Although Exmoor is renowned for its wild landscapes and impressive coast, it has also been home to some remarkable railways. Significant and much-loved lines such as the Taunton-Barnstaple, Exe Valley and Barnstaple-Ilfracombe have long gone, swept away by the Beeching axe, although traces of them can be followed on the ground to this day.
Others catered for industry which once found a home on the moor, such as the West Somerset Mineral Railway, whose spectacular incline still descends from the heights of the Brendon Hills towards the Bristol Channel.
Above all, Exmoor today boasts the unique Lynton-Lynmouth Cliff Railway; the longest preserved steam railway in the country, in the West Somerset Railway which skirts the northern fringes of the National Park; and the Lynton-Barnstaple Railway which, when fully restored, will be the longest narrow gauge line in England.
Now fully revised, updated and re-illustrated, this classic guide to the railways round Exmoor appears again by popular demand. Fully comprehensive, it tells the history of Exmoor’s railways from their earliest days and captures the ongoing story of the area’s preserved railways in their twenty-first century glory