Station Road, Plympton, runs from the Ridgeway, down to the site of the old railway station, a station that saw active service for more than 100 years.
It was in April 1848 that the first test train ran through the new South Devon Railway station (as it was then) and it was 111 years later that passengers waited on the platform for the last time. Originally Brunel’s plan had been to bring his atmospheric railway to this point, at least, however the last atmospheric train to run, somewhat further eastward along the South Devon line, ran just three months after Plympton (or Colebrook) Station opened to passenger traffic – on 15 June 1848.
The station’s role, incidentally, had been in decline for some time prior to its closure in March 1959 and there was, even then, limited use by goods traffic through until 1964, but today there is nothing left of the station that gave its name to this road, although clearly trains still rattle right through the area and are likely to for many years to come.
