The eagle-eyed may have noticed that in our launch video there’s a lovely drone shot showing Okehampton Castle from the skies at dawn. Here is the full 30-second shot in all its glory. It’s by Adam Burton, one of the UK’s leading landscape photographers, who is based just outside Okehampton.The More ➔ “Okehampton Castle – a bird’s eye view”
It was fantastic to see the reopening of the Dartmoor Line splashed across national, regional and local media following Friday’s big announcement. BBC Breakfast filmed live from Okehampton station (watch a clip with Dartmoor National Park’s Rebecca Martin) and interviewed rail partners and local volunteers alike. More ➔ “Media coverage”
Devon communities to be better connected as railway line set to reopen for first time in 50 years.Communities and passengers in Devon are to benefit from the reopening of the railway between Okehampton and Exeter as a result of the Government’s ‘Restoring your Railway’ initiative.Following More ➔ “Official press release”
Find out how much today’s announcement means for both the local community and the region. Watch our interviews with a wide range of partners, from Mel Stride MP to local Okerail campaigner Dr Michael Ireland.It’s thanks to this great partnership of different organisations and voices that today’s announcement has been made possible.Mel More ➔ “Welcoming the news”
Now that the Department for Transport has approved the funding to reopen the line, Network Rail engineers will start upgrade work immediately and over the next few months will lay 11 miles of new rail, replace 24,000 sleepers and install over 29,000 tonnes of ballast before running test trains on the track ahead of fully reopening the railway to passengers later this year.Concrete More ➔ “Next steps to upgrade the line”
We’re delighted that award-winning Devon artist Becky Bettesworth has allowed her fantastic Dartmoor artwork to be used as the flagship look for our homepage. It will also appear on an upcoming Dartmoor Line railway station poster – watch this space!Becky’s work draws inspiration from the classic railway posters of the 1930s, making the partnership a perfect fit. More ➔ “Working with Becky Bettesworth”
As this fantastic photo from Network Rail shows, a huge number of concrete railway sleepers have already been delivered on site ready to begin work. But there’s more to come. What you see here represents only half of the 24,000 new sleepers required to allow trains to run safely later this year. More ➔ “The great wall of sleepers”
