Last train from Trevarno after estate sale (From This is The West Country)
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Last train from Trevarno after estate sale
4:00pm Friday 12th October 2012 in Cornwall
By Greg Fountain, Reporter/Photographer
The last ever passenger train will depart Trevarno station this month, a little after two years since it was built.
Helston Railway Preservation Society was given notice to move their Trevarno platform back in July when serious offers started to be considered for the surrounding country estate.
Trevarno manor house has now been sold to a foreign businessman for an undisclosed sum, with the remaining farmland still set to be sold separately.
This means a new, temporary platform is needed at Prospidnick to handle passenger traffic, although in a stroke of good fortune the heritage railway's track bed was not included in the sale.
Barbara Barnes, from the preservation society, said: “There is nothing like a bit of a deadline to focus the mind and sharpen the determination.
“Our last passenger train to leave Trevarno station will be at 4pm on October 21 and we have to have moved to Prospidnick on the 22nd ready for the first passenger service on Thursday the 25th.”
Work is well underway on the temporary platform, Barbara said, and all the construction materials were in place last week.
She added: “It's looking good. At Trevarno Farm, we have now cleared a walkway from what will be the car parking area to the new station and we are still steadily working on clearing the undergrowth on the old track bed where our permanent station will eventually be built. “Finishing off the access road has been put on hold however whilst we sort out the priority tasks over the next month.”
The first event to be hosted at the new “Prospidnick Halt,” as it will be known, will be the society's Halloween special on October 31.
Tickets cost £10 for the event and offer unlimited rides on a train lit only by oil lamp, with a Cornish pasty included.
For more information, or to book, call James on 07791331701 or email james@helstonrailway.co.uk
