Washout at Dawlish

[PhilJ W]

 

The good new is Eric Pickles is now in charge of dealing with the floods, and I can't help thinking he'd fit that breach in the sea wall quite nicely ;-)

Would a bag full of wind be sufficient?

[jonny777]

Sorry to sound sarcastic about this, but apparently the idea that trains will have to reverse at both Exeter and Plymouth seems to be a negative as far as the Okehampton/Tavistock route is concerned.

 

What is the problem? Cornish passengers will get confused?

 

And reversal is *so* difficult with HSTs, Sprinters and the Voyager class units.

 

And, as for the cost of Meldon viaduct - I can guarantee it will be far less expensive than some structures connected with HS2.

 

There is nothing in the rules to say that because a diversionary route is re-opened/rebuilt, the original one has to be abandoned. Again it is just whether the metropolitan elite wish to spend lots of money on the Celtic fringes of their empire.

[Oldddudders]

Just a reminder of how things were - last Autumn.

 

 

 

[Vanders]

Didn't he need somewhere level-ish for the atmospheric?

 

Yeah...as Chris said, not one of IKB's better ideas

[Ramblin Rich]

Didn't he need somewhere level-ish for the atmospheric?

No, the atmospheric was intended to work on the Devon banks, supposedly better than the then-current locomotives - which was one reason Dainton etc gradients are a little on the steep side! When the economics and practicality of running the stationary engines became clear and locomotives became more powerful, the system was abandoned before even coming into use past Newton Abott.

One reason for the shoreline route was that it was cheap - the embankments were effectively built out into the sea & reclaimed some land area in places. I do think it was a big dose of hubris on IKB's part to think the route would withstand nature!

As for future options, it does show the vunerability of the route and (being pessimistic) I would think affect the chances of retaining & attracting further freight flows if the route can't be guaranteed. I'm sure some difficult discussions & political decisions will have to be made about how well the line can be protected in future....

[beast66606]

A train service is running between Penzance and Plymouth

 

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/search/advanced/PNZ/2014/02/06/0600-2000?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt

 

Good luck to all involved in the restoration of services, I'm sure there are very capable boys and girls doing their best to resolve the issues.

 

Sympathies to all affected, I had to chop down one of our climbing roses yesterday afternoon, the high winds caught it and it was banging against the windows, eventually it was going to "come in" - trivial in the scheme of things but gave me an unwelcome taste of what it must be like battling against nature, I was saving inconvenience, some are doing it to save their homes. I wish you all well.

[Dunsignalling]

What a short sighted  decision it was to close the Southern route between Exeter and Plymouth. It left just one rail link into Plymouth and Cornwall.

 

Keith.

Perchance it merely sleepeth......

 

John

[Keith George]

What is happening about the clay traffic, going by road  I presume.?

 

Keith.

[Dunsignalling]

Network Rail have certainly had their work load massively increased with all this storm damage, not only at Dawlish but elsewhere on top of the planned engineering works.

 

I wish them  all the best with this work let alone thepotential problems with warning of further storms approaching.

 

I know others have mentioned it but with the talk of extending Bere Alston to Tavistock, it must be on the radar to think about reopening between there and Meldon. I know that Tavistock station has been built on but that hasn't stopped other schemes elsewhere in the country.

Considering how long ago it closed, there has been remarkably little development on/across the route and reviving it must be high on the list of practical options.

 

The seaward route can and will be reinstated (this time) but it will become ever more vulnerable as sea levels continue to rise.

 

John

Edited February 6, 2014 by Dunsignalling

[Oldddudders]

apparently the idea that trains will have to reverse at both Exeter and Plymouth seems to be a negative as far as the Okehampton/Tavistock route is concerned.

 

 

Of course, the Exeter reversal wouldn't be necessary if the train had come from Waterloo as nature intended.....

[Mallard60022]

The least expensive option (but quite difficult to get approved I should imagine) will be a breakwater and rebuilding/reinstatement of the existing route.

The breakwater in Plymouth Sound was built so this one could be.

Those seas are just horrendous; really frightening when seen from the cliff top view.

[Coombe Barton]

 

The breakwater in Plymouth Sound was built so this one could be.

At the expense of the village of Hallsands, which lost its shingle bank protection  and thus over time disappeared.

[Fenman]

At the expense of the village of Hallsands, which lost its shingle bank protection  and thus over time disappeared.

 

All that horrendous wave energy has to dissipate somewhere. It's a bit like crushing an inflated balloon - if you push in one bit, it pops out somewhere else.

 

I rather like the East Anglia solution, of reinstating (or creating, some of it with Crossrail spoil) large areas of salt marsh, which are wildlife havens and which also absorb the worst of any storms. The topography of Devon and Cornwall doesn't really lend itself to that, though.

 

Paul

[Mallard60022]

At the expense of the village of Hallsands, which lost its shingle bank protection  and thus over time disappeared.

Absolutely, however modern technology and design should be able to predict if something similar would occur. I don't think the consequences were considered quite so fully way back in those days.

Difficult isn't it? Every action has a reaction.

Perhaps we should forget the railway line for a few moments and remember that there is a town with a population just behind/inshore of it (which it would not be had the railway not been built there in the first place)?

P

[The Stationmaster]

NR's Robin Gisby was on the Today programme a little while ago.  He was talking about the need to ensure the resilience of the route and a study of possible alternatives. 

 

Wonderful though it is, the line along the sea wall was not one of IKB's better ideas!

 

Chris

Alas I don't think he had much choice with certain landowners being less than helpful and really he needed somewhere to try his 'puff n' suck' railway before he got to the steep hills beyond Newton.   But, as you say, one thing he probably didn't think of was that this entire section of route was going to be a long term civil engineering site for a long time to come.

[Dunsignalling]

By which time you could have potentially achieved a better effort with one of the mooted 'Dawlish Diversionary Routes' - One of which I've seen would branch off the Heathfield branch, head up towards Chudleigh across towards Dunchideock and down into Exeter via the Alphington branch. The problem is, is that this brings a fairly graded line requiring 4 tunnels and 4 if not potentially 5 viaducts. And that would cost how much???

There are much bigger problems with using any of the options based around the old Teign Valley line than the former SR route. 

 

Foremost among them is the degree of redevelopment along the original (single line) route, a significant amount of which has been completely obliterated.

 

It's a few years since I spent much time down that way but even then there were quite long sections where it was difficult to imagine there had ever been a railway there.

 

I don't imagine the situation has improved in the meantime!

 

John

[Pete 75C]

But, as you say, one thing he probably didn't think of was that this entire section of route was going to be a long term civil engineering site for a long time to come.

 

Good point. Truthfully, how many of us give much thought to anything beyond our own lifetime?

[Dunsignalling]

The least expensive option (but quite difficult to get approved I should imagine) will be a breakwater and rebuilding/reinstatement of the existing route.

The breakwater in Plymouth Sound was built so this one could be.

Those seas are just horrendous; really frightening when seen from the cliff top view.

They would certainly rule out any thoughts of electrification, even if a new, stronger physical base for the line is created.

 

Another factor that must be borne in mind is that the Sea Wall doesn't just hold up the railway line, it also provides much-needed protection for the towns along the route.

 

John

[Guest Belgian]

To add to Rich's comments, in fact, the line along the sea wall was the atmospheric's undoing as it was the sea water and rats attacking the leather seals (with their tannin lubricant) which made them harder and/or gnawed away and thus no longer air (or, rather vacuum) tight, which ruined the system.

 

I suspect that repairing a few meters of sea wall every few years is way cheaper than reinstating or building a new line altogether and that nothing more than repairing it will ever be done. The millions of losses to the West Country economy are, unsurprisingly, not going to come out of Network Rail's, the government's nor even local authorities' budgets whereas anything else will.  A few million here and there every few years with the cosequential losses born by individuals or companies will always be a preferred option for those bodies.

 

JE

No, the atmospheric was intended to work on the Devon banks, supposedly better than the then-current locomotives - which was one reason Dainton etc gradients are a little on the steep side! When the economics and practicality of running the stationary engines became clear and locomotives became more powerful, the system was abandoned before even coming into use past Newton Abott.

One reason for the shoreline route was that it was cheap - the embankments were effectively built out into the sea & reclaimed some land area in places. I do think it was a big dose of hubris on IKB's part to think the route would withstand nature!

As for future options, it does show the vunerability of the route and (being pessimistic) I would think affect the chances of retaining & attracting further freight flows if the route can't be guaranteed. I'm sure some difficult discussions & political decisions will have to be made about how well the line can be protected in future....

 

Didn't he need somewhere level-ish for the atmospheric?

[Dunsignalling]

Good point. Truthfully, how many of us give much thought to anything beyond our own lifetime?

We don't, but the Victorians generally built with permanence in mind.

 

They didn't have all the clever computer modelling that enables us to create things that are just about good enough for a bit longer than we anticipate using them. 

 

John

[Cornish Triang Paul]

Just catching up and so afew points re yesterday's posts from various people.

 

Long Rock IS a maintainence depot and quiet capable of sorting a fleet in isolation. There is also Plymouth !

 

There are at least from Long Rock 5 HSTs, 2 Voyagers, and 2 sets of 150/153 which is our normal allocation so quite capable of serving a shuttle to PLY from PZ also our 2 allocated branches of St Ives and Falmouth. The other branches are served from Plymouth LA so stock would be available from there too. There should also be HSTs from LA but I don't know how many. There are also minimum of 2 08s. As I am currently off work this week I cannot confirm until Friday the Sleeper situation but I will confirm on here tomorrow with loco9 number should one be here.

[Kenton]

 

Not wishing to sound pedantic, but isn't the main A30 dual carriageway (with many graded intersections)from the Devon border to half a dozen miles short of Truro, except for the short section over Cardinham Moor?

 

That's more than we've got down here in Dorset.

Also not wishing to sound pedantic, but Dorset has many long dual carriageways (Bournmouth/Ringwood even the Bere Regis/Puddletown bypass A31) and many of the other routes are new and wider upgraded single carriageways. Much of the problem with the road network in Devon and even more so in Cornwall are the narrow and winding roads. This is probably a combination of lack of investment and resistance by locals over many decades. We have to remember that Cornwall is a dead-end on any transport network, a road or rail journey to nowhere. Anyone going that way has to have the single minded purpose to want to go there (or escape) it will never have passing traffic like Watford.

[Cornish Triang Paul]

And that will mean no fuel for Long Rock....... !!!

[Pete 75C]

They didn't have all the clever computer modelling that enables us to create things that are just about good enough for a bit longer than we anticipate using them. 

 

John

 

Lucky them, and we should be thankful they didn't...

 

Edit: with hindsight (at least as far as construction and civil engineering is concerned), I do believe we've seen the end of the "throwaway culture" but the legacy is that we have an awful lot of infrastructure "bodged" at some point in the 20th century that is unlikely to outlast anyone's lifetime.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Pete_S

[Dunsignalling]

  Also not wishing to sound pedantic, but Dorset has many long dual carriageways (Bournmouth/Ringwood even the Bere Regis/Puddletown bypass A31) and many of the other routes are new and wider upgraded single carriageways. Much of the problem with the road network in Devon and even more so in Cornwall are the narrow and winding roads. This is probably a combination of lack of investment and resistance by locals over many decades. We have to remember that Cornwall is a dead-end on any transport network, a road or rail journey to nowhere. Anyone going that way has to have the single minded purpose to want to go there (or escape) it will never have passing traffic like Watford.

The big road bottlenecks into the West Country are on the A303. Honiton to the eastern end of the dreadful Ilminster bypass cannot be seriously regarded as any sort of trunk route and the dogs breakfast around Stonehenge badly needs sorting out.

 

John