The two pictures below show one of the more unusual aspects of winter working on the South Devon Railway.

November 18th saw the rare sight of a long unfitted freight train making its way along the branch. It could have been 1962 when the branch did see just an occasional visit from locally based 03 diesels (mainly on clearing away the last remaining wagons when the branch closed to freight.) On this occasion the Devon Diesel Society's 04 D2246 was in charge of a raft of wagons being taken to Staverton to make way for a filming contract at Buckfastleigh and also to deliver bricks and sand to Totnes in connection with the platform improvements being carried out by the Station Group.

The return journey would involve bringing various BR liveried carriages up to Buckfastleigh for the film company who required the Great Western look on one day followed by BR in the 1950's the day after.

A feature of November on the South Devon Railway has been visits from three film companies all with very different requirements resulting in much moving about of stock on the line to provide the various scenarios demanded by the story lines. Add to this some photo charter work, permanent way work, planning for the Nursery Pool Bridge project due to commence in January, normal service trains at the beginning of the month, Santa Specials at the end of the month and the odd evening charter and you can see that November is proving to be just as busy as August!!