The St Ives Branch Line: A History

By Richard C. Long and Tim Dunn

A pictorial history of the rise, fall, and rebirth of the scenic railway in Cornwall, featuring never before published photos.

In 1963 comic duo Flanders and Swann composed Slow Train—a lament for some of the many railway lines proposed for closure by Dr Beeching. Among the destinations listed in their song is the refrain “from St Erth to St Ives”. Constructed in 1877 as the last broad gauge line to be built in the UK, the St Ives branch did not close in the 1960s and survives to this day—now widely regarded as one of the most scenic railways in Europe. How did it escape closure, and how did it come to be built in the first place?

Why did the war departments of the world have their eyes on St Ives in the years before the First World War? How did a town once renowned for the inescapable smell of fish become one of the most popular tourist resorts in the UK? Did the Great Western Railway invent the Cornish Riviera? Why was a heliport proposed for St Erth? Where did a thirty-two-ton ballast digger end-up in 2008? And how did two young men find themselves four miles from the nearest station in 1860. . . ?

Containing over 100 images, mostly in colour and many never published before, this book sets out to answer these and many more questions.

Praise for The St Ives Branch Line

“A detailed, historical and photographic record of the line, from its very beginnings to the present day. . . . An excellent reference for anyone interested in Cornwall’s railways or scenic UK branch lines in general.” —Model Rail Magazine

“If you are looking for a comprehensive and well-illustrated overview of the St Ives line throughout its life, this book will meet your requirements admirably.” —West Somerset Railway Association

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781399002011

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

EARLY PROPOSALS

In the spring of 1860, the people of Penzance were both amused and scandalised by the behaviour in their town of two extravagant young men from London. Described by the Cornish Telegraph as ‘peculiarly feminine’ (and strongly implied to have been lovers), the pair stayed for six weeks before leaving town under false pretences on Friday 16 March. Having left behind many unpaid bills in Penzance they now headed to nearby St Ives, from where they intended to catch the next up train to London from St Ives Road station. It was a cunning plan with only one flaw: St Ives Road station (today better known as St Erth) was over four miles away and ‘To their astonishment they found that there was as yet no St Ives railway’. Having by now missed the last up train from St Ives Road the two were eventually apprehended by the police at Hayle station the following morning, and subsequently bailed out by their fathers. But why was there ‘as yet no St Ives railway’?

EARLY RAILWAYS

The railways came early to Cornwall which, as the chimneys dotted across its landscape now testify, was once one of the beating hearts of the industrial revolution. The Poldice Tramway, a private wagonway built to connect various mines with the harbour at Portreath, first saw traffic in 1812 while the Redruth & Chasewater Railway – described by railway historian John Vaughan as the first ‘proper’ railway in Cornwall’¹ – was opened in 1825-26. Slightly closer to St Ives, the Hayle Railway, which was to link Redruth with the port and foundries of Hayle, as well as various branches to Portreath and elsewhere, opened in 1837-38. Steam locomotives (which of course had been invented in Cornwall) were used from the outset by the Hayle Railway – in conjunction with rope-worked inclines – while passengers were carried from 1841. For all these nearby developments the ancient port of St Ives would have to wait several more decades before its own railway would arrive.

ST IVES JUNCTION RAILWAY

Boosted by the fruits of a prosperous harbour, fishing industry and many local mines, St Ives was a thriving town in the first half of the nineteenth century – so much so that the town received gas lamps (another Cornish invention) as early as 1835. With so much to offer, and to gain, it seemed only natural that the creation of the West Cornwall Railway Company (WCR) in September 1844 – with the aim of constructing a railway between Truro and Penzance – would be quickly followed by a proposal to build a branch line to St Ives. In December 1844 a notice was placed in the Cornwall Royal Gazette seeking shareholders for the St Ives Junction Railway; ‘Connecting the Town of St IVES with the West Cornwall Railway’. Listing the directors of the WCR at the head of its Provisional Committee, the advert noted that ‘St Ives possesses in abundance the elements of Railway traffic’ and ‘commands peculiar advantages as a Railway terminus’. A provisional arrangement had been agreed with the WCR whereby the latter would lease (and presumably operate) the St Ives line which would be ‘easily and cheaply constructed, the works being for the most part very simple, and the land to be occupied being, generally speaking, of no great value.’

THE WEST CORNWALL RAILWAY

As proposed in 1844, the West Cornwall Railway was intended to be built to Brunel’s ‘broad gauge’ of 7ft ¼in from Penzance to Truro. Incorporating the route of the existing Hayle Railway (which had been built as a standard gauge line) the WCR was intended to form a junction at Truro with the Cornwall Railway – a separate company which was proposing to build a broad gauge main line from Falmouth to Plymouth. With the South Devon Railway proposing to link Plymouth to Exeter and the Bristol & Exeter Railway already connected to the original Great Western Railway (GWR) at Bristol, the various schemes combined had the potential to provide a continuous broad gauge railway line from Paddington to Penzance.

On 4 March 1845 the Railway Department of the Board of Trade reported on the various ‘Schemes for extending Railway Communication in Cornwall and Devonshire’, noting that the WCR was ‘an unopposed local scheme’ of which there seemed ‘no reason to doubt that it will... command a large local traffic, sufficient to warrant its construction... The gradients are in part steep, but not impracticable’. Of the St Ives line the report noted only that ‘The St Ives Railway is a short branch, in connexion with the above, of three miles in length, from Hayle to St Ives, intended to afford access to that port. We are aware of no public reasons why this and the West Cornwall scheme should not receive the sanction of Parliament.’

PARLIAMENTARY BILLS

The Bills for the West Cornwall Railway and the St Ives Railway (amongst others) were discussed by the Railway Committee of the House of Commons on Monday 5 May 1845. In taking evidence for the St Ives Railway Bill, the Committee heard from a witness that there were around 300 fishing boats based at St Ives and catches were frequently taken to Bristol by steamer but that ‘when the steamers were not running. the fishermen had no means of sending their produce to markets and consequently incurred very heavy losses’. The construction of a railway would allow the town to transport its fish instead to other Cornish towns ‘such as Redruth, Truro, and even Bodmin’. The same witness advised the Committee of ‘extensive mines in the neighbourhood of St Ives’ which relied on large quantities of coal from South Wales of which the supply (presumably brought by sea) ‘was not always certain’. From another witness the Committee learned that the town consumed around £25-30,000 worth of ’grocery articles’ per year – much of which was shipped either from London via Penzance, or Bristol via Hayle. Hearing that there were ‘no engineering difficulties’ facing the construction of the line, the Committee ‘resolved to postpone filling in the resolutions with respect to this bill until they had heard the other projects in connexion with it.’ The Committee then proceeded to hear evidence in support of the West Cornwall Railway before adjourning.

REJECTION

In June 1845 the Committee rejected the West Cornwall Railway Bill, for reasons which appear at least in part to relate to the fact that the Bill lacked the necessary powers for amalgamation with the Hayle Railway (most accounts state that the intention to use the formerly rope-worked inclines of the Hayle Railway was also a factor). In regretting the failure of the West Cornwall Bill, the Cornwall Royal Gazette noted that the Committee ‘could hardly have come to any other conclusion. If half the pains had been taken to make the line perfect and unassailable that were used to force up the shares to a high premium, this result would not have occurred.’ Anticipating a delay of a year, the paper noted that, by then, ‘experience will be had of Atmospheric traction, which will determine how far it may be desirable to employ it throughout the line’. The WCR had been proposing to use the ‘atmospheric railway’ principle, whereby trains would be propelled by a vacuum pipe between the tracks, rather than a steam locomotive, between Truro and Redruth. At the time this radical new method of traction, which was already in use at Dalkey in Ireland, was the subject of a parliamentary enquiry and was shortly to be introduced between Forest Hill and Croydon on the London & Croydon Railway. Famously Brunel’s South Devon Railway was designed with atmospheric traction in mind, although atmospheric operation between Exeter and Teignmouth did not begin until 1847 and, like all such schemes, would soon be declared a failure. Faced with the reality that the intended branch line to St Ives would have no main line to branch from, the St Ives Railway Bill was promptly withdrawn by its promotors despite the fact that, as the Cornwall Royal Gazette reported, ‘the Committee had announced their readiness to pass it’.

POSTPONEMENT

With the support of the GWR a revised West Cornwall Railway Act was finally authorised in August 1846 – this time re-routed to avoid the former rope-worked inclines of the Hayle Railway, and without a branch to St Ives. Interestingly a ‘West Cornwall Railway (Branches to St Ives and Norwayman’s Wharf, and Construction and Enlargement of Quays at Hayle) Bill’ is reported to have received its second reading in the House of Commons in February 1847² but little more seems to have come of it. By this time the Cornish economy was entering an economic downturn triggered by a series of failed harvests. With starving labourers staging anti-railway riots (fearful that the railways would be used to transport what little food they had away from the county) the prospects of building a branch to St Ives must have seemed ever more remote.

In these circumstances the WCR was also experiencing financial difficulties and was forced to seek a further Act in 1850 allowing it to construct its line with standard gauge rails rather than broad gauge as originally planned. This would be cheaper – not least because the existing Hayle Railway was already built with standard gauge tracks – although crucially a clause in the 1850 Act meant that the line could be converted to broad gauge at a later date if required by the Cornwall Railway. Construction of the WCR now finally got underway with the line opening between Penzance and Redruth on 11 March 1852. Five months later the 25-mile line opened throughout between Penzance and the western outskirts of Truro; a further extension in 1855 moving the terminus to a more central position by the Truro riverside. Finally, in 1859, the WCR was connected to the national rail network when the broad gauge Cornwall Railway reached Truro from Plymouth and WCR services were quickly relocated again to terminate at the Cornwall Railway’s new station. Goods and passengers could now be transported directly from Paddington to Penzance by rail, albeit with a change of trains necessitated by the change of gauge at Truro. The people of St Ives would have undoubtedly benefited from this connection with the capital, but the fact remained that they were still four miles from the nearest station; St Ives Road, which was located three quarters of a mile from the village of St Erth on the WCR. By this time, however, further attempts had already been made to bridge that four-mile gap.

1853 ACT

The Saint Ives and West Cornwall Junction Railway Act was passed on 4 August 1853, just one year after the opening of the West Cornwall Railway, with the aim of ‘making a Railway from the Town of Saint Ives to the West Cornwall Railway at or near Saint Erth, with a Branch therefrom, and for making Arrangements with the West Cornwall Railway Company’. Since the St Ives Railway Bill of 1845 had been withdrawn before it could be enacted, it appears that the 1853 Act was the first successful attempt to authorise the building of a railway line to St Ives. Noting that such a railway ‘would be of great public and local Advantage’, the Act authorised the creation of a ‘Saint Ives and West Cornwall Junction Railway Company’ and seems to have been a local initiative rather than an off-shoot of the WCR. The company directors were named as John Newman Tremearne, Samuel Hockin, William Bazely, Nathaniel Pyne and Edwin Ley. Notably the share issue advertised in December 1844 had included amongst its ‘Provisional Committee’ the names T. N. Tremaine, Samuel Hocking, M. Bazeley, Nathaniel Pyne and Edwin Ley – of which Mr Ley was also shown as one of the directors of the WCR. Allowing for some alternate spellings, it appears that these are all the same individuals. The new company was authorised by the Act to construct:

... a Railway commencing near Penalver otherwise Pedenolver Point in the Borough and Parish of Saint Ives in the County of Cornwall, and terminating by a Junction with the existing Line of the West Cornwall Railway Company in the Parish of Saint Erth in the said County of Cornwall; also a short Branch or Junction Railway, commencing at or near the Clay Quay in the Parish of Uny Lelant, and terminating by a Junction with the said first-mentioned intended Railway in the Parish of Uny Lelant.

This ‘Branch or Junction Railway’ to the quay at Lelant was presumably to be little more than a siding. Since the WCR remained standard gauge throughout the 1850s it seems logical to assume that, had it been built, the line to St Ives authorised in 1853 would itself have been a standard gauge line. The proposed route was to cross the Hayle estuary on a viaduct constructed of girders ‘with spans of not less than Twenty Feet’ – implying that trains coming off the branch would have been facing towards London rather than Penzance and that interchange would have taken place at Hayle station rather than what is now St Erth. The proposed viaduct was obviously a contentious issue since the Act also included the proviso that ‘at any Time after the passing of this Act’ the company would agree to construct ‘an Opening or Draw Bridge in the said Viaduct of not less than Thirty Feet Span’ within 12 months of being requested to do so by the Admiralty.

Despite the passing of the Act in 1853, it is evident that things did not go to plan. The 1853 Act had stated that ‘the Railways shall be completed within Four Years from the passing of this Act’ and gave the new company powers to compulsorily purchase the land required for the building of the railway on the proviso that the powers ‘shall not be exercised after the Expiration of Two Years from the passing of this Act’. Three years later however a further Act was passed on 23 June 1856 with the sole purpose of amending the 1853 Act by providing a further two years in which to complete the required compulsory purchases and a further four years in which to construct the railway. Despite this extension little seems to have happened and it would be another decade before parliamentary approval would again be sought for the building of a railway to St Ives.

PUBLIC MEETING

A lack of funds to build the St Ives line was clearly an issue. In December 1860, the Royal Cornwall Gazette reported that a public meeting had taken place in the St Ives Town Hall to determine ‘what amount the inhabitants generally would subscribe towards making up the deficiency in the amount of capital necessary to bring a branch of the West Cornwall line to St Ives.’ Addressing the meeting, the appropriately named Mr Cornish of Penzance noted that the already large traffic between St Ives and Hayle was ‘steadily increasing’ and ‘would pay a reasonable per centage on the capital invested’. Mr Cornish described a four-mile line, ‘crossing the Hayle river near Lelant Church, coasting along the cliff to St Ives, and having its terminus near Pednolver Point’ (apparently the same route as proposed by the Act of 1853), which would cost around £10,000 per mile to construct. ‘An extensive firm’ had offered to undertake the work for a fee of £42,000, provided that £8,000 was raised ‘by parties in the immediate neighbourhood’. £3,000 had been raised already and the balance was being sought.

Mr J.N. Tremhearne (presumably the same John Newman Tremearne listed as a director of the Saint Ives and West Cornwall Junction Railway Company in the 1853 Act) proposed that ‘the formation of a branch line of railway from Hayle to this place would highly conduce to the prosperity of this town and neighbourhood.’ Mr Tresiddee proposed that ’this meeting earnestly urges upon the people of St Ives the importance of availing themselves of the opportunity by raising the necessary funds’ while the aforementioned Mr Tremhearne proposed the forming of a committee including, amongst others, himself and a Mr Bazeley (another name familiar from 1853 and earlier) to determine ‘the best means... to raise the necessary capital.’

1863 ACT

On 3 June 1863, the Cornish Telegraph reported that the proprietors of the West Cornwall Railway had met to discuss ‘the St Ives Junction Railway Bill now before parliament’ and had unanimously agreed ’that the Bill now submitted be approved, and the common seal of the company be affixed to the same’. An article from August 1864 confirms that an Act was indeed passed in 1863 and that notices had now been delivered in St Ives ‘in connection with the carrying out of the West Cornwall and St Ives Junction Railway’. Interestingly the article continues, ‘We now hear the contract is taken, and the works will commence at once by the London and South Western Company.’ This apparent involvement of the London & South Western Railway (LSWR) is more than a little surprising. The LSWR had had a foothold in Cornwall ever since their acquisition of the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway in 1846 and would eventually come to dominate much of the north Cornish coastline, stretching as far south as Padstow. Nonetheless, it is hard to see what they could have hoped to gain from constructing a four-mile branch line as far away as St Ives and connecting only to the WCR. Of course, the West Cornwall, who had themselves given their support to the St Ives Bill in 1863, were still an independent standard gauge line in the early 1860s. Is it possible the LSWR – a much larger standard gauge company with an interest in expanding further into Cornwall – had set their sights on the WCR?

Whatever the LSWR’s interest in the WCR, it seems that the works which were due to commence ‘at once’ in August 1864 were never begun, for the latter half of the 1860s would see further Bills and proposals put forward to link St Ives with the main line. In the meantime, the West Cornwall Railway was about to undergo changes of both gauge and ownership.

BROAD GAUGE

As mentioned above, a clause in the West Cornwall Railway Act of 1850 had specified that the standard gauge Truro-Penzance line should be converted to broad gauge if and when required for the operation of through trains from the broad gauge Cornwall Railway. In 1864, after years of enduring the inconvenience of transferring freight and passengers from one train to another at Truro, the Cornwall Railway finally decided to invoke this clause – triggering an immediate financial crisis for the WCR who lacked the money to carry out the work. The net result of this was that the WCR was leased from 1 July 1865 by a joint conglomerate consisting of the Great Western, Bristol & Exeter, and South Devon Railways (‘the Associated Companies’) who had collectively been leasing the Cornwall Railway since 1861, the WCR being fully taken over by them in January 1866. Conversion of the WCR route to broad gauge was now quickly undertaken by means of laying down a third rail alongside the existing tracks to create a ‘mixed gauge’ line on which both broad and standard gauge trains could now run. Conversion was completed in October 1866, with the first direct through train from Paddington arriving in to Penzance on 1 March 1867. Standard gauge trains would continue to run on local WCR services after this date but all through services operating from beyond Truro would be broad gauge.

The question of track gauges in Cornwall was somewhat at odds with the national picture, where broad gauge lines had effectively been outlawed by parliament in favour of standard gauge lines as long ago as 1846. The only exception allowed was for railways in the south west that connected with the existing broad gauge network, which the law stated ‘shall be constructed on the Gauge of Seven Feet’. This clause would inevitably have an implication for any possible line built to St Ives after the extension of the broad gauge to Penzance in 1866. The proposed St Ives railways of 1853 and 1863 had (presumably) been standard gauge lines; from now on, a broad gauge line would be the most practical solution.

Possibly the earliest mention of a broad gauge line to St Ives appears in a proposal reported by the Falmouth Packet and Cornwall Advertiser in November 1864:

to continue the Penryn and Helston Railway on to Penzance, and thence, by laying down broad gauge rails on the St Ives Railway, communicate with St Ives, which place would thus be put in direct broad gauge communication with Falmouth and London.

In the event the Helston