Introduction

 

This relates to the Dawlish Avoiding Line as proposed in 1933. Not to be confused with the Dawlish Avoiding Line re-proposed 2012 and onwards

I'd dithered about where to put this topic.

 

Option 1 : Imaginary Railways?

Well, no, because it was granted approval and land was acquired, route surveying started in Spring 1939, with poles along the proposed route. So it was no longer imaginary or just proposed.

Option 2: Disused Railways?

Well, no, because when World War II started, all work stopped. So it never got as far as being a Used Railway that became Disused.

Option 3: Railways of Devon? (here)

Well yes, because it really was started but then abandoned, and it was entirely in Devon. So here it is.😉

 

What was the scheme?

 

This description on Wikipedia is confusing, because it conflates several of the route options.

 

Quote

Under the 1935 Finance Act, the GWR initially submitted just one proposal in the Treasury agreement (First Schedule, Part 1, Clause 2) which read: "Construction of a new deviation line from Dawlish Warren to Newton Abbot". The proposed 16 miles (26 km) 1933 scheme within the two draft 1936 bills, diverted from the existing line south of Exminster. The scheme then went south through Kenton to Dawlish about 0.5 miles (0.80 km) inland, then heading southwest under Holcombe Down avoiding Teignmouth, before rejoining the existing line to the east of Bishopsteignton. It was costed at £3m, and included three short tunnels and one long tunnel of 2,624 yd (2,399 m). Parliament passed the Great Western Railway (Additional Powers) Act 1936, in which the Dawlish Avoiding Line is cited as "Railway No 1" amongst several projects listed.

 

Ref : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawlish_Avoiding_Line

 

Later on, the shorter route is mentioned.

 

Quote

But, to enable more schemes to be developed, the GWR later proposed a shorter route. Running for 8 mi (13 km), it deviated from the railway bridge over the Hackney Canal near Newton Abbot, and re-joined the main line at a point 62 chains (1.2 km) north of Dawlish Warren towards Cockwood, alongside the River Exe. However, in 1937 the GWR returned to a scheme closer to the original, called "Railway No 2”. Adding a further 7 mi (11 km), it commenced at the same point south of Dawlish on the initial deviation route (authorised earlier by the 1936 Act), terminating close to Exminster at a junction 5 chains (100 m) south of a bridge carrying Milbury Lane over the line.

 

Which is as clear as mud. What route did they actually start building?

 

The evidence comes from the land acquired by the GWR, and the actual surveying work done.

 

Quote

There are plans and drawings from as early as 1931 that show planning was well advanced and in 1936 & 1937 GWR (Additional Powers) Acts were passed, land was bought and four Boreholes and twenty five trial pits near Dawlish were completed.

 

 

Ref: https://www.bishopsteigntonheritage.co.uk/environment/rails-through-bishopsteignton/

 

Quote

It was planned to be 60 feet above the natural ground west of Dawlish with a nine arch red sandstone viaduct bridging a valley. It would sweep through the land below Bishopsteignton and re-join the mainline just before the canal bridge at Newton Abbot.

 

Using the OS One Inch map from 1957, which shows the contours, we can get a pretty good idea of a route the GWR Engineers might have chosen (a) to maximise the use of what valleys and flat ground was available and (b) to minimise the tunnelling. 

 

Green is above ground, brown is underground through the sedimentary Devonian Sandstone.

https://www.devon.gov.uk/geology/devons-rocks-a-geological-guide/

 

Have we got any geologists in the house who can advise us on the relative difficulty or ease of tunnelling through Devonian Sandstone?

 

 

Starting at Easdon, south of Cockwood harbour and the existing Starcross station. From there, running roughly south-west, parallel to Shutterton Stream, to Shutterton Bridge. At that point, turning slightly further to south-south-west to get into the Dawlish Water valley. Then in the Aller valley towards Southwood Farm, before the longest tunnel under Holcombe Down towards Bishopsteignton. Crossing a couple of small valleys and two spurs with smaller tunnels before reaching the old route near Luxton's Steps.

 

@Cowley 47521 asked:

So if the scheme had gone ahead, would the coastal route have remained in place to continue to serve Dawlish and Teignmouth, or would that have been done away with in the long term?

 

Excellent questions!

In Dawlish, it might depend whether the proposed route, with a "nine arch red sandstone viaduct bridging a valley" would have left enough space for a "New Dawlish" station. If it crossed Dawlish Water somewhere close to Stonelands Bridge, there might have been. Which could have made the seafront station redundant.

 

 

Teignmouth is more complicated. The docks had their own sidings, and were well-used, exporting ball clay, etc, and importing coal, etc.

Teignmouth Gas Works .. had been built in 1840 therefore pre-dates the railway. The coal to make the gas (it was cooked in large ovens called retorts) was brought into Teignmouth Docks from South Wales and brought round from the docks in barges or lighters.

 

 

Would the existing line have become a branch from Bishopsteignton? We can only guess.

 

For those interested in the 21st century proposed routes, Devon Live has a good article from 2020 with maps of the three main options.

Reopen the old Southern route via Okehampton and Tavistock

Reopen the old GWR Teign Valley Line.

Build a new diversionary route that bypasses Dawlish and Teignmouth

See : https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/dawlish-avoiding-train-line-south-3746866

 

For the diversionary route, there were also five sub-options, of varying lengths, complexity and cost. The much-more expensive options C1 to C4 were probably "stalking horses" for option C5, which was the shortest route and the cheapest option (relatively speaking) at "only" £1.49 billion. Coincidently option C5 is the closest to one of the GWR routes chosen in 1935, costed back then at £3 million.

 

In Bishopsteignton, depending on which scheme/route one looks at, the new line would have joined the old line somewhere around Luxton's Steps or Flow Point.

Would there have been a Bishopsteignton Junction station, and if so, where?

 

 

I'm assuming the GWR Engineers would also have a lot of tunnelling spoil to dispose of. Flow Point (also known as Floor Point) had more space, and historically had been a place to import thousands of tons of coal, culm, and timber every year. So, depending on how and where the GWR intended to dispose of the spoil, perhaps there would have been a Bishopsteignton Junction station near Luxton's Steps and a siding at Flow Point for spoil to be removed by barge?

 

Another option occurred to me - i.e. the GWR could have just dumped the spoil in the river. This, of course, wasn't an era when they would have to do Environmental Risk Assessments (or anything like that). But fishermen may have complained about the pollution and damage to mussels and oyster fishing grounds. Plus Teignmouth Docks might have complained about the River Teign silting up even more that it already had thanks to centuries of mining spoil washing downstream from mining on Dartmoor.

 

Some second thoughts on the potential route. I'm imagining that the GWR engineers would have been very keen on minimising the length of any tunnels, because of the effort. Plus GWR accountants would want the same, because of cost. So after a spell with my divining rods (and map measuring tools), here's a second option. Go further up the Aller valley to Lidwell. 

 

 

Coincidently, that route would take it under Little Haldon Hill. In the 1930s, the area marked as "Golf Course" on the map was Haldon Aerodrome, used by GWR Air Service, with a GWR air mail service.

https://www.bfdc.co.uk/1973/souvenir_covers/gwr_air_service.html

 

Haldon Aerodrome was the first airfield in Devon. Established in the 1920s as a private flying field, it developed into an airport with scheduled airline service, and was used by the Navy during World War II. The airport has also been known as Teignmouth Airport, Little Haldon Airfield and, in its military days, RNAS Haldon and HMS Heron II.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldon_Aerodrome

 

 

Where a few fascinating characters (like Air Commodore Whitney straight) learned to fly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Straight

 

@Ramblin Rich commented

 

This is in the "Proposed GWR electrification in the 1930s/1940s?" thread, which I know Keith posted in and probably prompted this thread! Using a mobile so can't get quotes to work.

On 15/11/2022 at 14:34, The Stationmaster said:

The usual - not very good  - diversion route was the Teign Valley line.  But the electrification proposal was still around at the time of the new GWR inland main line route avoiding Dawlish and Teignmouth which, in its final (1937 iteration) left the existing line just east of Exminster station (5 miles nearer to Exeter than the 1936 proposal, and therefore also east of the 1936 breach of the route near the mouth of the  River Kenn) and rejoined the existing line immediately east of Hackney Canal bridge  which lay at the east end of Hackney Yard at Newton Abbot.  Although some land had been purchased and various works, including marking out some of the route, were carried out due to financial reasons the GWR agreed with Govt in 1937 that the some work would be suspended and the intended opening date would be pushed back from 1941 to 1945.,  The war of course further changed things but post-war the completion date was rescheduled for 1949 before the scheme was finally cancelled.

The final, 1937, version had a maximum gradient of 1 in 150 and involved a number of tunnels, with no intermediate stations although it is quite likely that one might well have been added to serve Dawlish and/or Teignmouth.   The existing route would not have been closed.

Note the last sentence, the existing  line would remain open. I would have thought the traffic potential of Dawlish and Teignmouth would have demanded the coast line be kept, even if downgraded to locals and occasional through expresses. I love the idea of GWR's equivalent of a Swiss Crocodile in Brunswick green humming over a viaduct inland of Dawlish with the Torbay Express, while a Prarie and B-set chuff along the seawall with a connecting local...

 

On the Dawlish website

https://dawlish.com/thread/details/33613

 

I've just seen this comment:

All plans and information can be seen in 'Exeter -- Newton Abbot; A Railway History' by Peter Kay and published by Platform 5 1991

 

Just to recap the story so far.

 

At the northern end of the Avoiding Line, there were (at least) three options - i.e. for where the new line would have diverged from the existing line.

Exminster

Kenton

Easton (Starcross)

One might have assumed they all then went by separate routes towards Newton Abbot. Mention of joining "the existing line immediately east of Hackney Canal bridge" can easily cause confusion, as one might assume it went directly in that direction. Actually, all three routes converged in the "Old Dawlish" area, and then headed towards Bishopsteignton, but didn't rejoin the old line there. The new line would have run roughly parallel to the old line, before joining east of Hackney Canal bridge. The reason being to minimise the gradient.

 

 

Note: I was sent this map, but the sender didn't mention where it came from. The footnote on the map makes me think it might be that book 'Exeter -- Newton Abbot; A Railway History' by Peter Kay. If so, all acknowledgements and copyright etc.

New Schemes

People still come up with new schemes. Here's one from a Mark Townend, who describes it thus:
 

I live in Torquay and prevously worked for many years in the rail industry and related consultancies in London, the South East and Midlands. I have come up with an alternative Dawlish Avoiding Line suggestion that cuts around five miles from the Exeter to Newton Abbot route by taking a new direct route tunnelling under the Haldon hills, and connects to existing routes near Heathfield and Alphington. Although partly reusing the right of way of the old Teign Valley route at its extremities this would actually be entirely new double track construction cutting off the 'Heathfield corner' through the ball clay pits and avoiding the slow winding progression along the valley via Dunsford. Interestingly at around 14 miles this is no greater in length than the longer variants of the GWR 1930s inspired options and goes through less populated country, some of it 'brownfield' (the clay pits) and some following an existing busy transport corridor (the A38).

Map, gradient profile, etc on his own website:

http://www.townend.me/files/southdevon.pdf

 

Dawlish website

 

Just noticed some more comments about DAL from 2014 on the Dawlish website:

 

Firstly, on properties the GWR acquired:

 

In the 1930s the GWR bought at least some properties that it would have to demolished in Dawlish.  One notable example was the vicarage on Weech Rd.  This was right on the alignment of the line from Exminster / Powderham.  Ever frugal, the GWR made this large building into the residence for the Dawlish Stationmaster.  It stayed thus into at least the 1950s and I remember the stationmaster as having one of the best houses in town!  This building has now been demolished except for the white stone perimeter wall on the south side of Weech Rd.

 

Then on the routes from the north into Dawlish:

 

The shorter route, starting just north of Dawlish Warren station (Eastdon) would have cut across the top end of Dawlish, partly in a tunnel and with bridges over (or under?) Badlake Hill and Weech Rd. near their junction.  There would then have been a massive embankment across the western end of The Newhay and loss of about half of this park area.  After that the line then have skirted the mill pond (for the mills in Church St. and Brunswick Place) which is still there at the top end of The Newhay but which is now more of a marsh than a pond. The route beside the mill pond and the adjacent Luscombe Estate lake would have been on a viaduct.  After that it would have joined the alignment of the other two proposed routes from Exminster and Powderham.

 

And the one route heading south:

 

The route would then have followed the Aller Valley road for a bit crossing over Aller Brook roughly where the current ford is on the lane that goes up towards Holcombe.  Finally, it would have disappeared into a long tunnel on the south side of the Aller Valley emerging on Exeter Road in Teignmouth somewhere up behind Teignmouth College near the junction of Exeter Rd. and New Rd.  The last bit to Hackney  was a gradual descent paralleling the current line but at a higher elevation till the old and new routes rejoined at Hackney.

 

Ref https://dawlish.com/thread/details/33613

 

All of the above helps us with exact positions and references to pinpoint the route(s) would have taken through Old Dawlish.
 

I've colour-coded some of the sections.

Brown = tunnels

Cyan = cuttings

Dark blue = embankments

Violet = viaducts

 

I'm assuming they wouldn't have built a new station on the viaduct, and from the shape and positions of the northern-most cuttings and embankments they don't seem a likely choice either. Does the likeliest position seem to be on the south side, south-west of the Mill Pond?

@Cowley 47521 commented

This has answered so many questions I’ve had for a really long time.
Really good work Keith.

@Ramblin Rich commented

Those line drawn maps are very interesting! The 'Powderham route' would cut through the southern end of Powderham castle grounds and also looks like it cuts off the 'wiggle' past the current yacht club, presumably to increase the line speed through there.

There's currently a lot of house building around Dawlish, including around Shutterton - right in the path of the Dawlish Warren route 🙄

 

Yes, looks like that, just where the map says "old line to be abandoned". Perhaps that was to raise the line on an embankment, away from the river, and above the flood plain in the Kenton area?

@Peter Kazmierczak commented

Peter Kay's book (mentioned above) is the one to go to for full details of the varying route options. Also for various proposals at Teignmouth over the years, to provide increased capacity and passing loops there.

@DCB commented

I don't see any problem with the cut off route not having any stations.   The local service tended and continues to be principally Exeter to Paignton, It is / was pretty frequent and long distance travelers would have to change at Newton or Exeter as they do at present.   The gradients are less than up Whiteball so the train loads on Newton to Taunton trains wouldn't have been affected though Newton to Exeter loads over the short route would have needed to be reduced compared to the 80 wagons behind a 2-6-2T of the Edwardian era.    I just see Exeter taking over from Newton as engine changing point on Torbay services especially dated summer services, Big winners would have been Ocean Liner trains, a big deal pre 1960 and the Jet Era and timekeeping on Plymouth and Penzance expresses.  I can't think many people travelled from Dawlish and Teignmouth to Totnes /Plymouth / Penzance etc.  It would be like the Weston Super Mare  cut off,  athough whether it would have survived Beeching is another matter.

 

@Cowley 47521 commented

That latter point is an interesting one. Perhaps a Dawlish and Teignmouth Parkway on the new line (shudder) and the original route turned into a walkway/cycle route through the tunnels eventually? I wonder what the time saving on the new faster route would have been with no stops between Exeter and Newton Abbot?

 

The map gives a clue i.e. the mileposts. Two miles shorter on the new DAL. I'm not sure if my memory is playing tricks, but IIRC there was a speed limit through Dawlish and Teignmouth. Did the old coastal line have speed restrictions?

@Ramblin Rich commented

Fairly sharp corners at Powderham, Starcross, Langstone, past Dawlish and into Teignmouth. Fairly sure the line speed is 90 mph from St Thomas but then 75 at most from Powderham onwards. You could imagine a nice new line built in the 1930s being at least 90 mph all along and that also being the reason for the short cutoff at the start of the Powderham route.

@Mike_Walker commented

The current maximum permitted speeds are:

100mph  Alphington 195m 40c to Powderham 200m 60c

75mph    Powderham to Cockwood 203m 00c

80mph    Cockwood to Dawlish Warren 204m 60c

70mph    Dawlish Warren to 205m 10c

75mph    205m 10c to Dawlish 206m 00c

60mph    Dawlish to Parsons Tnl (W. End) 207m 55c

75mph    Parsons Tnl to approaching Teignmouth 208m 45c

60mph    Teignmouth to 209m 65c (just west of Shaldon bridge)

80mph    209m 65c to 210m 20c

90mph    210m 20c to 212m 60c approaching Hackney Yard

There is a 60mph limit throughout for trains running "Bang Road" between Dawlish Warren and Teignmouth - that is in the the Down direction on the Up Main.

The permissible speeds would have probably been lower in the steam and early diesel eras.

 

Correspondence with Dawlish Museum

 

I sent Dawlish Museum an email:

 

Dear Dawlish Museum
I wonder if, in your collection, you still have any plans or maps for the Dawlish Avoiding Railway Line as planned by the old GWR in the 1930s? In particular, the route the line might have taken through Dawlish.

 

Andrew Wright, a volunteer at Dawlish Museum, has kindly just replied, quoting from Peter Kay's book, and confirming that as the source of those maps above. They have the book in the museum.

 

Hi, I have taken a quick look in Peter Kays book and there is a chapter 18 pages 239 to 233 covering the Dawlish avoiding line.

 

He also quoted one crucial item from the book.

Between November 1935 and April 29136 contracts were let for the sinking of

exploratory boreholes for the tunnels and at Hackney. But even before the 1936 Act was passed, the GWR had decided against the Dawlish Warren route (although this had not been publicly divulged).

 

Acknowledgements and copyright Peter Kay

 

To paraphrase the part of the book on the section of the DAL through Dawlish:-

NIMBY citizens of Dawlish raised a lot of opposition. The existing seafront line was already an eyesore and a blot on the landscape. Folk feared the DAL would ruin the old part of the town as well (parklands and meadows). Dawlish UDC initially opposed the Bill, and then got a protection clause in the Act specifying a 130 yard long viaduct in Newhay, to be made of red sandstone or similar, and a bridge over Dawlish Water.

 

(I've now got a song by Simon and Garfunkel going through my mind)

 

The Dawlish Gazette carried articles complaining; which incidently has been its modus operandi for decades. Not for nothing was it known to some locals as the Dawlish Guts Ache. 

 

@Michael Hodgson commented

There's a different song comes to my mind ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvuQJNVDJYk

Devon is slightly further from Westminster than Hull.  Perhaps you just have to wait slightly longer ?