Washout at Dawlish

[Dunsignalling]

7 minutes ago, rodent279 said:

So you could argue that the railway is a (very expensive to maintain) sea wall?

 

I do wonder whether the long term solution is going to be to bite the bullet and cover the railway in properly, maybe with a top promenade deck that pedestrians can walk along.

Ultimately, that's probably going to be the only alternative to abandonment if sea levels rise to anything like the predicted degree. I reckon that's at least fifty years away, though, and I'll be long gone by then....

 

John

[PhilJ W]

3 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

All that said, one wonders how much the seawall section of the South Devon coastline might have changed over the past century-and-three-quarters had the railway infrastructure not been there to protect it.

 

Would Dawlish even exist by now?

 

John

Like Hallsands?

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

[corneliuslundie]

But the large towns are all on the coast or on large estuaries, rather than in the middle of Exmoor. So if you want to serve them by road or rail it has to be near the sea. This applies just as much in most of the world. There are not too many cities on the tops of mountains, though perhaps those Orthodox monks who built chapels on the top of peaks knew more than we realise.

Jonathan

[boxbrownie]

3 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

All that said, one wonders how much the seawall section of the South Devon coastline might have changed over the past century-and-three-quarters had the railway infrastructure not been there to protect it.

 

Would Dawlish even exist by now?

 

John

Ahh but we’d have a wonderful modern funfair with a huge wheel and really fast wild mouse ride…and….

 

Thank heaven for IKB. 

[rab]

8 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

Bloody silly place to put a railway in the first place!

Should have gone the other side of Dartmoor

[PhilJ W]

10 minutes ago, rab said:

Should have gone the other side of Dartmoor

It was originally built as a pneumatic railway which required an almost level track. 

[phil-b259]

4 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Valid point.  Yes Dawlish would exist but it might look more like Teignmouth / Shaldon with a large river-mouth (where there is currently just a tiny and channeled stream) separating two sides of the town which lie on higher ground.  

 

Not necessarily. There are plenty of UK coastal towns which have sea walls without railways on top of them!

 

What is true is that with the Dawlish one having to be maintained by the railway it has saved local Government / the environment agency (and its predecessors) an awful lot of money over the decades...

 

 

[boxbrownie]

15 hours ago, rab said:

Should have gone the other side of Dartmoor

It did as well back then……and one line went from Exeter to Newton Abbott via Doddiscombsleigh and avoided the Dawlish line altogether.

 

The coastal line was probably favoured as being relatively flat.

[St Enodoc]

35 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

It did as well back then……and one line went from Exeter to Newton Abbott via Doddiscombsleigh the middle of nowhere and avoided the Dawlish line altogether.

 

The coastal line was probably favoured as being relatively flat.

Corrected.

[corneliuslundie]

And it was not about being flat as further on Brunel included heavier gradients than he would have used if they had been steam trains, because he believed that the pneumatic system could cope. The GWR and its successors have had to cope with them ever after.

Jonathan

[boxbrownie]

48 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Corrected.

OK passed by? 

[boxbrownie]

34 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

And it was not about being flat as further on Brunel included heavier gradients than he would have used if they had been steam trains, because he believed that the pneumatic system could cope. The GWR and its successors have had to cope with them ever after.

Jonathan

But surely a lot flatter than going around Dartmoor?

 

But yes indeed some of the gradients in Cornwall/Devon are err quite challenging, even for modern stock.

[raymw]

3 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

It did as well back then……and one line went from Exeter to Newton Abbott via Doddiscombsleigh and avoided the Dawlish line altogether.

 

The coastal line was probably favoured as being relatively flat.

There was a branch to Dunchideock treacle mines, iirc.

[melmerby]

21 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

There are not too many cities on the tops of mountains, though perhaps those Orthodox monks who built chapels on the top of peaks knew more than we realise.

Jonathan

Somehow I don't think the Monks were too bothered about popping out to the chippy after Vespers

[boxbrownie]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

Somehow I don't think the Monks were too bothered about popping out to the chippy after Vespers

They rode Vespers?  Cool Monks…..

[boxbrownie]

And yes I do know it is really Vespa……Italian for wasp……see how clever what I am? 

[Gwiwer]

32 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

Italian for wasp……see how clever what I am?

You are the bee's knees

[boxbrownie]

1 minute ago, Gwiwer said:

You are the bee's knees

Cannot not agree with that, can I? 

[jamie92208]

On 17/12/2021 at 17:44, Gwiwer said:

You are the bee's knees

That is worthy of one of these Rick

Jamie

 

 

Edited April 21, 2022 by jamie92208

[jcredfer]

6 hours ago, raymw said:

There was a branch to Dunchideock treacle mines, iirc.

 

It also went drekly past the Nobody Inn, which combined with Furr'nors bein' beffudled wot with pronouncin'  Doddiscombsleigh, let alone where - probly didn get so many takers.

 

Thiky 'long with the farmers not allowed tu tie the sheep on the runnin' boards, err didn' av no chaaance.

 

[Rivercider]

9 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

But surely a lot flatter than going around Dartmoor?

 

But yes indeed some of the gradients in Cornwall/Devon are err quite challenging, even for modern stock.

The Teign Valley line was steeply graded, with gradients of 1 in 64 and 1 in 78 up to the summit at Longdown (where there were two single track tunnels). It was also liable to flooding, which brought forward the closure of the final part,

 

cheers

[Trog]

7 hours ago, melmerby said:

Somehow I don't think the Monks were too bothered about popping out to the chippy after Vespers

 

Did they not have their own Chip Monk, or would that have been down to the head Fryer?

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, Trog said:

 

Did they not have their own Chip Monk, or would that have been down to the head Fryer?

[melmerby]

On 17/12/2021 at 16:09, boxbrownie said:

They rode Vespers?  Cool Monks…..

Yes

 

(Image lost)

Edited April 8, 2022 by melmerby

[Titan]

3 hours ago, Trog said:

 

Did they not have their own Chip Monk, or would that have been down to the head Fryer?

 

There was the 250lb monk that was studying Philosophy, he was the Deep Fat Fryer.