The Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway was a railway line opened in 1834 in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It linked the important town of Bodmin with the harbour at Wadebridge and also quarries at places such as Wenford. It was the first steam powered line in the county and predated the main line to London by 25 years.
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This was the first steam-powered railway in Cornwall, opened on 30 September 1834, running from the port of Wadebridge on the Camel estuary to Bodmin, with a branch to the settlement of Wenford Bridge on the edge of Bodmin Moor, where a china clay works later developed which sustained the route. The movement of sea sand for agricultural use is normally given as the primary reason for construction.
The Bodmin and Wadebridge was purchased illegally[1] in 1846 by the London and South Western Railway, but remained unconnected to the rest of the LSWR system until 1895 when the North Cornwall Railway, promoted and operated by the LSWR, reached Wadebridge, and until then had an unstandardised array of rolling stock and locomotives. The line was connected to the Great Western Railway in 1888 when they opened a line from their Bodmin General station to Boscarne Junction.
It was noted for never having a passenger service on much of its length, only on the southern stretch between the two towns of its name. It was also noted for having "staithes", rather than stations, a term taken from canal terminology referring to the freight stations along its length. True "stations" were built for passenger services, of course.
When the rolling stock came to be standardised with the rest of the network, the age of the route gave some difficulties. There was a trial of SECR P Class 0-6-0 on the line, which was a failure because of the lightly laid track and sharp curves, which made running difficult for locomotives not designed to accommodate it. As a result, three of the LSWR 0298 Class, Victorian locomotives designed for urban passenger duties, were retained on the line significantly past their life-expiry, and became an attraction in the far west for locomotive enthusiasts, being recorded as prodigious survivors as early as 1943 by C Hamilton Ellis in his book "Some Classic Locomotives" (1949). They were eventually replaced by GWR 1366 Class dock tanks in 1962 after the line had been transferred to the Western Region of British Railways. This situation has parallels in the case of the Lyme Regis branch line, where the Adams Radial tank engines also survived for similar reasons.
The first closure took place on the 30 January 1967 when all passenger services were withdrawn and Bodmin North station closed. The line from Boscarne Junction to Wadebridge remained open for goods traffic via Bodmin General (GWR)until the 2 September 1978, and the final section to Wenford closed on the 3 October 1983 after cessation of china clay traffic.
Today the railway forms part of The Camel Trail from Wenfordbridge to Padstow, and it is the aim of the Bodmin and Wenford Railway to extend from Boscarne Junction to Wadebridge alongside the trail.