PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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PLYMOUTH to MODBURY Following upon the success of the Road Motors they had introduced as a feeder service from the Lizard to Helston Station in Cornwall, the Great Western Railway were on the look-out for other such opportunities. Modbury, in the South Hams of Devon, was a substantial market town which did not have a railway but which had the prospect of providing passengers for the branch line from Plymouth's Millbay Station to Yealmpton. So, on Monday May 2nd 1904, the GWR started a road motor service from Brixton Road Station to Modbury. However, that presumably lost them income from the railway so on June 1st they cut the service back to just Yealmpton Station to Modbury. But there must have been some call for a road service between Yealmpton and Plymouth because by September 1904 the GWR had introduced a road car from Modbury through Yealmpton to and straight into Millbay Station. This was not as suicidal as it sounds. In addition to the customers from the market town of Modbury, the village of Ermington was only a one mile walk from the main road and, of course, the villages had grown up along the main roads, not the new railway. Consequently, the road motor service passed through the centre of Yealmpton, saving a walk to the station, and also through Brixton, which was much more convenient than the station about a mile to the west. The main road was also nearer the centres of Elburton and Plymstock than the railway. However, the service to Modbury did not survive long and ceased from Sunday June 30th 1907. Several years later the service was re-started but with some journeys running to Kingsbridge, Torcross and Dartmouth. By January 1929 buses for Modbury were leaving Plymouth's Millbay Station at 9.05am, 11.05am, 1pm, 3.15pm, 5.10pm, and 7.30pm, with additional journeys on Thursdays at 2.10pm and 11pm and on Saturdays at 2.10pm only. Additional buses ran as far as Yealmpton only, departing from Plymouth at 11.45am, 4.20pm, 8.15pm and 9pm. The full journey took 55 minutes. The Sunday service comprised departures at 10.45am, 11.30am, 4.40pm and 8.30pm with two additional trips as far as Yealmpton only at 7.15pm and 9pm. Interestingly, the 7.15pm departure did not run during February. Return trips left Modbury at 9.50am, 11.45am, 1.55pm, 3.50pm, 6.15pm, and 7.40pm with additional ones on Thursdays at 1pm and 9.10pm and on Saturdays at 1pm. The services from Yealmpton returned at 7.50am, 10.50am, 3.35pm, and 7.30pm. On Sundays the return journeys commenced at 9.30am, 2.05pm, 6.10pm (but not during February), and 7.25pm, with an additional run from Yealmpton only at 10.45am except during February.
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