Chacewater Railway Station

There are seventeen disused railway stations on the Cornish Main Line between Plymouth in Devon and Penzance in Cornwall, England. The remains of nine of these can be seen from passing trains. While a number of these were closed following the so-called "Beeching Axe" in the 1960s, many of them had been closed much earlier, the traffic for which they had been built failing to materialise.

Background

The railway from Plymouth to Truro was opened by the Cornwall Railway on 4 May 1859, where it joined up with the West Cornwall Railway which had been completed from there to Penzance on 16 April 1855. The section from Carn Brea to Angarrack dates back to the Hayle Railway, opened on 23 December 1837. It now forms Network Rail's Cornish Main Line.

Plymouth to Truro

Plymouth Millbay

The trains of the South Devon Railway finally reached the town of Plymouth on 2 April 1849. Docks were opened adjacent to the station and a new headquarters office was built next door. The station was expanded ready for the opening of the Cornwall Railway on 4 May 1859 and the South Devon and Tavistock Railway on 22 June 1859. It became known as Plymouth Millbay after other stations were opened in the town in 1876–7 at Mutley and North Road.

The station was closed to passengers on 23 April 1941 after bombs destroyed the nearby goods depot; the passenger station being used thereafter only for goods traffic and access to the carriage sheds. All traffic ceased from 14 December 1969 except for goods trains running through to the docks which continued until 30 June 1971.

The site is now occupied by the Plymouth Pavilions leisure complex. Two granite gate posts outside the Millbay Road entrance are all that is left of the station, although a goods shed on what used to be Washington Place is still extant nearby

Wingfield Villas Halt

This suburban halt near Devonport Junction in Plymouth was opened by the Great Western Railway on 1 June 1904. It was served by the Plympton to Saltash railmotor service introduced at that time to compete with the electric tramways in the town. It was closed in June 1921.

Ford Halt

Ford was one of the halts opened by the Great Western Railway for its railmotor services on 1 June 1904. It was located to serve the northern district of Devonport which had grown around the naval dockyard; other stations serving this traffic were opened at Keyham (1900) and Dockyard Halt (1905). The denuded remains of the southbound platform still remain, just west of an underbridge into the Royal Navy Dockyard and at the commencement of the cutting before Keyham.

It was closed on 6 October 1941, during the World War II blitz of Plymouth and Devonport.

Defiance Platform

Defiance Platform () was opened by the Great Western Railway on 1 March 1905 and served naval personnel travelling to the nearby torpedo training school on HMS ''Defiance'' which was moored nearby. Most trains were the railmotors and auto trains from which were run for an extra beyond Saltash where they otherwise terminated.

The line was doubled and moved on 4 February 1906 and Wearde became the junction for a deviation line to that allowed the removal of the remaining timber viaducts on the Cornish Main Line. As a result of the deviation the platform was moved in 1907, where access to the platform was by steps from a bridge that carried a road across the railway to Wearde Quay. The signal box that had been at the original location was also relocated and was situated at one end of the platform.

The station closed to passengers on 27 October 1930 but continued to be used for loading goods traffic until the 1950s. The platforms are still in existence and alterations to the road bridge to accommodate the new alignment of 1906 can be clearly seen. The old line was retained as carriage sidings for Saltash until 2 December 1964 and another siding behind the platform was kept in use until 1972.

Doublebois

Doublebois station () was situated at the west end of a cutting which is the summit of the Cornwall Railway. A siding was provided here when it opened on 4 May 1859 to enable trains to be split into smaller parts to enable them to be worked over the steep inclines up from Liskeard and Bodmin Road.

In January 1860 the railway company was asked to provide a facility here for goods traffic, which they acceded to after local people subscribed £130 towards it and offered the necessary land. Because of this the company offered to build an accompanying