- Morning, camera's at an angle for some reason.
It's 'cause I'm standing awkwardly on a fence.
That's my train there.
That's the 08:17 to Newquay off of Par,
I'm at Par station this morning.
Came down on the sleeper last night.
It's time to go and tick off some more request stops
as I slowly get round all the requests stops in Britain.
And there's four today on the branch line,
the Atlantic Coast Line, between Par and Newquay.
So looking at the timetable board,
I've got to tick off Luxulyan, and Bugle, Roche.
St Columb Road, and Quintrell Downs.
Quintrell Downs isn't actually a request stop,
but I can't tick off all the stations
on the line and leave Quintrell Downs.
So I'll do Quintrell Downs as well.
And that'll be four request stops ticked off.
(train engine whirs)
So that's the connecting train
that's on its way to Penzance,
which connects up with this, 08:18 to Newquay.
In fact, there's even one pulling in from Penzance.
This might even be,
it's all timed, connected at times.
We're leaving Par around the curve
To do this, we'll do the classic.
You never go A, B, C, D, one after the other.
You go A to D, bounce back to B,
bounce back to C, bounce back to A.
You go back and forth.
(beeping)
Yeah, the sun is out.
It's a fabulous day.
So the train's gone down to Newquay.
It sits there for five minutes.
Comes back again.
10 minutes between here and there.
So I've got 25 minutes.
I'm just going to hang out on the platform.
I just want to have a quick peek
at what is actually at Quintrell Downs.
Single platform, help point, cute level crossing.
Been to the shop, got myself a drink.
Yeah, there's a level crossing here.
So you've got the red flashing light.
But I am pretty sure I read somewhere
that all the local services,
they have to stop anyway because it's a stopping station.
But during the summer,
GWR sent a big,
in the old days it was an HST.
They'd send an HST through here
all the way down to Newquay.
But it only stopped at Par and Newquay.
But I read somewhere that on the way back when the HST,
now an IET Hitachi train,
on its way back they had to stop
and manually operate the level crossing.
So if anybody knows,
do the big trains, when that comes down,
and we might see one later,
do they have to activate the crossing here or not?
Also , so this is hilarious.
You couldn't make this up.
Right next to Quintrell Downs station,
(laughing)
is an allotment. (laughing)
So if you want to tick that one, you can.
That's too funny.
- [Woman] This station is Quintrell Downs.
The next train to arrive at this station
in the direction of Par,
will be the 09:23 Great Western Railway service to Par.
- [Geoff] Good morning.
- [Driver] No Pacers here.
- [Geoff] Oh, man. (laughing)
- [Driver] I watched you last night.
- That's John.
Nice to meet you.
- [John] Alright Geoff?
Welcome to Bugle.
It's sunny, man
It's so sunny.
I've just realised it's entirely fitting and appropriate
that the driver kindly gave me a toot at Bugle Station.
Because Bugle.
(imitates a bugle)
No?
Just me, okay.
There are steps there
but it isn't a non-step, free station.
As in, there's also a ramp there.
Did I get that right?
Single platform.
It's nice to see timetable boards back.
I like that,
because for a period of time
timetable boards weren't a thing
and you had to go Googling for PDFs on websites
to find actual times of trains.
But apart from that, there's a shelter.
And that's kind of it for Bugle.
Which is what I expected.
I knew there wouldn't be a lot here.
I don't even think there's a village shop,
or a Co-Op or a SPAR
There's not a lot at Bugle.
And what I have now, is I'm getting that train.
It's a two hourly service.
So I've got two hours to walk back to Roche.
It's getting warm walking the back paths.
Paths, not streets of Cornwall.
Oh look, the railway has just appeared.
Ah, the diagonal wipe transition
indicating a passing of time,
during which I've easily done my 10,000 steps for the day.
Have walked for over an hour.
And the station of Roche approaches.
(latch rattling)
Unexpected foot crossing for the win, lovely.
I'm at Roche, ticked it off.
Just had a cup of tea, actually.
Had time to kill in the nearby Victoria Cafe.
Hello, Victoria.
Roche station.
Here we go, I see a help point.
I see bike racks.
I see a bench with armrests, unusual.
I see a shelter
and the litter bin that won't sway in the breeze.
'cause it's very much fixed plastic.
So as per the plan, I'm getting the 12:34 request.
There's the X, I'm gonna go one stop
to 12:45 at St Columb Road.
And then just literally sit there and wait.
Get the 13:23 back.
There's the X request, get out at Luxulyan.
at 13:46.
Request, there's the X.
And at that point,
it should already be apparent in the thumbnail of this video
that there's something magnificent coming up,
unless I muck up the shot.
- Nice little cute waiting shelter here.
Well done Roche.
Just a reminder,
because invariably somebody always asks in the comments,
"How do you flag down a train at a request stop?"
If you're on the train already,
you tell the guard or conductor
which stop you'd like to get out at.
And then they buzz the driver to let them know.
I think actually,
I'm pretty sure what they do
is that the drivers always expect to stop
unless they hear the bell signal from the guard conductor,
which informs them not to stop.
I think that's the way around it goes.
I'm pretty sure it is.
But if you're on the platform like I am here,
you have to make your intent clear.
Which is why we have that phrase.
And it's why I have that phrase on my request stop map,
which I'll mention at the end in a minute.
Which you can download.
And basically you just stick out your arm.
You wave your arm,
you flag the train down as if you were at a bus stop
requesting for a bus to stop.
So I will be flagging the train down
in about 20 minutes time.
- [Announcer] This station is Roche.
Passengers intending to join the train
should stand on the platform
in clear view of the driver of the approaching train
and clearly signal their wish to board the train.
- I'm outside, straight away
into the car park at St Columb Road.
Which to me looks to be a very functional station.
Probably the least interesting, least quaint.
Still got First Great Western logos up.
So that's ticked this one off.
And now I've got 40 minutes here,
and I wait, and we'll then just get,
that train will now go to Newquay
through Quintrell Downs.
Newquay reverse, Quintrell Downs,
pick me up again.
I'll head for Luxulyan.
It has got its own, got another foot crossing.
And very much evidence, extreme clear evidence,
of where it used to have a second platform.
Luxulyan station, tick.
Hey, that's all of them.
I've done all four, four requests stops ticked off.
But we're not done,
because we've got to take a little walk to the aqueduct.
That's actually a viaduct that the train goes under.
Not over.
You'll see in a second.
(gravel crunching)
(camera crashes)
Whoops, camera's okay from falling over.
Remember, from the timetable, it's a two hourly service.
Rather than wait two hours for a train
either in that direction or that direction,
Check out the onward travel information map.
And here, right here,
you can see there's this magnificent curve.
What there is, that is the Luxulyan Valley.
And the railway, this railway goes through the valley.
There's a river down there.
But there used to be, well there still is,
it used to be like a tramway.
Like a mining railway across the top.
It's an aqueduct thing.
It's amazing.
And I'm going to walk to it now.
(gate rattling)
Here we go.
Look at that.
I'm standing in the middle.
You've got the road.
You've got the river.
And you've got the railway.
Oh look, here comes a train.
Totally made it.
(train engine whirring)
And that is how you do the four request stops
plus bonus fifth stop, non-request stop,
on the Atlantic Coast Branch
between Par and Newquay.
four more ticked off, link in the description to my request stop map.
I recently found out that New Clee,
which I've done as a video, is no longer a request stop.
And coming up,
'cause I'm in Cornwall, Devon for more than one day,
there's two more request stops to tick off down here.
Including one which I don't think IS anymore,
but it used to be.
So I need to go there and check it out.
Anyway, link to the request stop map in the description.
Thanks for watching.
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See you soon.