About: South Devon Banks

The South Devon Banks are a series of steep inclines on the ex-GWR railway line linking Exeter and Plymouth in Devon, England. These two cities are separated by the rocky uplands of Dartmoor forcing the early railway surveyors to propose that the line skirt the difficult terrain of the comparatively sparsely populated moorland. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, in surveying the South Devon Railway, opted to push a line along a coastal strip between the Exe and Teign valleys, and then to climb the southern outliers of Dartmoor making for the head of the Plym estuary. From Newton Abbot, the line climbs Dainton Bank, and from Totnes it climbs Rattery Bank, reaches a peak at Wrangaton summit, and then descends Hemerdon Bank to reach Plymouth. These three are collectively known as the South Devon Banks.