Pete Wade, a former history teacher who has developed an interest in local history, made a presentation to Bishopsteignton Probus Club about his research into a rail line through Bishopsteignton.

In the 1800s, the South Devon Railway Company explored routes for a new railway line, including the feasibility of going through Bishopsteignton village. From the hall where the presentation took place, Pete Wade pointed through the windows to routes that had been considered and abandoned, although a signal box was built there in 1923.

In 1844, Parliament passed an Act of Parliament authorising the South Devon Railway Company to extend the line from Teignmouth, along the edge of Bishopsteignton and onto Newton Abbot. They employed Isambard Kingdom Brunel to design and build the railway using the atmospheric system instead of train engines to pull the carriages. A partial vacuum was created, pumped through pipes between rail lines under the carriages, where a piston on the carriage propelled it forwards. Unfortunately, the system soon failed, was abandoned, and replaced by traditional train engines which pulled the carriages.

The railway carried a lot of tourists and some trains went to the Teignmouth docks where clay and stones were loaded onto them.

The Bishopsteignton coach business owned by H D Gourd and Son made a regular run from Bishopsteignton into Teignmouth so that villagers could connect with the train and travel onwards to Dawlish, Exeter and beyond in one direction or to Newton Abbot, Plymouth and beyond in the other direction.