Today's Bodmin & Wenford Railway is just part of a network of railways that grew up around the town of Bodmin. The story starts with one of the very first railways in the world - the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway

The Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway was built following a study commissioned in 1831 by local landowner Sir William Molesworth of Pencarrow at a cost of £35,000. The line from Wadebridge to Wenfordbridge, with a branch to Bodmin, was intended to carry sand from the Camel estuary to inland farms for use as fertiliser.

Reporting the opening of the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway in 1834, the "West Briton" stated: "A more grand and imposing sight was never, perhaps, witnessed in the county".  It was the first steam-worked railway in Cornwall, and one of the first in Britain to carry passengers.

In the 1840s, England's railway network expanded towards Bodmin. The London & South Western Railway purchased the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway in 1846 and intended to connect it to the rest of the system by a new line through North Cornwall

At the same time, the Cornwall Railway was constructing a line from Plymouth to Falmouth. With the support of the Great Western Railway, this would rival the L&SWR line from Cornwall to London and both sides raced to provide Bodmin (then Cornwall's county town) with a direct railway connection to London.

The extra costs of running the Cornwall Railway line through Bodmin could not be afforded and instead a station was built at Glynn Bridge (now called Bodmin Parkway). While this station was being built, the public used a small halt at Respryn which later became a private station for Lanhydrock House.

To link to this new line (which was later acquired by the G.W.R.), the Great Western proposed a branch line to Bodmin - this is the line on which the steam services now run.

Map showing railway lines around Bodmin

The Bodmin branch line was authorised by Act of Parliament on 10 August 1882. The first sod was cut in March 1884 and the line opened from Bodmin Road (now Bodmin Parkway) to Bodmin on 27 May 1887. A second line from Bodmin to Boscarne Junction was opened in September 1888 to connect with the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway. The London & South Western Railway did not complete their link until June 1895.

Until the Cornwall Railway main line was converted from Brunel's broad gauge to the narrower "standard gauge" in 1892, passengers and goods were transferred between trains at Bodmin Road. The same reason also prevented main line locomotives being used on the branch and the G.W.R, had a separate locomotive shed at Bodmin. The first two locomotives are believed to have been 1222 and 1224, which were six-coupled saddle tanks. From the late-1920s onwards, 45xx/55xx "prairie" tanks hauled Bodmin branch trains.

In 1923, the L&SWR lines became part of the Southern Railway and the rivalry between the two networks continued. The G.W.R. could run their trains over the Southern's tracks to Wadebridge but could not stop at the Southern's intermediate stops. Both companies had their own railway staff at Wadebridge.

Particularly at wartime, the line formed part of a diversion route for main line traffic around Plymouth. Larger locomotives were allowed on the line for this reason. Troop trains ran from Bodmin station, just opposite the barracks of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. In 1944, Field Marshal Montgomery and General Eisenhower arrived at Bodmin by train when visiting the barracks.

Steam-hauled passenger services ended on the line in 1963, although Southern Railway "N" class locomotives worked clay trains over the line until 1964, en-route from Boscarne Junction to Fowey docks. Passenger trains were worked by single-car diesel multiple units or class 22 D63xx locomotives. D6309 worked the last passenger train on the evening of Saturday 28 January 1967 and the line was officially closed for passengers from January 30th. The line to Wenfordbridge remained open for china clay traffic until September 1983 when a need to invest in new track forced closure of the line.