can get off the waterfront terminal and take the Seabus to the Northshore withotu leaving the fare zone.
3) Operated by the Bus portion of the Translink (Coast Mountain Bus), and actually utilize the marine version of the engine used by most Translink bus
4) Utilize a 6-door each side catamaran (which makes it looks like a extra big train car), design-for-purpose ferry terminals (which contains 2 docks, with each dock consist of an offboarding platform and an onboarding platform). Combine with spanish solution and 6 gangway on each platform, allow quick offboarding and onboarding
5) Bicycle ARE permitted at all times, officially 6 per sailing.
The only difference between now and when Mr. Unger's time is that we utilize the Compass fare-and-faregate system (instead of paper ticket and honor system), and the terminal is structurally modernized (still looks old). And More dirty, but that's the same everywhere in Lower Mainland.
@@Jestersage A Tim level elaboration on the Seabus. Thank you very much for the information.
@@Jestersage The south end of the link in waterfront Station also connects to 2 of the 3 LRT lines, Expo and Canada, as well as the commuter rail West Coast Express and the rest of the transit system, the West Coast Express does connect to the 3rd LRT line. The North end is directly connected to the central bus exchange.
@@jaquigreenlees To be fair, it feels a bit disjoined. The Seabus terminal at DT require crossing a bridge to reach the main building, which itself contains the WCE and Expo line Platform (which most people actually take to reach Commercial Broadway, then switch to the Millenium, instead of usign WCE).
To reach Canada line from Seabus, you need to exit the gate to the lobby (leaving the Fare Zone), then go to another set of gate, go through a long tunnel (because it's technically close to Sinclar center) to reach Canada Line's platform.
That being said, it's still under Translink
There is the town of Hallstatt in Austria (well worth a visit, and I am sure there is material for some videos about it).
The town is located on a mountainside too steep to get the train there, so they built the railway on the other side of the lake, connecting the town with it's station by boat.
My Hallstatt story: I had no idea Hallstatt either existed nor how pretty it was but when I saw a Japanese tourist get off at a tiny station in the middle of nowhere I decided to get off too (after all there must be _something_) and followed him on a tiny footpath through the forest...to a small ferry taking me to a very pretty very touristy town :) thanks unknown Japanese tourist!
That "beware of trains" sign is just the cherry on the cake for the station, lol.
An owner has put up one of those signs on his house visible from the train nr Mortlake Station in west London
Its not so cool with this here with the ferry, but in the black forest in Germany was a station built at Sankt Blasien. It should be connected to the station Seebrugg at the lake Schluchsee and via Titisee to Freiburg or Donaueschingen. Never made it, but into the 80s ist was a cargo point by the Deutsche Bundesbahn.
Thanks for that little note to your American audience. We appreciate it! Thank you for showing us fun, everyday, interesting things that we can travel to. Your videos are very easy to rewatch over and over. I find myself quoting them from time to time, which would confuse people if I lived with any. Seriously, I dream of traveling and/or living abroad, and your videos give me hope that I can one day do just that.
Really enjoying the musical cues, as per usual. I was just starting to wonder if this was the region Fawlty Towers was set in when I recognized the tune! And was that a bit of I'm On A Boat when you were showing the ferry?
When Tim got to the map showing Torbay, that's when I noticed a certain theme song . . .
I’ve been to a place that Tim has 😆
Another excellent video - we spent a happy couple of hours on the trains and ferries at Dartmouth a few years ago. I suspect that it was not only the challenge of crossing the dart but also invoking the wrath of the Royal Navy if they couldn’t get their ships up there!
Ok Tim:
In North Norway, a town named Tromsø (Tromsoe) have a trainstation.
But NO trains... Not a single piece of rail-line either...
There is a "train" in town, but it is a wheeled tourist-get-around-thing.
Nearest trainstation/line is 232km away, in Narvik.
So Tromsø jernbanestasjon is a pub, with railway theme. 😉
You can buy train tickets to/from the city I live in (Rønne, Denmark) but no trains go here. Instead, the train ticket is valid for the ferry to Ystad, Sweden, and then train to your destination. In DSB's (The Danish National Railways) system, Rønne Havn (Port of Rønne) is a Railway station on par with any other railway stations in Denmark.
I thought DSB ceased running trains to Ystad around 5 years ago. I'm guessing that means you just have to change trains?
Edit: Just checked the DSB website, guess you do have to travel on two different trains. Are train and ferry tickets really available for 149 kroner? That's cheaper than a single train to Jylland, might end up popping over to Bornholm soon then 😅
You can't buy a rail ticket to/from Dartmouth, however, as the station closed in the 1970s when BR sold the line. The pier adjacent doesn't count.
If you don't believe me, pop into the building (now a bar) and try to buy a ticket!
TIME TRAVEL CONFIRMED! In the archive footage at 3:34 you can clearly see a person looking at a device in their hand that I strongly suspect is a smart phone. Do I win five pounds?
It probably doesn't count, but Tromsø, Norway has a railway station about 250km by road to the nearest rail (in Narvik). It's a pub though, but the interior is from disused Norwegian railway wagons. The only "train" stopping there is one of those touristy sightseeing "trains" making the rounds in the inner city centre.
Anyway, the first time there were plans to connect Tromsø to the national rail network (or get a real railway at all) was in the 1890s, with the first concrete plans being made in 1924. If we're lucky they'll finally start building it in 10 years or so, but I'm not holding my breath.
Also the car ferry that goes across the river is very unique it isn't cable pulled or has a cab and engine onboard, it uses a tug that pull the raft from the side, so a lot of the time due to current, wind flow of the river and avoiding the other ferry going the other way etc. You don't go in a straight line and it's quite a marvel watching the drivers of the tugs move the ferry with so little effort, even though it must be one of the weirdest sensations
Though that was the Prince Harry one in Cornwall (never found the Dartmouth Car Ferry - is it small ?)
@@highpath4776 Dartmouth has two car ferries. The lower ferry is the one described, it's operated by the local council and indeed the crews are the most skilled boatmen you will ever meet. Apart from the difficulties mentioned, both slipways are very narrow openings between buildings!
The Higher Ferry is about half a mile upstream. It's much larger and pulls itself across on cables much like the King Harry on the Fal; legally it's a 'floating bridge', by which name it's sometimes known locally. Until 2009 though it was much more interesting as it was only guided by the cables but was propelled by paddle wheels, as far as I know a unique arrangement.
You can definitely get to Koboro Station in Japan by train. It's just that you can't get to it by any other means. A limited stop, so to speak.
When we travelled in Scotland, someone told us that Rannoch Moor station could only reached by train (if you did not want to walk or parachute). Later we found out that we had been had. But from the train window it looked pretty isolated anyway.
Love the subtle "I'm on a boat" instrumental that starts at 3:50 lol
2:09 Just love how the Fawlty Towers music starts playing in the background when Torbay appears
The weirdest railway station I know off of the top of my head is Rauhanasema (Station of Peace) in Helsinki, Finland. It was originally a train station located in what is now Russian Karelia, then after a few years it was moved to Helsinki to serve as the Pasila Station, and then after like sixty years moved like a hundred meters away and it's been full of peace organisations since then, hence the name.
I've run a discussion in that one! Worldcon 2017.
I feel like America missed a great opportunity by not naming New Orleans "Mississippimouth."
I liked the musical reference to "Flowery Twats" when Torbay was mentioned.
(PS I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it)
Beautiful station. As a disabled person, I feel this place has every reason to have limited disabled access. I think there's nothing worse than defacing or destroying an old structure just to give access. I find it offensive to be made a spectacle by having to use a platform-lift that partially obscures magnificent arcitecture, doorway or window, when a portable ramp would have sufficed. I'm not royalty after all, but I get plenty of stares. It's a law that was good in principle, but has been misused to both extremes.
Thanks for these interesting and entertaining videos! Always a pleasure to watch :)
Well, the city of Ares has a UFOport, but as far as I know, not a single UFO has ever landed there. A big waste of public money, if you ask me.
That “Oh, Doctor Beeching” tune, brilliant.
One of my favorite British series (subtitled for me, no native speaker) featuring Paul Shane and Jeffrey Holland, who both also shine in You Rang M’Lord!
you're not kidding about the subtitles, I tend to think of myself as someone who understand English but...
not to mention 'Fawlty Towers'...
It's actually a music hall song called "Oh Mr Porter". The TV sitcom reused it.
@@nowster Nice, thank you for this info, I didn't know that. The sitcom is what I do like of the old-school British humor.
You are the best - need more videos,... i'm running out of your videos to watch. Not since Michael Palin has there been such an enjoyable bit of travel log. You sir are the best!
Could we have a video on regional languages of France? (Or Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, or the Netherlands) I know it's not your regular topic but it can easily be connected to the history of the regions.
(The last speaker of Dalmation died in an explosion)
There’s a bit more to this. Dartmouth was not intended to be a terminus, it was part of a wider plan to bring the railway along the south coast to Plymouth through Kingsbridge. To support the growing tourism industry and improve farm produce transport. The Admiralty objections and resistance ended the line at Kingswear and the rest never happened.
Wow mad to see you down my neck of the woods! I work on the steam trains as well as the river boats. If I had of known you were coming I might have been able to sort you out a footplate ride.
So much history down this way much of which only the locals really know about.
I had a giggle at the notation on the map at 0:20. Though I'm in the US "Dartmouth" is a little more familiar to me due to having visited the university in New Hampshire and the city in Massachusetts.
Ah, the Riviera Line. British Rail continued operating the rest of it, and it remains open to this day. But someone at BR felt that having trains terminate at Paignton would be more cost-effective than terminating at Kingswear. The entire stretch between Paignton and Kingswear was sold to a private company that took over operating it. That company did eventually go broke, but was bought from bankruptcy by another company that has other sources of income besides this one stretch of rails.
BR wasn't entirely wrong about the line to Kingswear, but it is generally a profitable route. The margins can get thin though. But that's transportation for you.
When I was there last the steam railway company also operated pleasure cruises up the Dart from Dartmouth including on a paddle steamer for that Steam + Steam experience for which you could buy an all-in-one ticket
@@michaelocyoung Yes, the railway, the passenger ferry and most of the pleasure cruises on the Dart are all operated by the railway company. PS Kingswear Castle, which was built locally and is the last remaining coal-fired paddle steamer operating in the UK, is also operated and maintained by them by arrangement with the preservation society that owns it. Sadly it doesn't appear in this video as it's undergoing a major overhaul this summer (2022).
@@danielferris7960 An overhaul is not a bad thing if it means it carries on living in the future!
Sorry, but Dartmouth just sounds like a really hungry Sith-Lord to me...
Here in Lisbon, Portugal, we have a station just like that 😅: "Estação Sul e Sueste" (meaning South and Southeast Station), which has never seen a train but it's technically part of the Alentejo railway. You have to take a boat to Barreiro (8km away from Lisbon), where the railway actually begins. The station even appears on Lisbon suburban trains network under the name "Terreiro do Paço" as part of the Sado Line.
In Lisbon we have the "Sul e Sueste" Station (Terreiro do Paço) that is the same thing. Trains terminate on the other side of the river in Barreiro, and then you take a boat.
I think both East Cowes and West Cowes on the Isle of Wight are in the same position: you can buy train tickets to them, but can only get there by the ferry
Getting a like simply for including the Fawlty Towers theme when mentioning the Torbay region. If that isn’t a hyper specific reference, I don’t know what is