Most people who aren’t familiar with the line are probably only interested in the scenery, and I’ll be discussing what there is to see a bit later on, but I want to put my anorak on for a minute and start by explaining why and how it was built.

To explain why it was built I need to briefly go back to the days of the Industrial Revolution. From the 1830s onwards, there was a massive expansion of Britain’s rail network involving many private companies, one of which was the Great Western Railway (GWR). The company was formed by Bristol merchants, who in order to retain its status as the country’s second port, employed Isambard Kingdom Brunel to build a railway, firstly to London, and then to Exeter.

As the tentacles of the railway network grew, it was only a matter of time before the idea was put forward of extending it down into Cornwall – but it was going to have to be built in stages, and by different rail companies. The logical first stage was an extension of the line from Exeter to the naval port of Plymouth; and when the South Devon Railway Company was formed to finance and oversee its construction, it was only natural that they would want to use Brunel’s talents, especially as the task wasn’t likely to be easy.

In 2002 the BBC made a TV programme called The 100 Greatest Britons which was based on a poll involving the general public. Isambard Kingdom Brunel came second behind Sir Winston Churchill, which just goes to show how important the engineer was still seen in the context of history. He was a genius at overcoming problems, but constructing the railway line from Exeter to Plymouth was to cause him more problems than he could have imagined.

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Originally posted 2022-05-01 22:44:15.