Trains restart on Dartmoor rail line after 49 years

> In 1997, Devon County Council revived a passenger rail service from Exeter, on summer weekends only, in an attempt to reduce motor traffic to the national park.

I grew up in Devon, most families have cars anyway because the infrastructure just isn't hugely supported in that part of the country, so it wasn't hugely beneficial to have the train to just Exeter.

Lastly, Okehampton isn't a major tourist destination for the South West. Its close to Dartmoor, but you need a car to explore that area affectively, it's not near any beaches where people normally go to Devon/Cornwall for

Essentially the line went through the closure procedure and was completely closed to passengers back in the 1970s, however it remained open for stone trains from a quarry on the line.

The quarry bought the line and ran their own trains.

They occasionally allowed occasional passenger services.

Various groups tried to run the route as a heritage railway between 1997 and 2019.

The local county council subsidised a few experimental timetabled services on Sundays to see if there was a demand.

This is very expensive for the council and they probably couldn't afford a 5 or 7 day a week service. Plus Sundays are a less busy timetable in general so some spare trains may be available that is not available the rest of the week. (Saving the need to obtain additional trains for the extra work)

Also I seem to recall, but can't source the statement, that the quarry owners may have set a limit on when and how many passenger trains could run over their line. Ie possibly Sundays ok, Weekdays not.

It probably made them next to nothing, while incurring extra expense because passenger lines have higher requirements than freight lines. The more that run the higher the cost.

Finally a government programme to reopen railways supported the full reopening that happened a few days ago. This involved buying the line and repairing the track.