Dartmoor rail service celebrates two years in service

Celebrations were held at Okehampton station to mark the Dartmoor Line's second birthday

More than half a million rail journeys have been made on Devon's Dartmoor Line since it fully reopened, say officials.

The service between Okehampton and Exeter resumed daily services in 2021, 49 years after they stopped.

The line, which cost £40m to reopen, was the first project for the government's Restoring Your Railways.

Okehampton Station held a special birthday party on Monday to celebrate the impact the return of the service has had on the town.

Lynn Daniels, Mayor of West Devon, said: "I'm so proud to be here on this second anniversary.

"It shows the effort, work and persistence of the people who tried so hard for more than a decade to get this line reopened."

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said a second station for the town, Okehampton Parkway, is set to be built in two years with £13.4m of government levelling-up funding.

'Way above projections'

The Dartmoor Line was delivered in under eight months and £10m under budget on 20 November 2021.

After regular services stopped in 1972, the line had only been open on some Sundays in the summer.

The new GWR two-hourly service quickly became hourly and is said to be well used by commuters, shoppers, students and tourists.

Richard Burningham, chairman of the Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership, said: "The absolute key thing railways are about is getting people from A to B and being useful to people's lives and this line is doing it in spades.

"Some 550,000 journeys in two years is way, way above what the projections were."