Feniton Level Crossing, Devon

Date filmed: Sunday the 22nd of June 2025
Video filmed at 18:43

Route: West of England Line
Feniton (FNT) Station

Crossing type: Manually Controlled Barrier crossing with CCTV (MCB-CCTV)

Filming location: Ottery Road, Feniton (EX14 3BT)

A full-barrier level crossing located in the quiet village of Feniton, near to Honiton to the east of Exeter, Devon, beside the single-platform Feniton Station which is served two-hourly in the off-peak and at weekends. Once controlled from the adjacent station building, the crossing was fully renewed during re-signalling in 2012, and is now controlled from Basingstoke which is as much as 112 miles away! As control centres become more centralised, this will be seen more often in the future. In terms of equipment, there's a total of six LED wigwags here owing to side roads on both sides of the crossing, four barriers, and two alarms, the latter two of which have not aged well as the barriers strike the floor quite vigorously when lowered, and one of the alarms appears to have been water-damaged as it produces a very unusual, but PERFECTLY audible, sound. Both alarms became quite poorly-sounding here, though the one on this side was replaced with an old-stock alarm in recent years.

A single London-bound service features in this early evening video, and with the station not long enough to accommodate this six-car train, it overhung with part of it blocking the crossing. As the Exeter-bound train was running very late, it was held at Honiton to pass with this on-time train there, and I had a few minutes to spare when I met this delayed service at the next crossing along, with it leaving here at roughly the time I arrived there.

Trains featured:
159 108 & 159 015 (South Western Railway) - 2:13
1L72 Exeter St. David's ➡ London Waterloo | On-time

Train details sourced from:
Real Time Trains: https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/sear...
Open Train Times: https://www.opentraintimes.com/maps
Traksy: https://traksy.uk/live

Filmed on: Panasonic HC-VX1 in 4K, 25fps

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