Michael Parker-Bray
A trio of Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership projects in South East Cornwall have been recognised at the national Community Rail Awards.
The Looe Valley Line Heritage Project which celebrates the history of the Liskeard to Looe branch line won two awards. Read more
CASE STUDY | Find out about our inter-generational tea parties on the train to explore memories of the railway and bring people together. The project won the "Best Community Engagement" category at the national Community Rail Awards.
CASE STUDY | We worked with the local community to tell the hidden stories of the past 160 years on the Looe Valley Line. We produced video documentaries, a mobile phone app, interpretation boards and more to bring history to life.
CASE STUDY | The Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership worked with the local community to replace damaged and decrepit tiles at Gunnislake with creative and durable new works of art.
The Friends of Penmere Station have installed a new insect friendly rockery at the station thanks to help from the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership and funding from the Community Rail Development Fund, a joint initiative of the Department for Transport and ACoRP, the Association of Community Rail Partnerships. Read more
New for 2019, have a summer Sunday day out on Dartmoor thanks to a new bus connecting with trains.
Every Sunday until 8 September, the bus will run between Okehampton station and Lydford, Lydford Gorge, Brentor, Tavistock and Gunnislake station.
It will link in with some Exeter–Okehampton and Gunnislake–Plymouth trains and pass the main entrance to Lydford Gorge. Read more
There are more seats on the scenic Looe Valley Line which links Liskeard and Looe. All trains will now be formed of two coaches throughout the year, instead of a single coach outside of the peak Summer holidays.
The two coach trains have all been recently refurbished by train company GWR and have free Wi-Fi, power sockets, space for wheelchairs and buggies and a toilet which has been adapted for use by the disabled. Read more
We’re excited to be holding a premiere evening on Friday 26th April to show off the fantastic songs and films created as part of the Looe Valley Line heritage project. It’s a free event, but booking is required on our Eventbrite page:
Book tickets
The project has been funded by Great Western Railway’s Customer and Communities Improvement Fund and the Designated Community Rail Development Fund, a joint initiative of the Department for Transport and ACoRP, the Association of Community Rail Partnerships. Read more
A new national rail promotion of Devon & Cornwall has been launched by the Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership and CrossCountry.
The centrepiece of the promotion is a "Devon & Cornwall – visit by train with CrossCountry" leaflet.
If you have an idea for a project at or relating to the East Devon Line or one of its stations, help is available, including money.
The East Devon Line is the section of South Western Railway’s Waterloo – Exeter route in Devon and includes Axminster, Honiton, Feniton, Whimple, Cranbrook and Pinhoe stations. Read more
CCTV cameras have been installed at Looe Railway Station as part of a project which has also seen improvements to signs and posterboards there and at Sandplace and Liskeard stations.
We are pleased to have secured funding for an exciting project to explore and bring to life the rich and varied heritage of the Looe Valley Line.
Over the next six months we will be working with the community to tell the story of the Looe Valley Line and its effect on local people and the landscape. Read more
At the start of September we launched our campaign to promote buying tickets in the GWR app.
Our animated video reached more than 60,000 people on Facebook, and was complemented by press ads in nine local newspapers across the two counties, plus digital ads on the papers’ websites. Read more
To highlight the fact that both the start (Cranbrook) and finish (Barnstaple) of the Tour of Britain’s second stage were easily accessible by train, we ran a marketing campaign developed in consultation with our partners at South Western Railway and Great Western Railway. Read more
New research published by the Rail Delivery Group has found that three of the South West’s iconic branch lines are leading a £2 billion national boost to the economy through rail tourism.
The research uses data from Visit England and the GB Tourism Survey to look at the country’s top tourist destinations. Read more
The Devon & Cornwall Rail Partnership has been shortlisted in four categories of the national Community Rail Awards, with the winners to be announced in Glasgow this October. Read more
If you can’t get to your final destination on foot, by bike, bus or train, there is a new solution.
Co-cars provide hire-by-the-hour cars at the following railway stations:
Exeter St David’s
Exeter Central
Topsham
Newton Abbot
Plymouth
Truro
Falmouth Town
Cars can be booked weeks in advance or on the spur of the moment. Read more
A group of students from Petroc College have spent two weeks of action at Barnstaple station as part of the National Citizen Service.
The students spent a week fundraising for activities, which included a cake sale at the station, then a week making over the planters on the disused platform. Read more
GWR has funded a pair of DCRP live departure apps to allow passengers to check their train on their phone before they arrive at the station.
The apps (one for Devon stations, one for Cornwall stations) are closely based on a similar app from TransWilts Community Rail Partnership. Read more
The Plymouth – Gunnislake Tamar Valley Line is worth more than £13 million a year to the economy according to a new study, “Valuing the Tamar Valley Line”, estimating that each of the line’s annual 190,000 journeys is worth £69.
The £13 million total comes from considering a wide range of ways the railway contributes to the economy and society, including how much rail travellers spend on leisure and retail (£5.5 million), the GDP value of the employment of the line’s regular commuters (£2.6 million) and time and cost savings to passengers over other travel modes in taking the train (£1.5 million).