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Storm-hit Dawlish railway line 'may be moved out to sea'


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2 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

@Mallard60022 and @royaloak - please knock it off.

With my post 2 above yours and Mallard60022 post 2 below yours (I aint trying to work out where they are in relation to this reply :blink:) I think we have clarified the misunderstanding so you can consider it well and truly 'knocked off' and we are still friends as well, I think? ;)

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Recently the loss of sand on Teignmouth town beach has been of concern to locals. The sand has also vanished from The Point by the harbour entrance. Dredging of the river channel between Teignmouth and Shaldon in recent months may have helped this sand loss.

Whilst the sand was vanishing from the town beach it was building up, much quicker than longshore drift, to the east of the town.

East of Sprey Point, where Teignmouth is "lettered" there are some large rocks on the beach immediately adjacent to the Sprey Point wall.  Last October these rocks, about 4 feet high in places and for a distance of 20 metres or so, were fully visible.  A few weeks ago when I went there the sand had covered them completely and nothing was visible. 

Sometimes sand removal and replacement happens within days/weeks and sometimes the 2 are much further apart.

The lack of groynes on the beach doesn't help with retaining sand.  One groyne repaired last year has already fallen apart.

The Holcombe stretch of the beach is hardly used compared to the other stretches of beach.

 

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Just now, lightengine said:

Recently the loss of sand on Teignmouth town beach has been of concern to locals. The sand has also vanished from The Point by the harbour entrance. Dredging of the river channel between Teignmouth and Shaldon in recent months may have helped this sand loss.

Whilst the sand was vanishing from the town beach it was building up, much quicker than longshore drift, to the east of the town.

East of Sprey Point, where Teignmouth is "lettered" there are some large rocks on the beach immediately adjacent to the Sprey Point wall.  Last October these rocks, about 4 feet high in places and for a distance of 20 metres or so, were fully visible.  A few weeks ago when I went there the sand had covered them completely and nothing was visible. 

Sometimes sand removal and replacement happens within days/weeks and sometimes the 2 are much further apart.

The lack of groynes on the beach doesn't help with retaining sand.  One groyne repaired last year has already fallen apart.

The Holcombe stretch of the beach is hardly used compared to the other stretches of beach.

 

Maybe if they had maintained the groins (spelling?) the sand wouldnt have disappeared in the first place, the same goes for Dawlish beach.

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1 minute ago, royaloak said:

Maybe if they had maintained the groins (spelling?) the sand wouldnt have disappeared in the first place, the same goes for Dawlish beach.

This is true, as anyone that understands long shore drift will know.  The groyne that was repaired cost approx £500,000 (iirc from the councillor) whole new planks were just torn off. This was the westernmost groyne by The Point.  Nearly all the others are in a worse state than this one.

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2 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

However, there must be some solution that has been used elsewhere in the world

 

OK I'll bite on this subject having read both this thread and the earlier one when the seawall was breached.

 

So if you cannot go around the problem, Heathfield / Okehampton etc, and it might be a bad idea to "fix" the line either in place or move it slightly out to sea what options are left?

 

How about a tunnel that starts near Dawlish Warren and surfaces just before the A379 River Teign bridge?

 

Dawlish Warren station could be partly undergound with fully underground stations for Dawlish (say under Dawlish Lawn) and Teignmouth (under the Dawlish Road car park).

 

OK so no more nice views of the sea from the train but also no more washouts.

 

Given current tunnelling technology how hard would it be to dig a 6 mile double track tunnel?

 

No answers required people i.e. don't shoot the messenger.   I've just looked at this matter in order to give the grey cells some exercise.

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I think the given wisdom supporting Phil's point is that the service would need to reverse at Exeter, adding time, and again on arrival at Plymouth for onward service into Cornwall. Train journey times have a value, which used to be calculated in the Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook, and as times increase, demand reduces, unsurprisingly. So having a robust service that takes much longer may not appeal. There is also the small matter of services to Dawlish, Teignmouth, NA and Torbay. It is not clear how these communities would be served if trains ran via Okehampton instead. School and college traffic alone, much of it to Exeter, is intense in this area, and many off-peak trains are heavily used and overflowing in season. 

 

The costs of a 'north chord' avoiding Exeter might be borne and time would be saved - but would we really expect trains for Plymouth and Cornwall to miss Exeter? And I would equally discount a new Tamar Bridge to enable trains to miss Plymouth en route Cornwall. 

 

In short, via Okehampton is potentially feasible but loses so many existing flows I suspect it is a non-runner.  

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I suspect the best value big money long term solution would be a new (125mph? At least 110...) alignment between Exeter and Newton Abbot (or maybe further along, I don't know how much traffic Newton Abbot and Totnes generate, and I wouldn't advocate cutting them off, but if the best route broadly follows the A38 then find another way of serving them).

 

Okehampton would be great for an LSWR fan like me, but in reality that would need to wash it's face as a secondary route (maybe with trains to Waterloo...). It doesn't take long to do a reversal if you're a late running XC at Reading, but you'd need to schedule quite a while for it at Exeter, unless the main line was changed to run via Yeovil. Now that's a pie in the sky idea for you...

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1 hour ago, guzzler17 said:

OK I'll bite on this subject having read both this thread and the earlier one when the seawall was breached.

 

So if you cannot go around the problem, Heathfield / Okehampton etc, and it might be a bad idea to "fix" the line either in place or move it slightly out to sea what options are left?

 

How about a tunnel that starts near Dawlish Warren and surfaces just before the A379 River Teign bridge?

 

Dawlish Warren station could be partly undergound with fully underground stations for Dawlish (say under Dawlish Lawn) and Teignmouth (under the Dawlish Road car park).

 

OK so no more nice views of the sea from the train but also no more washouts.

 

Given current tunnelling technology how hard would it be to dig a 6 mile double track tunnel?

 

No answers required people i.e. don't shoot the messenger.   I've just looked at this matter in order to give the grey cells some exercise.

Now, Stratford ( allegedly ) International station needs constant pumping to keep out the River Lea so your two new stations would need pumping  too - with the added complication that you'd be handling sea water rather than fresh ....... just one added complication !

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4 hours ago, royaloak said:

So you state categorically that the Okey route isnt the best solution but cant offer an alternative, which begs the question how do you know the Okey route isnt the best solution?

 

Please dont say its the Exeter to Heathfield route, a line that frequently flooded which was one of the main reasons it was closed in the first place!

 

At least it could provide a service around North Devon, an area which has seen many new houses built with very few jobs in the area, so a rail line would enable those people to commute to where the jobs are without having to use the car, for example, anyone trying to use Tavistock Road to get into Plymouth in the morning peak (and out in the evening peak) can testify that something needs to be done to ease the congestion.

 

I am not saying the route would be profitable but at least it could provide a service which would cover some of the costs and also be useful to retain the train crews route knowledge, something the other proposals seem to forget about.

Actually he said that he reckoned the inland route is the best solution and so do I. And in reality there can be little doubt that it definitely is the best solution.

 

But - and there always has to be a 'but' in Britain - will the residents of Powderham Castle be happy to give up the land or indeed have the railway passing nearby, will any likely housing demolitions in the upper part of Dawlish be acceptable, and will the cost of the viaduct and tunnels be acceptable?  So lots of 'will it be acceptables?' plus of course the willingness of 'somebody' to pay for it all of which potentially mitigates against it as an ideal solution although that is exactly what it would be in railway terms.  But it does leave partially unanswered what would happen to the existing route because Dawlish Warren would lose its station and would Teignmouth and Dawlish accept a joint inland station away from the town centres?  Would would anybody be prepared to lose the sea defences created and largely paid for by the existing railway?

 

Thus the totally ideal situation is the existing route remains, probably rationalised to some extent, to serve and shelter the local communities while the inland route becomes the high speed Main Line route reducing overall journey times from the east to Torbay, Plymouth and Cornwall.  To me it is a no brainer but that won't be the case to somebody whose home might have to be demolished to build it.

 

And whiel I've no wish to reopen an old argument I'm afraid the Long &Slow Way Round the northern side of Dartmoor would be an economic basket with a major, in reality unjustifiable,  impact on operating costs and it can't serve Torbay so misses out a major population centre.

 

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2 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Spot of land reclamation Dutch style would solve the issue in the short term but it might not be popular with the locals.

That is pretty much what they plan.  Build a new sea wall some distance seaward of the present one, back fill it and slew the track seawards away from the cliff.  We will then end up with a path on both sides of the railway line, instead of just seaward as is present.

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1 hour ago, guzzler17 said:

OK I'll bite on this subject having read both this thread and the earlier one when the seawall was breached.

 

So if you cannot go around the problem, Heathfield / Okehampton etc, and it might be a bad idea to "fix" the line either in place or move it slightly out to sea what options are left?

 

How about a tunnel that starts near Dawlish Warren and surfaces just before the A379 River Teign bridge?

 

Dawlish Warren station could be partly undergound with fully underground stations for Dawlish (say under Dawlish Lawn) and Teignmouth (under the Dawlish Road car park).

 

OK so no more nice views of the sea from the train but also no more washouts.

 

Given current tunnelling technology how hard would it be to dig a 6 mile double track tunnel?

 

No answers required people i.e. don't shoot the messenger.   I've just looked at this matter in order to give the grey cells some exercise.

Nice idea. Dawlish Lawn floods at times. 

If you built a new station under the Dawlish Road carpark you might just as well realign the track and use the present station as it would only be about 200 yards away, open to the air and away from the sea.

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20 hours ago, Wickham Green said:

Now, Stratford ( allegedly ) International station needs constant pumping to keep out the River Lea so your two new stations would need pumping  too - with the added complication that you'd be handling sea water rather than fresh ....... just one added complication !

 

I'm assuming that's because the tunnel at Stratford has to dip to get under the river. It may be possible to build a largely tunnelled route in S Devon that self-drains.

 

edit: I've now properly read the post you were replying to, missed the issue with that specific idea than tunnelling in general.

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Being below ground level in water-bearing gravels, the 'box' within which Stratford not-so-International is built would actually tend to float if there weren't twenty two boreholes pumping water from around it ..... obviously the South Devon geology is somewhat different but .............................

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I've always been of the opinion that in spite of the negatives quoted many time on this discussion, reinstatement of the Tavvy route will be the best and less costly in the long run.  Those negatives; upgrade Meldon.  Provide passing sidings or more double track.  Schedule time for changing ends at Exeter and Plymouth for onward travel surely can't be that difficult!  Its done all the time at Bere Alston and Coombe) or has been mentioned, upgrade the Southern route.  Having got rid of through traffic should help with pathing in the Torbay area or is all this too simple?:blush:

     Brian.

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Bere Alston and Coombe are significantly more minor lines though, what's fine on a fairly quiet branch is going to have rather a bigger impact somewhere like Exeter or Plymouth.

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10 hours ago, brianusa said:

I've always been of the opinion that in spite of the negatives quoted many time on this discussion, reinstatement of the Tavvy route will be the best and less costly in the long run.  Those negatives; upgrade Meldon.  Provide passing sidings or more double track.  Schedule time for changing ends at Exeter and Plymouth for onward travel surely can't be that difficult!  Its done all the time at Bere Alston and Coombe) or has been mentioned, upgrade the Southern route.  Having got rid of through traffic should help with pathing in the Torbay area or is all this too simple?:blush:

     Brian.

Not sure I get your point, Brian. Journey time is a key issue for service viability. It informs customer decisions - road or train? If it suddenly takes an extra half hour to get to Plymouth the business case for the whole service is weakened, and decades of service enhancements with diesels, then HSTs, now IETs, would be thrown away. What happens at tuppeny-halfpenny places like Bere Alston is not in any way a model for a major Inter-City artery like Paddington-Penzance. Via Okehampton would have to be reinstated as double-track throughout, of course. If the line is closed between Exeter and NA, then all those Torbay etc communities lose any worthwhile rail link to Exeter, which is the major local destination for study and commerce of all sorts. The local road network is already clogged - as it is in most of the UK these days, so, despite the new South Devon Highway west of NA, the alternatives simply do not exist. 

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Currently most trains between Paddington and Plymouth are under 3 !/2 hours and Exeter and Plymouth is around an hour. The Exeter/ Plymouth City centre to city centre is about par for driving, with fighting the traffic in both places, but add an extra 15 to 20 minutes via Okehampton and the car is going to win every time.

 

 

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On ‎11‎/‎06‎/‎2019 at 15:43, Oldddudders said:

I think the given wisdom supporting Phil's point is that the service would need to reverse at Exeter, adding time, and again on arrival at Plymouth for onward service into Cornwall. Train journey times have a value, which used to be calculated in the Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook, and as times increase, demand reduces, unsurprisingly. So having a robust service that takes much longer may not appeal. There is also the small matter of services to Dawlish, Teignmouth, NA and Torbay. It is not clear how these communities would be served if trains ran via Okehampton instead. School and college traffic alone, much of it to Exeter, is intense in this area, and many off-peak trains are heavily used and overflowing in season. 

 

The costs of a 'north chord' avoiding Exeter might be borne and time would be saved - but would we really expect trains for Plymouth and Cornwall to miss Exeter? And I would equally discount a new Tamar Bridge to enable trains to miss Plymouth en route Cornwall. 

 

In short, via Okehampton is potentially feasible but loses so many existing flows I suspect it is a non-runner.  

 

If the Oakhampton route was to be resurrected and the intention was to provide services from London, why does everyone assume that the current service pattern would remain? Let's pretend the WR and SR never existed, so no rivalry. Presumably only some London services would go via Okehampton, so why not also widen the benefits by running them via Castle Cary and Yeovil, thereby avoiding a reversal at Exeter. These trains could also be Plymouth terminators so no need to reverse there either. Line capacity west of Yeovil could be solved by infrastructure improvements (doubling and/or shortened headways). Some Waterloo trains already reverse at Yeovil Junction to Pen Mill. These could connect with the Okehampton trains.

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51 minutes ago, brushman47544 said:

 

If the Okehampton route was to be resurrected and the intention was to provide services from London, why does everyone assume that the current service pattern would remain? Let's pretend the WR and SR never existed, so no rivalry. Presumably only some London services would go via Okehampton, so why not also widen the benefits by running them via Castle Cary and Yeovil, thereby avoiding a reversal at Exeter. These trains could also be Plymouth terminators so no need to reverse there either. Line capacity west of Yeovil could be solved by infrastructure improvements (doubling and/or shortened headways). Waterloo - Exeter trains could also be cut back to Yeovil Junction.

 

The money needed to do everything you mention would be absolutely massive and make for a pitiful return in the BCR calculations.

 

The reason service patterns would remain unchanged is the vast amounts of money that have been spent in previous decades improving the GWR route and the fact that existing users do not like having their travel arrangements altered just to please enthusiasts or operators. As the Thameslink Wimbledon loop situation showed you muck around with current service patterns at your peril and it doesn't take much for political pressure to override logic.

 

Like the Uckfield line, the Okehampton route is one people simply won't face the truth over and in an effort to make their solution work they start adding all sorts of extras in an attempt to make their pet project more useful  - but ignore the massive extra costs said 'extras' bring or indeed any understanding of existing passenger flows / needs.

 

When will folk get it into their heads that we do not spend massive amounts of money on infrastructure in the UK these days on a 'just in case' basis - there  HAS to be a robust business case for it day in day out. Any improvements between Exeter and Yeovil can only be justified on the basis of providing significant improvements to SWR services to Waterloo - not just because there might be a few days a year when bad weather restricts operations at Dawlish and we need a bit of space for diversions.

 

Any reinstatement of a railway between Okehampton and Bere Alston / Tavistock (please note just how hard its proving to get even a basic railway rebuilt to the latter even though said town generates a large number of commuting trips into Plymouth) HAS to be done on the basis of connectivity of places along the new route itself (e.g. Okehampton - Tavistock, Okehampton - Plymouth, etc) or the provision of NEW services  (note the use of that word - it is very different from the word 'diverted') extending 'off route' via the existing network. Yes a Waterloo to Plymouth via Okehampton service may well be an effective way of  option of serving the re-opened route - but don't kid yourself the levels of projected ridership won't justify provision of anything more than single track with passing loops and probably no more than an hourly service.

 

As for Cross Countrys woes when the weather is bad - a new fleet of more water resistant trains is going to be way cheaper than any grand infrastructure plans.

 

 

Look its all very simple - the ONLY two options when you crunch the numbers that come anywhere close to generating a positive business case in terms of Dawlish are either further investment in the coastal route (as NR are proposing) or a inland by-pass from Newton Abbot to Starcross (which can take express services away from the coast but still provides access to Torbay as well as Plymouth + Penzance).

 

 

 

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