Apart from one visit before it closed when I was a little boy, possibly on the last day of operation as I can remember a bit of a crush in a carriage, it was not until many years later that I walked sections of the track bed, and wandered along nearby roads when it was too difficult to pass. It seems such a shame that such magnificent granite bridges no longer serve their intended purpose; that the cast iron County Council finger posts point to desolate locations; and that some of the embankments have been filled in. I can still remember the shock of seeing a picture of a building across the track bed at Praze in ‘The Cornishman’ newspaper – crassly making any attempt at reviving the line near impossible. I think the recent attempt at resurrecting the line is wonderful, and hope for as much as possible to be re-established.
Unfamiliar with the route now transformed with overgrowth, I don’t know where on the branch this is, but the four-coach train is being pulled by 4571 past a ganger’s hut, with a ridge of hills rising behind and what looks like falling ground to the left. 5####AL01-HSN-s4571-PAS_O
Smoke drifts westwards across vans parked beside Nancegollan Station from 4552, heading a Helston-bound train on the branch down from Gwinear. A guard closes a door, trolleys stand idle, and the deserted station appears in very good order. 600423A01-NGN-s4552-PAS_O
In the luxuriant cutting at Trannack, 4547 hauls the 1.15pm departure from Helston to Gwinear Road Station on 30th August 1956. This class of Edwardian locomotives dominated branch services until a couple of years before branch closure. 560830A01-TLL-s4547-PAS__I
A goods train of short wheel base vans headed by 4540 emerges from Trannack bridge between Helston and Truthall Halt, at 2pm on 30th August 1956. Bracken punctuates the rank grass on the wet side of the cutting, but is absent from that more often in the sun. 560830A02-TLL-s4540-GDS_I
4540 leaves Truthall Halt with the Helston train due to arrive at 1:20pm on 30th August 1956. The pep pipe drips over one side of the locomotive, and hay is piled in ricks on the field to the right, beyond the fencing whose posts are beginning to get covered in ivy. 560830A03-TLL-s4540-PAS_O
Helston Station is viewed from the road bridge at its western end, showing the trackwork to good effect. The engine shed is to the right and the tracks running through the station terminate a short distance beyond, designed for expansion to the Lizard should that happen. 04###AA01-HSN-STATN-VI__S
Looking back west towards the vantage point of the previous photograph, the engine shed with “parachute” water tower is to the left, and the siding with a chute for loading serpentine, a rare rock limited to a handful of sites world-wide, that includes the Lizard. 04###AA02-HSN-STATN-VI_NW
Helston depot, viewed from the embankment opposite. The shed is big enough to house one branch loco, and the ancillary structures are working area with inspection pit, parachute water tower, loco coal hoppers, coal platforms, and a tracklayer’s hut. The track to Gwinear leads away to the right. Copyright: J Platt. 04###AB01-HSN-DEPOT-VI_SW
A 45XX tank is parked half in and half out of Helston Engine Shed on 4th May 1959. As several fuel staithes surround this little spur they were possibly for servicing several locos at the same time – for both goods and passenger trains. Stains half way up the wall of the closest, but without coal, suggest it being no longer in use. Copyright: P Sankey. 590504A01-HSN-E_SHD-VI__W
4570 warms in the early afternoon sun as it waits for departure with the 3.20pm at Helston Station on 8th September 1960. Van and carriage doors are left open from its former arrival, and boxes load a trolley and the platform. The yard is full of vans and “flats”. Photo: R D Spiers. 600908A01-HSN-s4570-PAS_I
The trespassing photographer taking this picture seems to be being tolerated, straddling the tracks on an inclement day at Helston Station. A well-clad shunter with pole walks towards him, and his friends cower in the shelter of the platform awning. Parcels topple from a trolley as they are loaded into the adjacent Guard’s Van. 6008#AA02-HSN-STATN-VI__E
Ivy grows over the walls of the coal stathes at Helston Shed as a 45XX tank simmers before it. The positioning of the parachute water tower before it suggests there is hardly any clearance for the doors to shut, and the uphill climb out under the bridge is clear. 560827A01-HSN-E_SHD-VI_NW
The doyen of the standard GWR branch line locos, 4500, is parked beside the Goods Shed opposite Helston Station under strong sunshine in July 1956. Storage sheds are behind, and the scene is empty of revenue-generating activity. Photo: C W Coslin. 5107##A01-HSN-4500-PARKD
The Eric Curnow Collection 