Dawlish realignment?

[brianusa]

It would appear that not much has changed since the last go round on this topic which was well covered by those in the know with a lot of help from those who think they know and offer help and suggestions. (Moi!)  Money or lack thereof will be the final solution to any scheme and any of the current proposals will need a lot of it!  The building of the proposed housing estate would certainly help and be an incentive and it would seem that via Tavistock would be the least expensive as the rail bed is still there, even with any buildings that were foolishly erected on it.  Using an improved SR route from Waterloo, the use of St Ds as well as Central would only add a few minutes or so and avoid a reversal to the GW main line.  The line at St Budeaux is already set for Plymouth where the journey to Cornwall can be continued.

 

Brian.

[phil-b259]

It would appear that not much has changed since the last go round on this topic which was well covered by those in the know with a lot of help from those who think they know and offer help and suggestions. (Moi!)  Money or lack thereof will be the final solution to any scheme and any of the current proposals will need a lot of it!  The building of the proposed housing estate would certainly help and be an incentive and it would seem that via Tavistock would be the least expensive as the rail bed is still there, even with any buildings that were foolishly erected on it.  Using an improved SR route from Waterloo, the use of St Ds as well as Central would only add a few minutes or so and avoid a reversal to the GW main line.  The line at St Budeaux is already set for Plymouth where the journey to Cornwall can be continued.

 

Brian.

 

Look we get that reinstating the SR route would continue to provide rail services to Plymouth and Cornwall - but  WHAT ABOUT THE TORBAY AREA!

 

The population there won't take kindly top the removal of rail services so the line past the unstable cliffs etc will continue to be needed - and I doubt that simply single lining it is sufficient to protect against cliff falls etc.

 

It then follows that if you are going to spend serious money there then you might as well do the job properly and avoid the costs of rebuilding the ex SR route.

Edited May 24, 2018 by phil-b259

[brianusa]

The good Capt'n  seems to have a notion on that one already while others favour a route through the hinterland thus avoiding the wrath of the residents of Newton and Torbay.  After all this chat, I have a feeling nothing will come of any of it!

 

Brian.

[Not Captain Kernow]

The article below by the Dawlish Beach Cam website is well worth a read

 

https://www.dawlishbeach.com/2018/05/the-dawlish-myth/

 

In particular, they point out what so many forget, that the route to Torbay and Cornwall is closed far more frequently due to flooding between Taunton and Exeter.  The Okehampton supporters also conveniently forget this, as it would also block that route, and also that heavy snow would frequently block the Okehampton route if it was ever opened.

 

If you cannot be bothered to have a ready of it, how many times would you think that the sea wall has been breached in the 172 years it has been there?  Would you believe only five times!  Yes, the 2014 event was the most serious, but it failed in a way that could not happen again because of the work that was done.

 

Hong Kong Airport is also mentioned, which I was staggered to see when I went, as it is just built in the sea!  On one of the dolphin watch trips where you go quite a long way out into the sea you could see them building an access road which must be miles long, on a bridge, over the open sea, which then dives down through a man-made island into a tunnel before emerging onto another man-made island and continuing on another bridge!

 

You can pretty much solve any problem as long as you have the will to do so and the finance available.  Both of these are usually problems in this country, where we are happy to spend millions avoiding what actually needs to be done instead of just getting on with it.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Not Captain Kernow

[Dunsignalling]

The good Capt'n  seems to have a notion on that one already while others favour a route through the hinterland thus avoiding the wrath of the residents of Newton and Torbay.  After all this chat, I have a feeling nothing will come of any of it!

 

Brian.

Certainly not until circumstances force a decision to be made. That's the only way the funding will be forthcoming.

 

Dealing with it in the face of a collapse, or the immediate threat of one, some years down the road will cost much more and inevitably result in a less favourable outcome than tackling the issues at a time of ones own choosing.

 

John

Edited May 23, 2018 by Dunsignalling

[Zomboid]

Look we get that reinstating the SR route would continue to provide rail services to Plymouth and Cornwall - but WHAT ABOUT THE TORBAY AREA!

 

The population there won't take kindly top the removal of rail services so the line past the unstable cloffs etc will continue to be needed - and I doubt that simply single lining it is sufficient to protect against cliff falls etc.

 

It then follows that if you are going to spend serious money there then you might as well do the job properly and avoid the costs of rebuilding the ex SR route.

I just don't see an automatic link between reopening the LSWR route and closing the line through Dawlish.

Dartmoor gets its own horrible weather and that line being closed due to snowdrifts was not unknown, so it would seem to me that having both available would be necessary.

 

In reality, a proper inland high speed alignment between Exeter and Newton Abbot, retaining the existing line to serve the intermediate stations is probably the ideal solution, and if the LSWR route is to be reopened then it needs to work based on the traffic at Crediton, Okehampton and Tavistock.

[Kris]

Report on the BBC website, text shown below.

 

"The transport secretary has described work to improve the Dawlish railway line as "the most important infrastructure project in the country".

Chris Grayling was responding to a question in the Commons from the Conservative MP for Torbay, Kevin Foster.

I've given an absolute commitment that these works will go ahead. I regard this project as the most important infrastructure project in the country to make sure the South West is delivered a proper, resilient railway for the future."

Chris GraylingTransport Secretary

Network Rail is undertaking preparatory work to upgrade the line at Dawlish after storms and landslides have caused disruption to services in recent years."

[The Stationmaster]

Report on the BBC website, text shown below.

 

"The transport secretary has described work to improve the Dawlish railway line as "the most important infrastructure project in the country".

Chris Grayling was responding to a question in the Commons from the Conservative MP for Torbay, Kevin Foster.

Network Rail is undertaking preparatory work to upgrade the line at Dawlish after storms and landslides have caused disruption to services in recent years."

I've given an absolute commitment that these works will go ahead. I regard this project as the most important infrastructure project in the country to make sure the South West is delivered a proper, resilient railway for the future."

Chris GraylingTransport Secretary

 

 

Council elections coming up shortly in the far west perchance?

[johnb]

You're a cynic Mike!!!!! Nevertheless you're probably right that it's political games playing!

 

John

[rab]

Council elections coming up shortly in the far west perchance?

Already had them earlier this month.

[rodent279]

As an aside, the line concerned was originally laid as single line, using the Atmospheric system.

 

Reading Mac Dermott's "History of the Great Western Railway" vol 2 (1931), it states that a Commons Committee report on the 1844 Bill shows that "save for one incline of 2¼ miles at 1 in 42½, the steepest would have been 1 in 52 for about 4 miles, and elsewhere nothing steeper than 1 in 62." The line would also have been double track from the start instead of being single until 1906.

Had Brunel not used the Atmospheric system, the direction of future GW motive power development might have been different.

Edited May 25, 2018 by rodent279

[Captain Kernow]

Report on the BBC website, text shown below.

 

"The transport secretary has described work to improve the Dawlish railway line as "the most important infrastructure project in the country".

Chris Grayling was responding to a question in the Commons from the Conservative MP for Torbay, Kevin Foster.

 

 

And I have no doubt that if he were responding to an MP from the North East regarding a by-pass project or some such, then that would be 'the most important infrastructure project in the country'.

 

I really wonder at the government's persistent thinking that we've all come off the last banana boat here in the South West. Unless there are votes and seats in it, we've known for years and years that central government really doesn't give a fig (or any similar Mediterranean fruit) about the South West.

 

And, let's be clear about this, prior to February 2014, neither did the grown ups in Network Rail in Swindon or London, either.

Edited May 26, 2018 by Captain Kernow

[LBRJ]

And I have no doubt that if he were responding to an MP from the North East regarding a by-pass project or some such, then that would be 'the most important infrastructure project in the country'.

 

I really wonder at the government's persistent thinking that we've all come off the last banana boat here in the South West. Unless there are votes and seats in it, we've known for years and years that central government really doesn't give a fig (or any similar Mediterranean fruit) about the South West.

 

And, let's be clear about this, prior to February 2014, neither did the grown ups in Network Rail in Swindon or London, either.

 

 

I think there is a very real sense* among the metropolitan "powers that be" that the whole of the SW peninsula is just somewhere nice and pretty to visit when on one's summer holidays; no real grasp that ~2 million people actually live and work there all through the rest of the year.

 

*or rather lack thereof

[cctransuk]

I think there is a very real sense* among the metropolitan "powers that be" that the whole of the SW peninsula is just somewhere nice and pretty to visit when on one's summer holidays; no real grasp that ~2 million people actually live and work there all through the rest of the year.

 

*or rather lack thereof

 

Spot on - especially amongst the hoorays from Westminster and Whitehall who frequent the area around Rock and Polzeath.

 

I'm sure that they believe that Cornwall is a posh theme park, which pulls up the drawbridge outside (private) school holidays.

 

Today is the real start of the silly season here in Cornwall; it won't end until the (private) schools and Westminster reopen in September / October.

 

Would you believe that these proprietorial types actually book their following year's restaurant tables before they leave this year?!? Tough for those locals who fancy a meal out at, say, a weeks notice!

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[bgman]

And further back up the line at Cowley Bridge .....

 

 

Apologies for the poor quality of the photograph.

 

Works have started to take place in preparation for flood defences.

 

G

[Covkid]

And I have no doubt that if he were responding to an MP from the North East regarding a by-pass project or some such, then that would be 'the most important infrastructure project in the country'.

 

I really wonder at the government's persistent thinking that we've all come off the last banana boat here in the South West. Unless there are votes and seats in it, we've known for years and years that central government really doesn't give a fig (or any similar Mediterranean fruit) about the South West.

 

And, let's be clear about this, prior to February 2014, neither did the grown ups in Network Rail in Swindon or London, either.

 

 

Absolutely spot on Cap'n. I am developing a substantial dislike for this man, brought on by lies and half truths he peddles in the media earshot.

Of course Dawlish is not the most important infrastructure project in the country. If it were there would be millions of pounds pumped into it in a HS2 / Elizabeth Line / Thameslink 2 kind of way. I am in no way denigrating what has been done but it is a few thousand tons of concrete and concrete products to prop up the shore line.

 

I am of the opinion that several old oil tankers should be purged then scuttled a few hundred yards offshore then assorted other clutter built up on the pile, then landscaped with a lot of soil and tree planting.  This barage might take a few years to mature, but the long term impact would surely water down (pun intended) the pounding on the shoreline from the Atlantic.

[Siberian Snooper]

Politicians of colours and persuasions come and go, but the wind and tide don't. They give it a nod now and again, but the only time they open up the coffers, is after something has broken. Although a few bob to sure up the resilience at Cowely Bridge is to welcomed.

[brianusa]

 

I am of the opinion that several old oil tankers should be purged then scuttled a few hundred yards offshore then assorted other clutter built up on the pile, then landscaped with a lot of soil and tree planting.  This barage might take a few years to mature, but the long term impact would surely water down (pun intended) the pounding on the shoreline from the Atlantic.

 

I don't think the good burghers and citizenry of T and D would take too kindly to this idea.

 

Brian

[mdvle]

I am of the opinion that several old oil tankers should be purged then scuttled a few hundred yards offshore then assorted other clutter built up on the pile, then landscaped with a lot of soil and tree planting.  This barage might take a few years to mature, but the long term impact would surely water down (pun intended) the pounding on the shoreline from the Atlantic.

 

It is unlikely such a scheme would ever get approval for any number of reasons, including what it would do to the Dawlish beaches, what it would do to beaches and other coastal features further down the coast, and whether it would actually help matters.  For that matter, what are the odds the current NR plan to move the line offshore on the Teignmouth end can get approvals?

 

The problem at the Teignmouth end is the cliffs on the land side of the line, and thanks to the work of the Captain and others the Dawlish end it is I assume reasonable shape at this point with the biggest threat (admittedly on an uncertain time scale) being the rising ocean of which an artificial barrier reef would do nothing.

[locoholic]

It is unlikely such a scheme would ever get approval for any number of reasons, including what it would do to the Dawlish beaches, what it would do to beaches and other coastal features further down the coast, and whether it would actually help matters.  For that matter, what are the odds the current NR plan to move the line offshore on the Teignmouth end can get approvals?

The problem at the Teignmouth end is the cliffs on the land side of the line, and thanks to the work of the Captain and others the Dawlish end it is I assume reasonable shape at this point with the biggest threat (admittedly on an uncertain time scale) being the rising ocean of which an artificial barrier reef would do nothing.

Sadly, the beaches at Dawlish are likely to disappear, because the beaches used to rely on the erosion of the cliffs to replenish the sand, and the railway and sea defences mean that this source of replenishment has been largely cut off. Also, the sea wall reflects the energy of the waves back out to sea, thus increasing their scouring action.

 

If you want nice beaches, the coastline must be allowed to retreat, but the presence of the railway and human habitation make this unacceptable.