Exeter to Basingstoke

Overview

The West of England line was the Southern Railway's arterial route to the West Country and as such was at one time very busy with express trains to Salisbury, Exeter and Plymouth. It was also the route of the ACE, the Atlantic Coast Express which ran from Waterloo all the way to Padstow on the North Cornish coast. Run down and rationalised in the 1960s, the West of England line became a mere shadow of its former self. Today, with privatisation, train services and passenger numbers are on the up and we can see the line from the cab of a class 159 DMU, in its recently resignalled form along with recent redoubled sections of line to improve capacity and flexibility. As well as the ride in the cab, we also see inside the signal boxes. Filmed in the summer of 2014 in association with the South West Trains / Network Rail alliance.