Washout at Dawlish

[pointstaken]

Most local paper journalists appear to have problems reporting anything more complicated than a dog show or an outbreak of cycle thefts.

 

Dennis

[Gerald Henriksen]

Got a source for that? 

 

For example - DCC show building a new station in Okehampon as a "priority" during 2011/12 (see the link) - and IIRC it was a "priced option" on the FGW refranchise document?

 

http://www.devon.gov.uk/devon_metro_briefing.pdf

 

Okay that's not "Here's a cheque, start on Monday", but it's a heckuva long way away from "We've no desire...."

 

Perhaps you would care to actually read the document, in particular page 4, second paragraph on the right side - "There are numerous other disused rail lines in Devon such as" "Tavistock to Okehampton" "re-opening plans for these lines is not considered viable because of the capital cost of re-opening and the revenue cost of the operation".

 

How much clearer do you want?

 

What they are saying is there is no business case or money for the capital costs to re-open the line, or even if someone magically comes up with the money there is no money available to subsidize a service on the line.

 

Everyone is currently getting squeezed financially.

 

The local councils are having to cut their budgets do to less money coming from London.

 

Rail is having its subsidy from London cut as the current government aims to shift more the yearly cost of the railway onto the fare paying customers.

 

Given these cuts, where is the money to maintain an additional rail route in Devon going to come from?

 

As I mentioned, you can bypass Exeter and run Plymouth and Cornwall services on the Okehampton route if you re-open it, but that then just puts financial pressure on the Dawlish line as it loses the revenue from those trains you have changed to the northern route. 

 

Erm, It's used more weeks per year than that already!

Given that the line is closed, it most certainly is not.

 

Plymouth -> Bere Alston has service, Devon Council is working on Plymouth -> Tavistock having service in the next several years.

 

Exeter -> Okehampton sort of has a service is you count Sundays during the summer season.

 

Any sources for a new line being opened and TOC's refusing to have anything to do with it?

 

Talking about a line being used for diversion purposes, with many comments on this thread giving examples of TOCs resorting to buses as well as the operational headaches that would occur in this case due to the 2 reversals that would be necessary, making it less than desireable to the TOC.

 

 

Why would they (re)build a line to not run trains on it?  Bonkers.

Exactly the point.

 

Devon County Council doesn't want the line re-opened for local service because there is no demand for local service, leading to excessive subsidies being required - which is what happens when you have a rail line through an area with few people living there.

 

So we are left with either re-opening to be used for diversion purposes - which some on here want - in which case there are no trains running on it for most of the year, or we need to move trains from the Dawlish line onto the Okehampton line, in which case the financials of the Dawlish line are compromised in addition to the serious issue of Exeter.

 

Either way a reasonably significant amount of additional money will be needed annually to maintain 2 lines in Devon, with no indication of where that money will come from.

 

Hence the point that from a financial perspective the only alternative to the Dawlish line that makes sense is to use the GWR proposal that allows you to continue to serve south Devon while hopefully seeing savings from not needing to maintain the Dawlish sea wall to the same standard and the likely added benefit of being able to abandon much of the sea wall west of Dawlish.

[NXEA!]

I wasn't going to post anymore on the Okehampton subject as I thought it best to leave the thread on updates about Dawlish, but a couple of points I'd like to make. Obviously the Western Route MD thinks the bean-counters in NR can persuade DafT to look at Okehampton, otherwise he wouldn't publicly come out and say such a thing as we support the idea of the old LSWR route. As mentioned before, the area where the 1936 GWR proposal were to leave the current route is apparently heavily built on in places as is Heathfield, so if you want a diversionary route, this is your only choice. The economics must at least be close to stacking up if NR are actively looking at it, and it looks like an ounce of common sense for once if they're tying it in with Tavistock's reopening. I'd imagine even if they haven't surveyed the other bridges in the region that their engineers will have some idea of the condition of the remaining ones. IIRC they're refurbishing bridges on the Waverley which have been out of use for a similar length of time. As I debunked in an earlier post, an uneducated guess suggests that they can make such a route 2tph capable to the tune of around £30million if they used basic passing loops as opposed to dynamic ones. With regards to reversals involved in diversions, a driver on another forum mentions 7 minutes to change ends on a HST and get the GSM-R up and running. What is the problem exactly? I don't understand, yes it's one potential hurdle to fall down on, but very small chances of it causing a problem I'd imagine. HST's have been reversing at Exeter St David's in both directions every 2 hours for the past couple of weeks, so if they can handle that, why can't they reverse at Plymouth again as well?

 

As for DMU's, I don't *think* FGW will be losing much if any. The only things likely to go are 143's, as the 153's are being life-extended. A chap on WNXX who works for First seems to think that the 165/166's will go to Bristol and displace the remaining Sprinters to Exeter and bulk up the fleet for half-hourly Severn Beach, Portishead, longer Cardiff-Taunton's, Weston-Bristol Parkways and the Gloucester/Malvern to Weymouth corridor, but I can't recall off-hand what will happen to the 158's. So any 150's that are currently working off Bristol are likely to come down to Exeter, as I think Exmouth/Barnstaple/Paignton by the end of CP5 will probably warrant all 4-cars in the peak, maybe even a few 5 or 6 cars, and all the Cornish branches need an extra car. So it's likely there will be a couple of leftover 150's to do an hourly Exeter-Plymouth via Okehampton in any case. So as long as they're serious and any funding is actually there, it's good timing on the part of NR to start the ball-rolling now as that means they can look to the future a little more when they connect Tavistock up. IF this is all not hot air from NR of course.

 

But as with others, I'd just like to say again good luck to the gals and geezers working at Dawlish, Crewkerne, and Athelney and thanks to Captain Kernow for informative behind the scenes posts, and The Stationmaster for some rational, railwayman insight into the logistics side of things, invaluable.

Edited February 10, 2014 by NXEA!

[Gerald Henriksen]

Most of the network in Britain is subsidised to a degree.

The network is entirely subsidized - if the government was making a profit off the whole thing then they would either not be annoying the masses as they try to shift the subsidy from the government by raising fares by large amounts, or they would re-privatize Network Rail as being valuable.

 

So given the goal of the government is to decrease the annual subsidy, no one on here seems to be able to come up with a way to pay the yearly costs of a second rail line through Devon.

 

If central govt now comes to the party to fund the capital cost, Devon CC might well be more interested in chipping in towards revenue - but the overall rail subsidy comes from central government funds - it isn't paid by local authorities (Scotland and Wales recieve block grants from Westmister)

Devon have already said they aren't interested in the annual subsidies for Tavistock -> Okehampton, and the fact that central government pays the capital costs isn't likely to change that given the state of most local government finances.

 

Nobody is suggesting closure of the railway through S Devon - that would be crackers . Resiliance means having a second route between Exeter and Plymouth which generates local transport benefit and can act as an emergency backup.  It doesn't mean leaving rail services west of Exteter still hanging by a single thread - just a different thread 

 

Nobody is suggesting that the route be rebuilt so it can be mothballed for 50 weeks a year. The suggestion is that diversionary use might be the extra benefit that tips a desirable rural reopening scheme with a high capital cost over the edge into happening - and that circumstances may now have arisen in which national government is interested in chipping in to see it happen

But, despite what some on here want, Tavistock -> Okehampton is not a desirable re-opening scheme.  For railway purposes there are no customers there, the lack of any timescale would seem to indicate even Devon Council is having second thoughts on restoring service to Okehampton though it is also possible the private owner is causing the delay.

 

And if you go ahead with re-opening the North Devon line that that is going to have an effect on the South Devon line by the simple fact of a lack of money for the annual maintenance costs unless additional money is found, but no one seems to have a source.  The idea that central government will provide additional yearly money goes against their desire to cut the money spent on railways (ignoring capital costs).

[10800]

All I see at the moment is endless recycling of the same arguments on here, largely based on the economic circumstances prevailing before the severance of the line at Dawlish a few days ago. If the government are to be believed in saying they want to revisit all options why don't we all just wait and see what the colour of their money is? Any further speculation until then seems completely pointless because we have no idea what the criteria and context might be.

[Gerald Henriksen]

There is for all intents and purposes no demand on the North Devon line that existing schemes don't already account for, so the increased costs would come with no improvement in service (other than perhaps greater reliability than the Dawlish sea wall allows).

 

If central government came to the table with the money for re-opening the line (the capital cost), and also promised/delivered additional money to maintain the line then great, lets do it tomorrow.

 

But if the government was willing to be that generous, it would be much better to get more money upfront for a larger capital cost and do this properly by implementing a version of the GWR scheme so that we can add the people of South Devon to the list of Plymouth and Cornwall getting a more reliable train service, which has the added advantage of not running into trouble 10 or 20 years down the road when another government comes along looking to try and cut costs in the railway.

 

But the bigger problem I fear is that as the flooding issues continue and add further parts of the UK to the list of people demanding money, the rail lines in Devon drop down the list of priorities (and as I type this First Great Western has lost half the lines into Paddington due to flooding...)

Edited February 11, 2014 by Mod6
OT text removed

[Gerald Henriksen]

With regards to reversals involved in diversions, a driver on another forum mentions 7 minutes to change ends on a HST and get the GSM-R up and running. What is the problem exactly? I don't understand, yes it's one potential hurdle to fall down on, but very small chances of it causing a problem I'd imagine. HST's have been reversing at Exeter St David's in both directions every 2 hours for the past couple of weeks, so if they can handle that, why can't they reverse at Plymouth again as well?

Because its not just 7 minutes?

 

You add Plymouth and you are now up to 14 minutes total.

 

Add in the time to retrace any track to get back to where you "started" (ie at Exeter you don't just have to travel Crowley Bridge -> Exeter, but also Exeter -> Crowley Bridge to get back out of Exeter). Now you are maybe up to 20 minutes.

 

Not so much at Plymouth, but you are possibly going to run into congestion issues at Exeter as you try to run twice as many trains on that section.

 

So you add 20 to 30 minute delays to a service that is already a slow hour through Devon and people will be better off timewise driving or on a bus.

 

As for DMU's, I don't *think* FGW will be losing much if any. The only things likely to go are 143's, as the 153's are being life-extended. A chap on WNXX who works for First seems to think that the 165/166's will go to Bristol and displace the remaining Sprinters to Exeter and bulk up the fleet for half-hourly Severn Beach, Portishead, longer Cardiff-Taunton's, Weston-Bristol Parkways and the Gloucester/Malvern to Weymouth corridor, but I can't recall off-hand what will happen to the 158's.

I would really be interested to know if the government has actually indicated what will be happening to those cascading units, certainly the South-West Spine document put out by Cornwall/Devon/et al. indicates they are concerned that the units may go elsewhere and not to the south-west (either directly or in any indirect way).

 

[NXEA!]

 

 

In reply to your posts Gerald, I know that you explicitly referred to capital costs as not counting, but I included that as a sign as a change in direction for the government, ie if they're spending more, surely they're willing to subsidise the railways more. You can't make such a sweeping statement as "no one will use a North Devon route", the market is obviously there for Tavistock with 30,000 people, and Okehampton may be on the back burner but it's an aspiration which will hopefully be realised in the future. Quite often with re-opening cases, the passengers projected useage is much lower than actual useage - look at Alloa and Ebbw Vale for example. Plus you're opening up more travel opportunities with a through line such as Tavistock-Exeter, and Crediton/Okehampton-Plymouth, flows which may not have existed before, or you may encourage these journeys to transfer by rail for example, and you're generating more new journeys than you thought as suddenly the train becomes really attractive.

 

As for reversals, as I've already said, 7 minutes apiece, so you're looking at about half an hour to reverse at both Exeter and Plymouth as you say. What is the problem with that? It's about keeping the through opportunities. The people that catch the train do so because they find it easier than catching a bus or driving, and transferring to a bus is time consuming. If diverting and reversing to get to Plymouth at Exeter was that bad during the Whiteball blockade, surely they would've provided express coaches from Plymouth, Newton Abbot and Totnes to say Honiton for trains to Paddington because as far as actual travelling time goes, it's about half an hour quicker than reversing via Exeter. But no they didn't, they ran a service with a reversal and a longer route because it's easier on the passenger to have a longer through service than normal, than a transfer on and off with buses, which would actually take a similar amount of time after you factor in the transfer times and the coaches journey to the main trunk road.

 

And finally that's the point about the LSWR. NR are obviously advocating it because it's cheaper. And the 1936 GWR land has been built on to some degree, and you're linking up two more towns via the LSWR. With regards to the DMU fleet I can't for the life of me find what I was on about - typical! I'll have another look and PM you tomorrow. But I too share your fears about the South-West being pushed down the pecking order. Priorities eh. I am sceptical that at the moment it's all hot air from NR. But if it isn't, it makes sense and it can work well IMO.

Edited February 11, 2014 by Mod6
OT text removed

[Gerald Henriksen]

You can't make such a sweeping statement as "no one will use a North Devon route", the market is obviously there for Tavistock with 30,000 people, and Okehampton may be on the back burner but it's an aspiration which will hopefully be realised in the future.

But Tavistock is not 30,000 people.   The latest figure for Tavistock proper is 12,500 and to get to the 30,000 figure you are including a large area geographically, some of which includes places like Bere Ferrers which are already being served by rail, or other places where they are halfway to Plymouth already so driving to Tavistock to take the train won't make sense.

 

Same thing with Okehampton - that 27,000 number looks good until you look closer and see that Okehampton itself only has 7,600 and the rest are scattered over a large area where it will be closer for them to just drive to Exeter, or go to an existing station on the Barnstaple line.

 

 

 

Quite often with re-opening cases, the passengers projected useage is much lower than actual useage - look at Alloa and Ebbw Vale for example. Plus you're opening up more travel opportunities with a through line such as Tavistock-Exeter, and Crediton/Okehampton-Plymouth, flows which may not have existed before, or you may encourage these journeys to transfer by rail for example, and you're generating more new journeys than you thought as suddenly the train becomes really attractive.

But they benefit from governments (Scotland / Wales) who have the willingness and money to invest in projects like that, combined with higher population densities. 

 

As I said in another message tonight, if central government is willing to pay the extra yearly costs then go for it, but the LSWR is not the solution to the problem of Dawlish.  It totally ignores the issue of the people of South Devon (about 1/3 of the population of Devon) and the detour issue will still deter investment in the south-west (which is what the South-West-Spine report claims is on of the issues facing the region).

 

 

[Gwiwer]

Picking up the comments about the local bus operator offering some financial assistance (in terms of what amounts to a reduced fare between Dawlish and Exeter) then they are acting exactly as I would expect a fellow public transport operator to do in a serious situation - they are offering such help as they can and actually taking a loss of income for doing so.

 

In a similar situation NR created Workington North station out of nowhere and carried passengers into town when the road bridge was cut and buses could not run.

 

No-one then suggested the railways were attempting to profit from disaster.  Nor was that accusation levelled at road operators when the bridge was washed away in Inverness isolating the Far North and Kyle lines with buses running to and from Dingwall.

 

Public transport operators generally do support each other in the common cause when the chips are down.  Cornish bus operator Western Greyhound has suffered two depot fires losing almost half their fleet but lost very few trips as others sent buses from as far away as Blackpool on loan.  They have also been promoting their Exeter - Newquay bus (which is the local route up to Okehampton as well) as an alternative to the railway and no-one has suggested they are attempting to profiteer.  They are advertising and raising awareness of a reasonable alternative to a severely disrupted railway.

 

It is in everyone's interest to keep vehicle traffic to the lowest practicable level.  Exeter is an ancient city constrained by having few approach roads which jam up at the restricted river crossings.  The more rail passengers who switch to bus use the easier each trip will be for everyone.  And for those who are advancing arguments over climate change then remember buses are generally subject to strict exhaust emissions making then much cleaner per user than private cars as well as being efficient users of space.

 

Once the trains return most people will probably go back to using them.  There will be a massive hole (pun intended) in FGW's budget so it's also in their interests to restore service and regain custom as soon as possible.

Edited February 11, 2014 by Gwiwer

[JohnR]

As I said earlier - I will wait until I see a statement from NR.  I learnt a long time ago, especially after being grossly misquoted by a local 'paper, not to trust or take at face value anything said by the media many of whom do not even understand the nuances of what might be contained in even a written press statement which they publish word-for-word and then add comments about. (and my son trained to be, and for a while was, a broadcast journalist - he at least did try to be scrupulously accurate even if his local broadcasting station chief didn't like it)

 

The headline in the story was misleading, as the quote from Network Rail Route MD makes clear, the intention is that any alternative route is a diversionary line, and not to replace it.

[roythebus]

Seems this thread has moved back to discussing the pros and cons of diversionary routes again.

[Dunsignalling]

But Tavistock is not 30,000 people.   The latest figure for Tavistock proper is 12,500 and to get to the 30,000 figure you are including a large area geographically, some of which includes places like Bere Ferrers which are already being served by rail, or other places where they are halfway to Plymouth already so driving to Tavistock to take the train won't make sense.

 

Same thing with Okehampton - that 27,000 number looks good until you look closer and see that Okehampton itself only has 7,600 and the rest are scattered over a large area where it will be closer for them to just drive to Exeter, or go to an existing station on the Barnstaple line.

 

 

 

But they benefit from governments (Scotland / Wales) who have the willingness and money to invest in projects like that, combined with higher population densities. 

 

As I said in another message tonight, if central government is willing to pay the extra yearly costs then go for it, but the LSWR is not the solution to the problem of Dawlish.  It totally ignores the issue of the people of South Devon (about 1/3 of the population of Devon) and the detour issue will still deter investment in the south-west (which is what the South-West-Spine report claims is on of the issues facing the region).

 

 

I think we have all got the point that the potential diversionary route will not cover the needs of the towns on the existing route (including Dawlish, to keep me on topic) but it would keep access open to Plymouth which is as populous as all the others combined as well as maintaining services beyond. 

 

However, most of the area that will be bypassed has goodish links to the A38/M5 corridor and is thus easier to serve using substitute buses to/from Tiverton Parkway and Exeter.

 

When the sea wall is out of action, more of them will be available to serve South Devon/Torbay if Plymouth/Cornwall passengers can be taken out of the equation. One replacement bus service from Tiverton to Penzance and back keeps a vehicle tied up as long as several round trips to Newton Abbot. 

 

John

Edited February 11, 2014 by Dunsignalling

[Joseph_Pestell]

. As mentioned before, the area where the 1936 GWR proposal were to leave the current route is apparently heavily built on in places as is Heathfield, so if you want a diversionary route, this is your only choice.

 

I spent a while yesterday looking at Google Earth. In general, the area between Dawlish Warren and Newton Abbot is not that heavily built-up. So the 1936 proposal is probably not the "only choice" even if the alternatives would require some hefty engineering. There are always other choices but perhaps it needs Swiss, Italian, French or Chinese civil engineers to contemplate them.

 

And, as others have already mentioned, how do we deal with any future electrification? As the wires spread more across the Western Region, the hybrid IEPs might be used to avoid wiring up along the seawall. But how well would their electrical equipment stand up to the battering it would be given on a stormy day? You could get to Exeter and find the pantographs completely unusable.

 

Although I resent the way that the BBC has constantly mentioned Cornwall being cut off and ignored Plymouth, Torbay and the South Hams, the Cornish may hold the key as Cornwall is a recognised area of economic deprivation and can attract EU funding.

[Keith George]

Seems this thread has moved back to discussing the pros and cons of diversionary routes again.

I see no problem with that.

 

Keith.

[brushman47544]

Any route that is opened (either new or re-opening) will have to have a reasonable daily usage that can cover the yearly costs of maintaining the line.

 

North Devon does not have the population to support a rail line without subsidies, which leaves running Plymouth and Cornwall based services over the line all year.  This is certainly possible, mainly by chopping Exeter off the line and running a bypass connection at Cowley Junction (which may have the added benefit of eliminating the flooding there as an issue for Plymouth/Cornwall services).  Exeter could then have a parkway station, or be serviced only be services from Waterloo, though I doubt Exeter would be happy about this.  A likely side effect of this though would be that the Dawlish line would become economically unviable given the very high cost of maintaining the Dawlish segment, likely ending all south devon rail services.

 

The only way to have either a replacement for the Dawlish line, or a second line that is viable economically without creating an uprising in Exeter and South Devon, is to do a variation on the GWR plans.

 

Why can't BOTH routes run regular services? The main line as current AND the Okehampton route, maybe the Okehampton route taking trains from Waterloo to avoid the reversal at Exeter. Is there much commuter traffic from the towns into Plymouth?

 

Andi

 

If passenger numbers continue to rise as seems to be forecast, there may well be a case in the future for an additional route to Plymouth from London, which might well be achieved by reinstating the Okehampton route because it would generate some intermediate traffic and at the same time free up extra paths along the Dawlish route for extra local trains. Forget the traditional Western and Southern regions and current franchise boundaries - capacity will need to be identified by thinking outside the box.

 

Cornwall/Plymouth passengers travelling to/from London shouldn't care which route they use as long as overall journey times are similar. Any extra long distance services could also be used to open up additional through journeys. For example, trains going beyond Plymouth could continue to use the Dawlish route (avoiding reversals) and Plymouth terminators could be run not only go via Okehampton but also from Castle Cary via Yeovil to Exeter St Davids thereby avoiding a reversal at the latter. Cross Country might want to add extra trains using paths freed up on the Dawlish route so Taunton doesn't lose out. Yes there would have to be some re-doubling west of Yeovil at least, but if passenger levels continue to rise perhaps that would happen anyway.

 

First priority is clearly to get the Dawlish route reopen, but afterwards who knows what might be needed depending on economic growth (or the desire to encourage it in the West) and increased passenger numbers, and hopefully freight too.

[Oldddudders]

I spent a while yesterday looking at Google Earth. In general, the area between Dawlish Warren and Newton Abbot is not that heavily built-up. So the 1936 proposal is probably not the "only choice" even if the alternatives would require some hefty engineering. There are always other choices but perhaps it needs Swiss, Italian, French or Chinese civil engineers to contemplate them.

 

 

A little unfair. The fact that NR is not yet giving the meejah all its thoughts on routes and options does not imply that it lacks imagination or is unable to procure engineering expertise. Strategic planning does not occur in the heat of battle, but in calm pavilions back at base. I am confident that options will emerge in due course and be assessed on a wide range of merits, including stakeholder and TOC long-term interests. NR's sensitive attitude to its neighbours at Dawlish indicates it already understands community relations when things are bad. In the meantime they are doing great things only days after the initial damage.

[chrisf]

The Dawlish incident presents an opportunity.  Once you get west of Exeter the train trundles.  It is a very pleasant trundle in places but the inability to get up speed can be frustrating .  A significant and worthwhile saving in time between Exeter and Newton Abbot could be achieved by building something like the 1930s GWR proposal, freeing capacity on the restored but still vulnerable coastal route to cater for local traffic between the bottlenecks at NA and Exminster.

 

Chris

[TheQ]

Most local paper journalists appear to have problems reporting anything more complicated than a dog show or an outbreak of cycle thefts.

 

Dennis

Just caught up with this thread.

Having been involved with dog shows in the past, I can assure you they don't get that right either!!

They are no good at sport either, I was reported as having overtaken my crew during one report on sailing!

The Q

Back to Dawlish I hope they get video feed on line soon

[Glorious NSE]

Sorry, lets start again...

 

Perhaps you would care to actually read the document, in particular page 4, second paragraph on the right side - "There are numerous other disused rail lines in Devon such as" "Tavistock to Okehampton" "re-opening plans for these lines is not considered viable because of the capital cost of re-opening and the revenue cost of the operation".

 

Actually, I have read the document.

 

Perhaps you'd care to actually read your original post - which said: "Devon County Council (in the Devon Metro document) makes it clear they have no desire to fund yearly costs of the Okehampton rail route,"

 

My reply was, that is not true, they are trying to fund a (daily operation) rail route to Okehampton. (In fact, they have already funded the limited Summer Sunday service to Okehampton for many years AFAIK!)

 

And in the same context of your original statement...

 

 

Given that the line is closed, it most certainly is not.

 

No, the line is not closed, and it is used more than a week per year already, with a regular weekday service on the cards.

 

 

Plymouth -> Bere Alston has service, Devon Council is working on Plymouth -> Tavistock having service in the next several years.
 
Exeter -> Okehampton sort of has a service is you count Sundays during the summer season.

 

See!

 

And a weekday one to Okehampton is IMHO just as likely as the Tavistock service. (Perhaps more so, as it doesn't depend on an outside source ponying up infrastructure costs before it can start...)

 

What DCC say in that document, based on the reality of 2011, is that they have no desire to fund reinstating the gap.

 

Based on the reality of 2011, it's pretty clear nobody else was interested in funding reinstating the gap either, not Network Rail, not Central Government, nor the National Park.

 

Note. The reality of 2011 may not be the reality of 2014. Based on the reality of 2014, we have stakeholders now at least appearing to actively talk about that. We have central goverment at least attempting something that looks like contrition, in a sudden flood (sorry) of attention from Westminster as well.

 

For example - I suspect DCC will not have even have looked closely at what the additional operating cost of running through will be, as just the cost to rebuild it would have made the project a non starter (again, on DCC's budget, as at 2011.)

 

For instance - it **MIGHT** be the case for instance that a basic two-hourly through service could run with no additional stock beyond the unit that would have run to Tavistock every couple of hours (and spent a while laying over at Plymouth) and the unit that would have run to Okehampton every couple of hours (and spent a while laying over at Exmouth Jcn) - if so, you'd have a useful additional service for the cost of a little fuel and the track access charge...

 

Is there a quantitive value to opening up the Plymouth job market from Okehampton, and the Exeter job market to Tavistock? I suspect nobody knows, it's not something that's accessible to anyone at present. Add in leisure and  shopping trips (to/from both ends) and I suspect you would not have an empty "ghost train" running between the two.

 

Until somebody looks at that kind of thing properly they will not know either...

 

 

 

Devon County Council doesn't want the line re-opened for local service because there is no demand for local service, leading to excessive subsidies being required - which is what happens when you have a rail line through an area with few people living there.

 

Devon County Council is already supporting the creation of rail services to both major towns on the route, irrespective of any argument over their population. The only bit they haven't supported so far is the link in the middle...

 

The question is - if it did actually exist, would they?

 

 

 

Everyone is currently getting squeezed financially.
The local councils are having to cut their budgets do to less money coming from London.
Rail is having its subsidy from London cut as the current government aims to shift more the yearly cost of the railway onto the fare paying customers.
Given these cuts, where is the money to maintain an additional rail route in Devon going to come from?

 

And, despite the doom and gloom, DCC is already investing heavily in rail, and appears to be carrying on with their plans, not trying to cut them. There are plenty of live projects they could already have just walked away from if they felt it could not be afforded, but they have not done that. 

 

(And that gets my vote...)

 

Again. This isn't 1985...

[Mike Riley]

We must remember that Plymouth is a unitary authority and Plymouth Council was quick off the mark to state how much money the Dawlish closure was costing business in Plymouth.  So it is not just DCC that should contribute to a diversionary route but also Plymouth.  Torbay is also a unitary authority but they have nothing to gain by re-opening the LSW route.  I presume they would favour the 1936 GWR Dawlish bypass solution.

 

Mike

[Glorious NSE]

 

 

And, as others have already mentioned, how do we deal with any future electrification? As the wires spread more across the Western Region, the hybrid IEPs might be used to avoid wiring up along the seawall. But how well would their electrical equipment stand up to the battering it would be given on a stormy day?

 

At the risk of further divergence - is this yet another thing that we're told that the Scots take in their stride but everybody says the English can't, or is there a fundamental difference at work?

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/storm-surge-warning-scotland-024616433.html#ilsTXIP

[Rivercider]

I wonder if any plans are likely to be put in place to run a shuttle from Exeter as far as Dawlish Warren?

The FGW website shows no mention of a service, though I thought I saw mention of one on the website shortly before the line was completely closed.

 

There are crossovers at Dawlish Warren to permit the move, though whether it would require groundstaff I don't know.

The roads in that area make the replacement bus service awkward between Dawlish Warren and Starcross.

 

Passenger figures for Dawlish Warren, Starcross and Exeter St Thomas have all increased greatly in the last 10 years.

(158k combined for 2002/3, to 379k for 2011/12)

I would also think that passengers from the eastern side of Dawlish would  find it easier to walk/cycle/drive to Dawlish Warren

to catch a train than drive or bus into Exeter especially if they already have a season ticket.

 

Six or more weeks without a service for those stations would undo some of the good work that has gone on in recent years

cheers

[Ashcombe]

Just read on Facebook that Cameron has visited Dawlish this morning. No doubt it was a "flying" visit since he couldn't reach it by train!!!

[10800]

Torbay is also a unitary authority but they have nothing to gain by re-opening the LSW route.  I presume they would favour the 1936 GWR Dawlish bypass solution.

Why? There's a lot of commuting and local holiday traffic between Dawlish Warren, Dawlish, Teignmouth and Torbay. I suspect they would prefer the restoration of the existing coastal route, and remember guys, until there are any more facts or official pronouncements to the contrary, that remains the only game in town.