History of the line to Torrington.
Since its opening in 1872, Torrington has always been the principal station on the line and in 1980 was the last on the line to be manned by BR.

BEFORE THE RAILWAY
Clay had been worked at Petrockstow and Petersmarland sites since 1690, But by 1822 clay production had stopped, due to transport problems.
The clay works at Petrockstow and at Petersmarland reopened in 1840 and owned by Richard Greening and Robert Wrern.
75 men where employed to work the clay works ,making fire bricks paving and a large variety of architectural decoration in terra cotta.
The Rolle canal was used to transport the clay, opened in 1827 they still had to get the clay from the site this was done on the backs of donkeys, and each donkey would carry clay to the head of the canal, just out side Torrington. Then the clay would be taken by barge down to Bideford, where it would be off loaded on to sea going ships.

The Railway comes

In 1872 the railway line to Torrington opened built by the LSWR under act of parliament, with share coming from all the villages in the area.
This was not the first time the locals had asked to have a railway in to Torrington.
When Torrington first opened it was a two platform station terminus,
All the buildings where built from local stone.
From the start Torrington had all the facilities for an important terminus, albeit on a limited scale.
Buildings Station masters house, good shed, water tower, signal box, although the locomotive shed was made from wood. The long single track shed had accommodation for two 0-6-0 tender engines and behind, their was a short siding, access to both by means of the turntable, which was about 48 feet in diameter.
In the yard their where three long sidings, one passing right through the good shed, and a long head shunt.
A local merchant in coal and wood had a siding leading from the turntable, Mr J.B.REED.
The clay works, now under the name North Devon Clay Company laid a 3ft gauge line, Torrington and Marland light Railway down to Torrington Station, using part of the old Rolle canal as a track bed.
They had a small office in Torrington yard, where the clay would be off loaded from the 3 foot gauge by hand to standard trucks!
The events of July 1925 caused major changes at Torrington station which, over night lost its main line status and become the double terminus for two branch lines.
Iifacombe became the new terminus.
No longer did the clay works have to send clay down to Torrington ,as an exchange siding was built near the clay works ,with the clay works still operating the 3 foot gauge still , with in the works.
The two terminal platform road roads had been extended under a new road bridge, southern railway NO.137. To converge into a single track the other side.
For example, in the summer of 1932, the Atlantic Coast Express arrived at 4.11pm at the down platform and, when all the passengers and luggage were safely on the platform ,the train would back out on to the 'down' line.
The Haliwill train would had been waiting on the 'up' line near the locomotive shed and when the road was clear, ran into the 'down' platform via the cross over ,collected any passengers and luggage ,and depart at 4.22pm

Strange fact

The name for the Atlantic cost express, ACE, was chosen by the SR in a competition, the winner of this was a guard that worked at Waterloo, the same guard years later was working the clay sidings, at the North Devon Clay works, shunting some clay trucks early one morning.
On going to unhook the wagons he slipped and was run over by the trucks, with fatal result.
By the 1930, most of the service to Torrington operated by tank engines and the redundant turntable was taken out of use, with access to Reeds siding and locomotive shed being made via new points.
Point work in the goods yard was simplified, with the station throat being operated with a double slip.
Station accommodation and equipment included a yard crane of 5 tons, and another crane in the good shed, 2 tons.
There was a loading dock behind the good shed and two water columns for the locomotives, one at the end of the 'down' platform and the other at the end of the 'up' platform, where it served the locomotive shed as well.
Water was supplied from the water tower over looking the yard, the tank at the top being filled with water from an adjacent well by a pump worked by a steam engine, later on an electric pump.
The services and traffic handle at Torrington remained the same more or less from the 1930 to the early 1960, except for the wartime intermission.

Special flow of traffic at Torrington where in and out of Reeds siding, cattle, and later on milk in tanker wagons.
General merchandise handled at Torrington reflected the commerce of the town and district. The glove trade at Torrington, including the factorise of Messrs Vaughans and Tappotts, received raw materials and forward gloves on a daily basis.
In the yard Messrs Cobble received coal and animal feed, and Messrs Bibbys had a store, in the form of a wooden building with an asbestos roof, this building later becoming the milk pump shed.

MILK
The milk traffic at Torrington station was only moderate for many years, the churns where brought from the farms, first by horse and cart and later by lorry and loaded on to passenger vans.
It was not until the 1940s that milk loading depot was built at the back of the good shed.

The tank wagons, from a variety of owners including United Dairies, Express Dairies and CWS, usually arrived at Torrington on the morning goods. At one stage their was a shortage of tanker wagons, so the railway used flat wagons with road tankers permanently loaded on them.
AT Torrington station, a shunting engine would place railway tanker wagons through the goods shed to the back where they would be loaded with milk; three wagons at a time could be loaded.
The Torridge Vale Diaries would advise the station staff how many tankers would be required, and their destinations, which were in
London area and included Mottingham, Stewarts lane, Vauxhall and Wood lane.
Sometimes Torrington held a few spare tankers for emergencies, but siding space was limited. Loaded milk was usually despatched at the rear of passenger trains.

Cattle
At Torrington their was a considerable volume of cattle traffic using the loading dock in the yard, where three cattle wagons could be loaded at once.
When cattle traffic was forwarded, the station master became very busy for several hours, with the cattle being herded down a narrow track from the bridge, an engine shunting more empty cattle wagons every few minutes to the cattle dock for loading.
Some cattle traffic went forward by regular freight service and, on other occasions, lengthy cattle specials were run.
Before the war, the principal cattle buyers was Mr Wilkins, despatched cattle from Torrington on Thursdays to market at Exeter on Fridays.
After the war, the Ministry of Agriculture & Foods forwarded specials trains of thirty or forty loaded cattle trucks about twice a week for some time.

The shed
The locomotive depot at Torrington Station was used from 1872 to the closure of the depot in 1959; two or three locomotives were allocated to the shed which was a sub shed of Barnstaple junction depot.
Up to the 1920s, these were tender locomotives, for many years Adams 4-4-0 engines, but after this period, the locomotive were invariably tank engines, being E1R, M7 and ivatt 2-6-2 tanks.
The wooden engine shed could hold two tender locos ,an inspection pit in shed, ash pit and an old coach body used by the crews ,their was a coaling stage .

The signal box
The signal box at Torrington was brought in to use when the line opened in 1872, with points and signals fully interlocking.
It was equipped with a 30 lever frame and Tyers no 3 electric train tablet instruments controlling the line to Bideford in LSWR days, although these were replaced with no 6 instruments and later on with electric key token apparatus.
THE STAFF
There was ten locomotive staff, three guards and two signal men.
By 1939/40 their where employed by the SR thirty staff, working at Torrington.
Station master; MR F.W.Newcombe.
Clerks; E.Sillifant, S.Pring, Miss Cornish.
Shunters and porters; B.Norman, W.Ricketts, T.Hunn Mr Yendole.Mr Portas, R.Gray.
Goods staff; F.Cornish S.Tallamy A
Platelayers; A .Skinner, F.Cawsey, Mr Skinner,
C.Perkins, H.Grant, C.Brown, and J.Hutchings.
When passenger service was withdrawn in 1965 the Station Master, Mr L.R.Somerfield had sixteen staff working for him.

Closer of the line
The signal box was closed in 1970 and pulled down in 1973; the line limped on in to the 1980, with clay trains once or twice a week still ran down the line, milk stopped in 1981 , the track was left in place until 1983 ,when it was pulled up ,to become the Traka trail .
I hope you have enjoyed this history on Torrington.
All the very best
Darren

 

Wow.You've certainly done your research.Having a interest in west country railways I look forward to this.
Regards Frame.

 

HI All
As i can not seem to be able to add photos of the work i have done ,if you go to my blogs and look at Torrington LSWR in 4mm you will see some of them thier .
All the best
Darren

 

Hi Darren,

What a fascinating read that is and it sounds as though you have really enjoyed not only building your layout but also researching its history. Would love to see some pictures of your layout though to put it all into context. There's a thread here which explains how to do it. Adding pictures . Some members use Photobucket, Flickr etc. to store their pictures but personally I have signed up as a Plus Member which allows you to have photo albums within the MRF site and makes it much easier to add them to a thread. It only costs £10 a year and the money all goes towards the cost of keeping MRF up and running.

I look forward to reading about, and hopefully seeing, your layout.

 

QUOTE (Expat @ 1 Feb 2010, 02:37) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Plus Member which allows you to have photo albums within the MRF site and makes it much easier to add them to a thread. It only costs £10 a year and the money all goes towards the cost of keeping MRF up and running.
Hi Trevor. I didnt know this and after all the trouble I've had with fb! Have to get Bevs credit card out again.
Frame.

 

 

Hi there ......this is a really nice layout,I've just taken the time to read about it and go through your flickr album.
Please try to persevere with posting pics ......as you just are'nt doing your layout justice by only providing a link.
If its any help,I had the same problem ......and I found the easiest way [for me] was to ....
1. Open a Photobucket account.

2. When posting,open another tab ....and have your pics ready in that tab.
3. Type into your reply on here
4. Go to your photobucket page and hold your cursor over your selected pic,wait until the options box drops down below the pic.
4. Right click on the yellow box where it says "Direct link" then left click [it should go blue] and right click again .......a white box will appear .....now left click on on "copy".
5. Return to this page and right click .....then left click left on paste.
6. Finish the posting with

It might be long-winded .....but it works for me.

hth
Terry

 

HI Just to let you know that you can find out more about my layout in the blogs
All the best
Darren

 

Great feature on Torrington in this months Model Rail.

Frame.

 

Thats some of the nicest detail work I have seen, not just in one bit but all over it seems. If thats your first layout, that's real talent IMHO. It would be nice to see some middle distance scenes of trains and the station as well. Is the station sceatch built? If so its excellent. Happy modelling
Andrew

 

Hi Darren,

I agree with Andrew, some of the best scenics and detail I have seen.

You should be very proud of yourself you obviously have a good eye for detail and a lot of skill and talent.

Look forward to seeing more.

cheers
Ron