OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
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RAILWAYS IN OLD PLYMOUTH  |  PRINCETOWN BRANCH
BRANCH LINE, YELVERTON STATION TO PRINCETOWN STATION

SWELL TOR SIDING

The Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1883 and published in 1885 does not help us to understand the situation at the Swell Tor Quarries on Dartmoor.  On the one hand it states that the railway to Princetown was owned by the Great Western Railway Company and on the other it still uses the mile stones that are so obviously those of the Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway.

Near the Mile Post 20, from Plymouth, it shows a loop on the single line, with a small building on the northern side, and off this loop a long siding snaking its way up the north-eastern slope to the Swelltor (sic) Granite Quarries.  The question is was this a siding off the old Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway, as it would seem, or was it a new siding installed by the Great Western Company? And yet on the northern side of King's Tor, on the same map, of the same date, just to the north of the P&DR Mile Post number 19, it clearly shows the line of the old P&DR track different from that of the GWR track, suggesting just the opposite.

What is significant is that the same map shows a siding on the western side of King's Tor, on the site of what later became the official GWR Swell Tor Siding.

The next Ordnance Survey, dated 1904, published in 1905, does not show the siding on the eastern side to Swelltor Granite Quarries but shows part of the former line as a footpath.

The Siding was constructed for and operated by Messrs Pethick Brothers Limited, of Plymouth.  Their Private Siding Agreement was dated September 12th 1883, shortly after the line was opened.  The Agreement was subsequently transferred to the South Devon Granite Company on June 26th 1920 and the Dartmoor Granite Company on September 24th 1946.  Access to the Siding was by the Swell Tor Siding Ground Frame.

Swell Tor Siding was listed in "The Official Hand-book of Stations" in both 1929 and 1938.  It had no lifting facilities provided by the GWRC.

It is thought that Swell Tor Quarry was last worked not long after the Dartmoor Granite Company took over in September 1946.  When the last freight train ran on the Branch is not known.  British Railways closed the Branch on and as from Monday March 5th 1956.