CALLING AT: CORNWALL

The Cornish Main Line has long been the backbone for Cornwall. Opened in 1867, the line weaves its way through the landscape linking Cornwall to the rest of the country. Brunel originally built the line to his unique 7ft “broad gauge”, but in 1892 the route was converted to standard gauge. For those areas not reached by the main line, branches sprawl out to serve local communities, such as the St Ives Bay Line, which also sees tourist traffic – holidaymakers keen to make a coastal getaway.

The Cornwall Railway was conceived because of fears that Falmouth would lose out, as a port, to Southampton. Falmouth had for many years had nearly all of the packet trade: dispatches from the Colonies and overseas territories arrived by ship and were conveyed to London by road coach. The primitive roads of those days made this a slow business and Southampton was developing in importance. The completion of the London and Southampton Railway in 1840 meant that dispatches could be taken on to London swiftly by train.^{[1][page needed][2][page needed]}

Controversy over the route

At first the promoters wanted the most direct route to London, even if that meant building a line all the way there, bypassing important towns in Cornwall and Devon. Before the interested parties could raise the money and get parliamentary authority for their line, the Government actually removed the bulk of the packet trade to Southampton,^{[1][page needed]} so that most of the income for any new line was removed. Some interests continued to press for the best line to London, hoping that the packet trade would return; if necessary they would link with another new railway, but the huge cost of this proved impossible to raise. A more practical scheme running to Plymouth gradually took priority, and at first the trains were to cross the Hamoaze, the body of water at the mouth of the River Tamar on a steam ferry. This was shown to be unrealistic, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel was called in to resolve the difficulty. He designed the bridge over the River Tamar at Saltash, the Royal Albert Bridge: when it was built it was the most prodigious engineering feat in the world.^{[3][page needed]} He also improved the details of the route elsewhere. By reaching Plymouth, the company could connect with the South Devon Railway and on to London over the Bristol and Exeter railway and the Great Western Railway. The line was built on the broad gauge.^{[1][page needed]}

Deprived of the lucrative packet trade, the promoters now discovered that it was impossible to raise the money needed to build the line, and there was considerable delay until the economy of the country improved. The object of linking Falmouth to London was quietly dropped, and the line was built from Truro to Plymouth. At Truro another railway, the West Cornwall Railway, fed in, linking Penzance to the network. Falmouth was much later connected too, but only by a branch line

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This blog made made by Simon schofield