After the Parliamentary approval of construction of the South Devon Railway Company (SDR) from Exeter to Plymouth, a new Buckfastleigh, Totnes and South Devon Railway scheme was proposed to make a junction with the SDR at Totnes and link it with Buckfastleigh, running alongside the River Dart.

It opened as a broad gauge line through to Ashburton on 1 May 1872 and was operated from the outset by the SDR (which became part of the Great Western Railway in 1876).

In partnership with fellow Talyllyn veteran Bill Faulkner and other local businessman,[3] having originally focused on the already closed GWR Kingsbridge branch.

Their business plan was to launch and operate a profitable summer-season tourist railway, focused on the many summer visitors who choose to holiday in South Devon.

The final severing of the line took place in 1971.The rare Brunel-style station building at Ashburton, with its overhead roof, survives as a garage.

[3] The first passenger train ran on 5 April 1969, with Dr Richard Beeching performing the official opening ceremony on 21 May 1969.

In 1989, the DVR plc publicly announced that the Totnes to Buckfastleigh line was uneconomic, and had hence decided to find another operator or close it.

[8] The South Devon Railway was prosecuted by the ORR in May 2018 on a charge of failing to ensure people in its employ and passengers were not exposed to risk of harm.

[14] The rolling stock preserved on the line include many examples of steam locomotives typical of the Great Western Railway types that would have once worked on it, such as GWR 1400 Class number 1420.

The most significant one of these is Tiny, a South Devon Railway 0-4-0VB shunting locomotive on display in the museum at Buckfastleigh station.

For example, it built the two stills at The Oxford Artisan Distillery, nicknamed "Nautilus" and "Nemo" after the submarine and its captain in the Jules Verne 1870 science fiction novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.