On the sunny evening of 8th August, 1991, after attending the Okehampton Show, the scout wandered around the deserted station.
The scout returned on 22nd October the following year to photograph the A30 Okehampton Bypass, which had been opened in July, 1988.
In the railway’s “Square Deal” leaflet, published in 1996, the scout had chosen one of the photographs and let off steam.
“This is the infamous Okehampton Bypass. It is a stretch of road which I hold a special disgust for, not least because I contributed £40 [c. £140 in 2025] towards the Dartmoor Preservation Association’s £40,000 [c. £140,000 today] legal costs, which it incurred while fighting this proposed vandalism at the public enquiry.
“It was photographed at midday in October, 1992. Just beyond the road is the former Southern Railway main line from Waterloo to Plymouth, now a single line mineral branch at this point. Do you see it?
“This road, like so many, was made possible by the wonderful bureaucratic device, “Cost-Benefit Analysis.” Put simply, it gives values for such things as death, injury and drivers’ time. If a life is worth £1-million, say, and it can be demonstrated that a death can be avoided by building a new road, then that is a million “benefit.” Until quite recently, environment had no value.
“The same system does not apply to railway construction. The rule is much more straightforward: it must make an 8% return on capital, something no railway has done since the earliest days. If the dual-carriageway at Okey had been subject to the pricing analysis used for railways, it would never have been built, north or south of the town.” +
“It is now the policy of Government that investment in trunk roads should be directed to developing routes for long distance traffic which avoid National Parks and that no new road for long-distance traffic should be constructed through a National Park, or existing road upgraded, unless it has been demonstrated that there is a compelling need which would not be met by any reasonable alternative means.”
Department of the Environment Circular 4/76 (para. 58) Report of the National Park Policies Review Committee, 12th January, 1976
Thirty years after this sacrilege was committed, when work to reinstate the passenger service to Okehampton began, along an existing route which had never become entirely disused, the railway was burdened with the whole weight of new environmental crapspeak, enforced by wildlife “commissars” who shadowed every P.-Way man, lest he disturb a dormouse or a newt; or any flora and fauna that had found a haven from the devastation caused in large measure by motor traffic.
Network Rail was forbidden to do any more than trim branches, even as a fortune was being spent on re-laying the line, with new ballast which would quickly become choked by leaf fall. When the linear nature reserve was handed to the operator, it was actually not safe for the passage of trains at the permitted line speed. The following season, foliage was brushing the carriages and every autumn and winter there has been disruption caused by falling trees.
The scribe wrote this in a letter to the Devon County transport supremo in 2016:
“Though an imposition, the turnpikes were built without much difficulty. These and other roads were greatly improved for motor traffic from the 1920s to the ’50s. There followed the era of massive new road construction which was supposed to render the railways redundant. None of this, certainly up to the 1970s, had to face the environmental and economic hindrance now slowing even the simplest railway reinstatement or infrastructure project.
“If we accept that the railway is being called upon to relieve the excesses set in motion by unbridled road expansion, then surely there is justification for some derogations and easements to allow railway schemes to be hastened. Instead of saddling them with a weight of legislation that the competition never had to bear, and which is only possible because of the surfeit of graduates that write the largely meaningless reports and conduct the pointless studies, should it not be enough to show that the alternative would be even more growth in traffic and road space? I know that this is a matter for central government and local authorities must obey the law. Nevertheless, it is human life I am talking about, not a game of chess or a table-top exercise designed to bog down progress. Is it not time for the counties to press for a relaxation of diktats in order better to meet government targets?”
The utilicon departed Teign Valley Depot at 0825. A near two-hour stop at Sticklepath may have allowed the scout to visit Finch Foundry. He also called at North Road Industrial Estate. After standing at the station between 1151 and 1310, the utilicon stopped in the town and at Meldon Quarry A single rail and a buffer-coupler were collected from Merrivale Quarry and the utilicon returned to Christow at 1658. Warren House was passed at 16/16½.
