Starting to Build the Railway

The only part of the original line left at Marsh Mills, when the Plym Valley Railway arrived on the scene in the early 1980's, was the line through the original Marsh Mills station, coming through the eastern most platform. This was later re-aligned to come along on the west side when the retail park was built, and then up a steep incline into the chine clay dries.  At the bottom of the incline, on the original branch alignment, was a point which enabled trains to come off the china clay siding and up a short section of the old branch, before crossing a second left hand point and enter the war time built M.O.D. depot at Coypool. North of this second point remained several hundred yards of the original branch, what became known as Bickleigh siding, and was very rarely used  when a train needed to be shunted before entering the depot.  Rail traffic into the depot ceased, and the depot was eventually sold off by the M.O.D., and is now used by Princess Yachts. After lengthy negotiations the Plym Valley Railway bought the Bickleigh Siding area of the branch along with the track and point.

When the P.V.R. moved onto the main site in the early 1980's, much time and effort had to be spent in clearing and levelling the area.  Royal Marines, from the adjacent M.O.D. depot, came in on several training exercises and helped.  The result was a nice flat area which eventually became our main three road storage area.  A three-way point at the north end is used to enable access to the three sidings, with a loco shed built across the most easterly siding.

What is now our main running line is built on the track bed of the old G.W.R. line to Tavistock and Launceston.  As the original Marsh Mills station still sees regular freight traffic we were unable to gain access to it, so a new Marsh Mills station has been built. Modern regulations dictate that a run round loop has to be built on almost level track, unfortunately the original line and Bickleigh Siding came up through what was to become our loop and station area on a 1:100 gradient, so the track bed was re-aligned to give a level loop and platform area, with a sharper gradient up through the cutting, now known as "K2".  

The rail up the K2 incline is the original rail recovered from the Bickleigh Siding , re-laid on newer sleepers after re-grading of the area. The point at what will become the north end of the loop, is the point that originally split the line into Coypool off of the branch, turned around and moved northwards up the track bed. So some of the original branch track work does survive, but very little.

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A clear and level main site, December 1985.	Main site with some temporary sidings, and the loco's are shunted on site,  Nov 1986.	Looking up the alignment of  the original line. February 1990.
Fencing off the running line.	Looking down the Bickleigh Siding to Marsh Mills.  The short section of line that survived. August 1989.	An aerial view of the Railway, with all the loco's on the main line. September 2002.

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