The Exeter and Crediton Railway was a broad gauge railway that linked Exeter and Crediton, Devon, England. It was 5¼ miles (8½ km) long.
Although built in 1847, it was not opened until 12 May 1851 due to disagreement about the gauge to be used. It was initially operated by the Bristol and Exeter Railway, but eventually became a part of the London and South Western Railway, thus being one of the few broad gauge railways never to become part of the Great Western Railway.
It remains open as part of the scenic Tarka Line from Exeter to .
History Early proposals
Crediton was an important town at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and business interests there considered how transport links could be improved. In 1831 it was proposed to make a railway connection to a dock on the tidal River Exe at Exeter was needed; onward transport would be by coastal shipping. Legal powers were obtained by the (2 & 3 Will. 4. c. xciii) of 23 June 1832. However no construction actually took place and the powers lapsed.
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was opened between London and Bristol in 1841, revolutionising transport in the area it served. This encouraged the promotion of another line, the Bristol and Exeter Railway (B&ER), which was completed on 1 May 1844. This in turn led to the construction of the South Devon Railway (SDR) on from Exeter to Plymouth and Torquay, opened in stages between 30 May 1846 and 2 April 1849. These railways were in a friendly alliance, and were all built on the broad gauge of .
Business interests in Crediton were not slow to realise that the railway at Exeter was a benefit for their town if a railway branch could be made to it, and in 1844 a proposal was formulated to make a line from Crediton to Cowley Bridge on the B&ER; the required capital of £60,000 was soon subscribed and a bill was put forward in the 1845 session of Parliament.
The Railway Mania was at its height at this time: proposals for new railways were produced daily, and many of them had little chance of financial success. Parliament established a committee of members of the Board of Trade, headed by Lord Dalhousie, to evaluate competing schemes for any particular district; it was assumed that only one line would satisfy all local requirements. The issue was complicated by the gauge question: the GWR and its allies operated on the broad gauge, while many other companies used the narrow gauge of (later referred to as standard gauge). If a small independent line were authorised, its track gauge implied its allegiance to the GWR and its allies, or to the GWR's competitors, as the case may be.John Nicholas and George Reeve, The Okehampton Line, Irwell Press Ltd, Clophill, 2008,
The line authorised
Dalhousie's committee, widely referred to as the Five Kings, considered alternative proposals to link Barnstaple with the emerging national network, via Crediton or otherwise. However, because it became evident that the gauge question was to be determined by a new Gauge Commission, which was expected to mandate the gauge of all future railways, Dalhousie deferred a decision. In the circumstances it is surprising that the Exeter and Crediton Railway (E&CR) obtained its authorising act of Parliament, the (8 & 9 Vict. c. lxxxviii) on 21 July 1845, with capital of £70,000. The track gauge was to be "such as the Board of Trade shall in its discretion approve".John Nicholas, The North Devon Line, Oxford Publishing Co., Sparkford, 1992, Christopher Awdry, Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies, Patrick Stephens Limited, Wellingborough, 1990, 1 85260 049 7E T MacDermot, History of the Great Western Railway volume II, published by the Great Western Railway Company, London, 1931
The new company made provisional arrangements to lease their line to the .
The Taw Vale line Meanwhile, competing proposals were submitted to the 1846 session of Parliament for railways to connect Barnstaple to the network. The wished to make a line from their (proposed) Tiverton station, but that was rejected in favour of the Taw Vale Railway Extension and Dock Company, from Barnstaple to join the Exeter and Crediton line at Crediton. This scheme was supported by the London and South Western Railway (LSWR), which aspired to expand into Devon. At this time its nearest approach was east of Salisbury,It had purchased the little Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway in 1845 but had no physical connection to it. but it was determined to get a main line to Exeter and into north Devon. The new company was usually referred to as the Taw Vale Extension Railway (TVER), or simply the Taw Vale Railway.
The had to be built on the broad gauge, to enable through running on to the Exeter and Crediton line, and the lost no time in making a provisional lease of the line to the , matching the lease of the Exeter and Crediton line.
Leasing the company
These provisional leases had to be ratified by shareholders, and at a stormy shareholders' meeting on 11 January 1847 the provisional lease was rejected; the issue of allegiance to the B&ER and the broad gauge had been taken for granted by the directors, but the shareholders thought otherwise. Many shareholders had only obtained shares in the previous week, and the vote appeared to have been engineered by the interest.MacDermot volume II page 148
Nonetheless, the company did not propose to work the line itself, and accordingly a lease to the was proposed. The too had had a difficult shareholders' meeting, and had opted to join the camp. The lease of the to the was ratified by shareholders on 24 February 1847; the obligations were underwritten by the and in effect the was to be leased to the .
The majority of the directors of the , and the chairman J. W. Buller, were strongly in favour of the and were dismayed by this sudden rejection of their intentions. Buller quickly signed a contract to work the line with a George Hennett on 7 April 1847, with the intention of frustrating the alignment to the bloc. The minority Taw Vale directors called an extraordinary general meeting on 12 April 1847, and proposed removal of Buller and three other directors, and proposed prohibiting the opening of the line on the broad gauge. Buller as chairman declared the proposition to be illegal but it was carried. Amid angry scenes and a scuffle, Buller and his friends departed the meeting, taking the minute book with them. At subsequent legal hearings, the takeover by the Taw Vale directors was declared to be legal, and a director called Thorne was properly the chairman of the company. Complaints were made to the Railway Commissioners, and they found that the had improperly funded share purchases by local individuals to gain a majority at the votes, but the had done a similar thing over the vote.
Construction, but not opening Notwithstanding the difficulties in shareholders' meetings, construction had been continuing and was ready (as a double track broad gauge line) early in 1847, except for the actual connection to the at Cowley Bridge, and the directors anticipated starting train services. However the supporters among the shareholding obtained an injunction from the Court of Chancery forbidding them from opening on the broad gauge. This was founded on the resolution of 12 April 1847. This was significant as that, once opened to passengers, a line could not change its gauge without a fresh act of Parliament.
The , which was effectively the in control of the infrastructure, applied to the Gauge Commissioners for a decision on the gauge of their own line and made it clear that they expected that to be for the narrow gauge. Moreover, they altered the track of the line to narrow gauge, and informed the Gauge Commissioners that they proposed to start narrow gauge passenger services on the on 15 February 1848 from Crediton to Cowley Bridge,MacDermot refers to this as "in the Cowley Meadows", probably a generic location rather than a proposed station name. just short of the . The still aspired to have an independent line from there to their own Queen Street station at Exeter.
However, on 8 February 1848 the commissioners issued their determination: the (and by implication the ) was to be a broad gauge line.
By now the had run out of money and its sponsor, the had heavy financial commitments elsewhere that took precedence. So there was now an impasse, and the completed line and the rudimentary station at Cowley Bridge remained unused. It was not until February 1851 that a shareholders' meeting could be informed by William Chaplin, chairman of both the and the , that a lease to the had been agreed and that they would work the line, altering one of the two narrow gauge tracks to broad gauge and installing the junction with their own line at Cowley Bridge. These works would be at the expense of the . The Cowley Bridge station would not be required. Its wooden building was dismantled and re-erected at .
Opening at last Captain Mynne of the Board of Trade inspected the line and approved it, and a ceremonial opening took place on 12 May 1851, full public services starting the same day. The was now a single broad gauge line (with an unused narrow gauge line alongside), and effectively a branch of the . The only stations were Newton St Cyres and Crediton. Road passenger coach services were instituted connecting Barnstaple and Torrington with Crediton.
The initial services consisted of seven trains per day in each direction, with a journey time of around 15 minutes. The fares were 1st class single 1s. (), return 1s 4d. (), 2nd class single 9d. (), return 1s, 3rd class single 4d. ().
The North Devon Railway connects The had suffered a reverse over the question of its gauge, and the abandonment by the of the narrow gauge exacerbated its feelings. It took some time to decide on a way forward, but by the North Devon Railway and Dock Act 1851 (14 & 15 Vict. c. lxxxiii) of 24 July 1851 it renamed itself the North Devon Railway Company (NDR), reduced its capital and its plans, and settled for a single broad gauge line connecting Barnstaple with Crediton. The act authorised NDR trains to run over the and to reach Exeter, by agreement.
The NDR opened its line to traffic on 1 August 1854 (although a premature ceremonial "opening" took place on 12 July). The NDR contracted out its operation to Thomas Brassey, and although through trains operated from Exeter to Barnstaple, engines were changed at Crediton.
The LSWR reaches Exeter After considerable difficulties, the reached Exeter on 18 July 1860;Ceremonial opening; public opening the following day. their Exeter station, Queen Street, was much more central than the station. There was no connection at this stage with the .
The had long harboured intentions to extend into north and west Devon, and formerly had thought of an independent line connecting to the . However the topography was challenging, and a cooling of the hostility with the led to an agreement—concluded on 14 March 1860—to connect the two networks. The London and South Western Railway (Exeter and North Devon) Act 1860 (23 & 24 Vict. c. ciii) of 3 July 1860 authorised the construction of a steeply graded connecting line from Queen Street to St Davids at Exeter, mixing the gauge on the to Cowley Bridge, and providing mixed gauge track on the , and also the NDR line.R A Williams, The London & South Western Railway, volume 2: Growth and Consolidation, David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1973, , pages 223 to 228
LSWR acquires the E&CR The necessary track was installed and trains ran to Crediton from 1 February 1862,MacDermot, page 160 when a lease of the line to the became effective. The lease was renewed for seven years from 1869, and the line was doubled on mixed gauge from 1 June 1875.