VOYAGES ON THE 'GOLDEN HIND'
ON THE evening of June 12, 1990, a freight train had been derailed at Hemerdon and single-line working was being initiated.
As area manager at Exeter, I made my way to St David's. The operating team there was more than capable of handling the incident, but it never hurt to be seen when trouble was afoot. On reaching the duty manager's deserted office I found the telephone ringing incessantly. It needed answering.
"Duty manager's office. Area manager speaking."
"It's the Penzance driver and guard of the 'Golden Hind' here on platform 4."
"Yes ...... ?"
It had been there half an hour. The crew would be wanting to get home.
"We were wondering how long we were going to be here."
From what I had picked up walking onto the station any attempt at a prediction would be just a guess.
"We can't say just yet. I should get yourselves to the front of the station and start with a bus down to Plymouth."
The driver's response was preceded by a moment's hesitation.
Importance
"We can't do that!" he exclaimed. "Our LDC would make our life hell if we came home without the stock for tomorrow's 'Hind'." Click. By 'LDC' he meant the Penzance drivers' staff representatives.
This one example demonstrates the importance of the 'Golden Hind' to the railway ethos of the West Country. Unlike many titled trains this name had its beginnings not in any of the many so-called Golden Ages of pre-Nationalisation, and even pre-Grouping companies, but 16 years into the existence of British Rail, and in the teeth of the hurricane that blew away so much of the railway infrastructure during the 1960s - not only in the Beeching era but also during the incessant process of contraction that had preceded it.
Gerard Fiennes in his seminal biography I tried to run a Railway relates how the West Country became 'pretty bolshie'. The 1963 Beeching Plan proposed closure of almost all the branch lines of Devon and Cornwall. The main line from Penzance to Plymouth was under threat, and it had been suggested that Fowey's
