In 1968, British Rail closed the line beyond Meldon (two miles beyond Okehampton) as part of the Beeching cuts.

During this time, Great Western Railway ran a public service between Exeter and Okehampton on summer Sundays.

In 1864 it was renamed as the Devon and Cornwall Railway (which was absorbed into the LSWR in 1872, before the new line opened[5]) and construction finally started.

Though the closure of the route was in part to save on the maintenance expenditure of Meldon Viaduct, the structure remained in use as a headshunt for the quarry, given a new layout in 1979 for increased traffic.

[10] Occasional charter and special trains were operated to Okehampton and Meldon Quarry during the passenger closure period.

Part of the building, which saw a grand reopening on 24 May 1997,[11] was leased to a model shop and buffet, and the Dartmoor Railway began operation in 1997 with a fleet of historic locomotives, coaches, and diesel and electric multiple units, including classes 08, 47, 117, 205, 411, 421 and 438.

[9] Meldon Viaduct, an iron truss bridge about 2.2 miles (3.5 km) further up the line from Okehampton, was designated as a scheduled monument and refurbished shortly after the opening of the heritage railway; a new station of the same name, unrelated to any historic station, was built at its eastern end in 2000 for the heritage railway.

[12] Heritage services ran between Okehampton and Meldon Viaduct, extended to Sampford Courtenay, Bow or the Dartmoor Railway–Network Rail boundary on special event days.

[14] After the heritage Dartmoor Railway opened in 1997, First Great Western operated a summer Sunday service of four return trips direct from Exeter between May and September, sponsored by Devon County Council.

[15] On 19 March 2021, it was announced that the Dartmoor Line would reopen to regular, year-round services by the end of the year as the first project delivered as part of the government's "Restoring Your Railway" programme.

[3] Preparatory work began on reopening the railway between Okehampton and Coleford Junction as soon as Government funding was confirmed in March.

By May 2021, Network Rail had laid more than 11 miles (18 km) of new track, 24,000 concrete sleepers and 29,000 tonnes (64,000,000 lb) of ballast, and installed drainage and new fencing.

[17] In July 2021, Network Rail took over formal ownership of the line from Aggregate Industries, a successor company to Camas, which had been leasing it to the Dartmoor Railway since 1994.

[2] The new service started on 20 November 2021,[18] with Great Western Railway running eight trains a day (one every two hours) to Exeter St Davids, with a journey time of around 40 minutes.

The following station usage table shows only the National Rail service operated by Great Western Railway.