North Cornwall Railway
The North Cornwall Railway was a railway line running from Halwill in Devon to Padstow in Cornwall via Launceston, Camelford and Wadebridge, a distance of 49 miles 67 chains (80.21 km). Opened in the last decade of the nineteenth century, it was part of a drive by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) to develop holiday traffic to Cornwall. The LSWR had opened a line connecting Exeter with Holsworthy in 1879, and by encouraging the North Cornwall Railway it planned to create railway access to previously inaccessible parts of the northern coastal area.
"There are few more fascinating lines than the one which leads to North Cornwall from Okehampton" says T.W.E. Roche in his popular tribute to the network of railway lines operated by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR) in North and West Devon and North Cornwall.
In the nineteenth century, Padstow was an important fishing port, but it was hampered by lack of land communication with its markets. The Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway opened in 1834, but it limited its horizons to connecting the harbour at Wadebridge to the immediate hinterland.
Trunk railway connection reached Cornwall with the opening of the Cornwall Railway in 1859, allied with the associated companies which formed the alliance led by the Great Western Railway, whose lines used the broad gauge. The Cornwall Railway ran east to west in the southern part of the county, and it had exhausted its financial resources in building its line through the difficult terrain. The struggle to achieve dominance in Cornwall had been fierce and the rival London and South Western Railway (LSWR) had the intention of having a line in the county; in 1847 it had purchased the Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway, at a time when the nearest section of its own network was at Bishopstoke (Eastleigh). Finding the necessity of concentrating its resources further east, it had been unable to make progress towards connecting Cornwall into its system.
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