Newton Abbot is a market town and civil parish on the River Teign in the Teignbridge District of Devon, England. Its population was 24,029 in 2011, and was estimated at 26,655 in 2019. It grew rapidly in the Victorian era as the home of the South Devon Railway locomotive works. This later became a major steam engine shed, retained to service British Railways diesel locomotives until 1981. It now houses the Brunel industrial estate. The town has a race course nearby, the most westerly in England, and a country park, Decoy. It is twinned with Besigheim in Germany and Ay in France.