Plym Bridge railway station

The South Devon and Tavistock Railway linked Plymouth with Tavistock in Devon; it opened in 1859. It was extended by the Launceston and South Devon Railway to Launceston, in Cornwall in 1865. It was a broad gauge line but from 1876 also carried the standard gauge (then referred to as narrow gauge) trains of the London and South Western Railway between Lydford and Plymouth: a third rail was provided, making a mixed gauge. In 1892 the whole line was converted to standard gauge only.

The line closed to passengers in 1962 although sections at either end were retained for a while to carry freight traffic. A short section has since been reopened as a preserved line by the Plym Valley Railway.

The Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway, a horse-worked line, had been constructed to bring minerals from quarries near Princetown to Plymouth; it opened on 26 September 1823.

The South Devon Railway (SDR) built its line from Exeter to Plymouth, opening to a temporary station at Laira Green on 5 May 1848. It extended to its Plymouth terminus at Millbay on 2 April 1849 for passengers, with goods traffic starting on 1 May 1849. Continuous rail transport from Plymouth to London was now possible.

Promoters in the important towns near the Devon-Cornwall border developed schemes to connect their region to the new railway main line, including an early Launceston and South Devon Railway, but that proposal expired in 1846; there were also competing schemes, including a Plymouth, Tavistock, Okehampton, North Devon and Exeter Railway for a line connecting with the London and South Western Railway.

It was the South Devon and Tavistock Railway which obtained its Act of Parliament on 24 July 1854, authorising construction of a 13 mile line from to a junction with the South Devon Railway east of Plymouth; the track gauge was to be the broad gauge, 7 ft 0¼ in (2,140 mm), and authorised capital was £160,000 with borrowing powers of £53,600.

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