DSCN1311 First Devon and Cornwall WJ55 CRZ

Friday 14 June 2013 (1820) – First Devon and Cornwall 32762 (WJ55 CRZ), an East Lancs bodied Dennis Trident new in September 2005, seen from our room at the Royal Castle Hotel in Dartmouth.

The bus, which had Vodaphone advertising on its sides, had just left one of the bus stops close to the town jetties. Kingswear can be seen in the background across the River Dart.

The brown and cream building on the left, now a restaurant, was once Dartmouth’s railway station although Dartmouth didn’t have a railway!

Early railway builders were frustrated in their efforts to create a rail link to Dartmouth and so the line from Torbay terminated at Kingswear on the east bank of the River Dart with a ferry connection providing the cross-river link. As home to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth generated much traffic and so had its own railway station to sell tickets and provide passenger facilities. It is said that the Station Master at Dartmouth was paid more than his counterpart at Kingswear as a result of salaries being paid according to passenger throughput and ticket sales.