MOMENTUM is gathering this week for government backing to the future reinstatement of the Exeter-Okehampton-Tavistock-Plymouth railway line.

Chancellor George Osborne and the Department of Transport have instructed Network Rail to carry out a feasibility study looking at the costs and engineering practicalities of reviving the former line which closed down in 1968.

If the northern route from Plymouth to Exeter goes ahead, the line would complement the existing main southern line. The Government is anxious to avoid the mayhem caused last winter when the sea defences were breeched to expose the rail line — paralysing the whole rail link with the South West.

The latest costing to be aired for a reinstated northern route is around £850-million, which is a considerable saving, say its supporters, compared with the £3-billion to dig a tunnel under Haldon Hill to avoid the Dawlish seafront.

Under the National Infrastructure Plan, the Government will support Network Rail in its work to improve the resilience of the railway at Dawlish.

Additionally, it will ask Network Rail to examine wider issues surrounding connectivity to and within the South West peninsula.

Specifically, Network Rail will consider alternatives to the current mainline route to the South West via Dawlish, including an alternative route via the north side of Dartmoor through Okehampton as part of Network Rail's industry plan for 2019-2024.

The Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership, a non-profit organisation, which promotes travel on rural branch lines and seeks improvements to services and facilities, is heartened by the feasibility study.

Richard Burningham, its manager, said he was disappointed that the Network Rail report in the summer came out with a very high price for reopening the line across Dartmoor and it was very good that a detailed feasibility study is now to be done.

Mr Burningham told the Times: 'Personally I would expect to come up with a significantly lower cost.

'The top priority has to be doing everything necessary to strengthen the route through Dawlish, and the Government issupporting this.

'Even with this though, we still need an additional route for those, hopefully very few, times when the Dawlish route can't be used.

'I believe the Okehampton line would offer all year round benefits to local people and would boost the local economy, while giving us too the additional route between Exeter and Plymouth, just in case.

'I look forward to the completion of the feasibility study next spring.'

One of the groups which has campaigned strongly for the reinstatement of the Exeter-Okehampton-Tavistock-Plymouth line is the Peninsula Rail Group, a non-profit organisation of rail professionals, academics and stakeholders.

Its chairman Richard Searight told the Times: 'Much has changed in eight months.

'There is now a realisation that the northern route is not only the cheapest to build and quickest to implement but that it is a potentially fast, totally resilient main railway line.

'While we have never proposed replacing the Dawlish line, we have always supported a full restoration of the northern route as the only means of providing true rail resilience for the peninsula.

'We need to remember that when storms or track maintenance require the Dawlish line to be closed, the northern line will need to be capable of carrying all the diverted mainline rail traffic plus its own rail services if schedules are to sustained.

'Indeed, if the restoration were effective, non-stop train times on the northern route would be able to run at a virtually identical line speeds as those on the southern route (49 minutes).

'In short, the one-and-a-half million people of the peninsula for the first time ever would be able to sleep easy in their beds safe in the knowledge that they would be able to get to Exeter and beyond exactly when they said they would.'

Mr Searight welcomed the request for Network Rail to consider the 'wider issues of surrounding connectivity'.

He added: 'These are the further reasons that this line is not a "nice to have" but a "must have" for the region.

'Crucially the northern route will promote Plymouth to once again being a major city served by two rail routes and genuine rail access to Northern hinterland.

'Until then it will always punch below its weight.'

However, he said the PRG was not 'counting its chickens' and added that the downside was that Network Rail, it claims, was notoriously bad at both predicting the future traffic for re-opened lines and their beneficial economic impact — often underestimating both by 100s of percent.

Mr Searight concluded: 'It will be up to us to watch and challenge everything they do in this area — just as we had to with the line speed of the northern route.'