New Forest pony time. The rest of the year, the lives of the ponies are relatively unhindered unless they need veterinary attention or additional feeding, when they are usually taken off the Forest. The open nature of the New Forest means that ponies are able to wander onto roads. The ponies actually have right of way over vehicles and many wear reflective collars in an effort to reduce traffic fatalities, but despite this, many ponies, along with commoners' cattle, pigs, and donkeys are killed or injured in road traffic accidents every year. Human interaction with ponies is also a problem; well meaning but
Plymouth and Dartmoor Railway branches were from the LSWR Friary line. On 2 August 1883 the P&DR obtained powers to build a line to Turnchapel; it succeeded in building a bridge over the Plym near Laira road bridge, opened as far as Plymstock (then called Pomphlett) in 1887. The LSWR took over the powers for the branch, and they opened it on 1 January 1897. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the P&DR had lost the quarry traffic from Dartmoor (to the Princetown Railway) and practically all the general merchandise traffic. The Lee Moor line flourished as the trade in the mineral flourished,