Princetown Railway

The original intention of encouraging agricultural development of the moor had been frustrated, but the line was carrying considerable traffic in granite from quarries a little below Princetown.

They wrote that arrangements would also be made, if found desirable, to form a branch line to Government establishments at Princetown.

It left the Exeter - Plymouth line of the South Devon Railway near Marsh Mills and ran northwards to Tavistock, passing through a tunnel under Roborough Down, near the settlement of Yelverton.

Adopting part of the route of the 1814 Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway and joining with the GWR, it made working arrangements with those companies and received subscription support from them towards its authorised capital of £60,000, with borrowing powers of £20,000.

The line was evidently partly supported by the Home Office, as a financial grant towards the construction was expected to be made.

[4] On 7 July 1883 Colonel Yolland of the Board of Trade made an inspection of the line, but found several issues to be unsatisfactory, and he refused the sanction to open.

The branch line left Yelverton in a southerly direction and curved sharply east on a steeply rising gradient.

Normal operation in the twentieth century was that an arriving train (from Princetown) would unload and then be propelled empty up the gradient past the siding connection.

The motive power on the line in the twentieth century was almost exclusively the 44XX class of 2-6-2T; mixed train operation was commonly used.