THE opening of the cafe, Dartmoor National Park information centre, shop and toilets heralds the completion of the rejuvenated Okehampton Rail Station where passenger services to Exeter returned last November after a break of 50 years.

The team behind the herculean task to bring Okehampton Station back to life celebrated with a special event last Saturday to officially open up all the station facilities.

The Destination Dartmoor day was also an opportunity to promote the new Dartmoor Line, Okehampton and the wider area.

Since the line was opened there have been more than 140,000 journeys on it. Trains to Exeter increased from two hourly to hourly in May this year.

Chairman of Dartmoor National Park Pamela Woods, who cut the ribbon to mark the opening, said 2.3-million visitors came to Dartmoor each year and over two million were day visitors so it was therefore a massive environmental challenge for the national park. She said if many of these visitors came by train it would go some way to meeting the national park’s’ sustainability agenda

‘I am delighted to open these facilities today,’ she said on Saturday. ‘Hopefully more people will get on the train and hop off here at Okehampton to see what what we have to offer, not only on Dartmoor but also in Okehampton and the surrounding towns and villages.’

She praised the ‘immense amount of work’ that had been put in on this enterprise not least by GWR’s head of strategic development Matt Barnes who had been central to the whole scheme.

‘It’s a tremendous achievement. Work’s been going on to reopen the line for a good number of years and is of enormous benefit not only to local people but to visitors.’

Matt Barnes said he may have been the epicentre for the passion within the industry but there were many others who should be thanked.

He praised everyone who had said ‘through thick and thin’ they were going to make the Okehampton rail project happen .

‘For many of us Okehampton Station will be the thing we are most proud of in our whole careers,’ said Matt.

The Bulleid Buffet, named after railway engineer Oliver Bulleid, who came from Belstone and who developed well known locomotives, is being run by Leanne Knight and her team from the Amazing Brownie Bakers of Lifton.

Leanne is the daughter of the owners of the highly successful Strawberry Fields Farm Shop and Restaurant in Lifton and has experience of running a heritage attraction cafe having spent six years running the cafe at Dingles Fairground Heritage Centre.

With meticulous attention to detail, the theme of the Southern Railway of the 1950s, when rail was in its heyday, runs throughout the station.

On Saturday sounds of the 1950s and the 1970s when the station closed down were created in a sound art project headed by Mayes Creative and Unknown Replica working with the Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership. People could tune into old radio recordings, read magazines from the time, or visit a solar powered revamped grandfather clock which as you walked past told you what was happening at points in history.

There was art on the train and Okehampton’s Wren Music provided entertainment.

In the heritage waiting room films on trains and steam power were played on a loop interspersed with interviews by Okehampton College students with people who worked on the line in the past including fireman Richard Westlake.

Photos of significant characters in the history of the station like Richard and Gerald Smallacombe, who was engineer, fireman and driver of the Okehampton trains, adorned the buildings as part of the Destination Dartmoor day.

Gerald, 86, recalled how he used to drive the train at 100mph straight into North Tawton.

Chairman of campaign group OkeRail Dr Michael Ireland said what had been achieved at Okehampton was wonderful but there was still much work to do — with the next stage getting the Tavistock to Plymouth link reinstated. The business case is being submitted by Devon County Council this week.

See more photos in this week’s Times.