Tarka Line

The Tarka Line is a single-track railway in the county of Devon in South West England. It connects the cities of Exeter and Barnstaple and is 62.8 km long. In the village Yeoford branches a 25 km long branch line to Okehampton from ( Dartmoor Railway), which is operated in the summer months again since 1997.

Beyond Barnstaple Junction led the route earlier on to Ilfracombe (North Devon Railway ).

Since 1991, the stretch of the Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership, the UK's largest provider of municipal passenger transport, operated. The identification animal that also characterizes the company logo, is the sea lion. It was borrowed from Henry Williamson's Tarka the Otter in 1927 published novella ( Tarka the Otter ).

Weekday run 13 pairs of trains 7:00 to 22:00 clock, Sundays half as many.

History

The track was originally from the North Devon Railway (NDR ) built, opened in 1851 and later after their takeover of the London and South Western Railway (L & SWR ) operated. Along with the opening of the railway station Barnstaple Junction 1854, the line was extended to the north.

The railway line was a little bit later in direct competition with the Devon and Somerset Railway ( D & SR ), which was operated in broad gauge, led from Taunton to Barnstaple from and was completed in 1871. Because of their own rail profile had the D & SR its own train station - Barnstaple Victoria Street - which was right at the former residential community of the city, while Barnstaple Junction was on the opposite side of the River Taw. After Umspurung to standard gauge in 1881 a connection path between the two stations was established in 1887. At this time the L & SWR but had already adopted the NDR.

The northern extension produced from 1874 to Ilfracombe. She had another station in Barnstaple ( Barnstaple Barnstaple Town and Quay ) from 1898 with connection to the narrow gauge railway Lynton and Barnstaple Railway, which, however, in 1935 its operations ceased again.

A further extension to the west since 1924 led to Taunton and Bideford, which was gradually 1965/66 shut down again. Today, it is the core route of the 180- mile Tarka Trail, which can be used as pedestrian and cycle.

The L & SWR had reached London from Exeter Coming in 1860 and built in 1871 by Coleford Junction continues to Okehampton and 1876 to Plymouth.

In 1972 the branch via Okehampton, originally the more important of the two routes was shut down as part of the Beeching Axe as one of the last stretches. Only the section to Okehampton was retained for freight.

Management

The management is since 1991 in the hands of the First Great Western. The transport numbers have changed since then positive, as the following table shows. In each case, arriving and departing passengers for the annual period from April to March:

On the 1997 re-opened route to Okehampton drove in the first year after reopening almost 233,000 passengers in the fifth year of operation 342,000 passengers, representing an increase of 47 percent.

On the line British Rail diesel multiple units of Classes 142, 143, 150 and 153 are used.