Washout at Dawlish

[Chris116]

2 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

And yet we still get the demanding "Gimme" brigade abusing staff whose invidious task it is to advise that no trains are running.  

 

I remember working for London Underground on the day the Underground was bombed (7/7). 98% of the passengers accepted why we had no trains and thanked me for the help I gave them in getting to their destination. Sadly, there were the inevitable few who thought their journey was more important than the safety of everyone else! Best one got very annoyed that trains were not running through the bombed area as we should have alternative arrangements available for situations like this! 

[boxbrownie]

52 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

An operational decision probably made at the highest level between the operators and NR having regard to the forecast  at the time the decision was made.  At that time the warning level would have been Amber.  With plans made and public advised (albeit late into the evening) accordingly plans were stuck with.  And the weather played nice until 10am too.    

Indeed, the red warning for the South East was given at 4am Friday morning……when the top bods are all tucked up in their luxury feather duvets 

[Gwiwer]

25 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

Indeed, the red warning for the South East was given at 4am Friday morning……when the top bods are all tucked up in their luxury feather duvets 

And by which time the early turn train crews due to work (and who had hopefully checked their emails before retiring to bed on Thursday evening) were either already at work or on their way.  As were some station and other staff.  

 

The next question which arises is then whether it is easier to change the entire train-plan and crew rosters at zero notice or to play on and make the best of it.  

Edited February 19, 2022 by Gwiwer

[boxbrownie]

1 minute ago, Gwiwer said:

 

 

The next question which arises is then whether it is easier to change the entire train-plan and crew rosters at zero notice or to play on and make the best of it.  

How did that go? 

[Gwiwer]

1 minute ago, boxbrownie said:

How did that go? 

That jury is unable to attend court owing to weather-related train disruption

 

They'll be out once they have arrived and read the case papers   

 

In all honesty had it been my call I may well have made the same decision - start service based upon the expectation of favourable weather for several hours and see how things develop.  What cannot be predicted is precisely how and when a weather front will arrive.  Eunice was later than expected by around an hour.  Which helped the folk of the south-west and Severn estuary because she didn't come in on the tide but after it had peaked.  One or two of us were starting to wonder what the fuss was about when the wind picked up .....  It was my radio call to control that first alerted everyone to the imminence of the storm as I spotted empty ballast bags blowing across the tracks.  It takes a fair blow to lift one of those let alone have it airborne above the railway.  

 

That wind could have picked up steadily over time and still reached the force it did but with less devastating effects.  Instead it slammed into us (and probably many other areas) in a moment and brought trees over and lifted anything which wasn't nailed down.  And a good deal of debris which had previously been nailed down too.  Wind varies.  A mile away it could have been different.  Wind force can be predicted very accurately these days but the precise timing and strength of gusts cannot.  

[Dunsignalling]

Always a dilemma.

 

Whether it's better to stop anybody setting out, and then the storm is less than forecast! Or not!

 

The instinct is always to run what can be, but then you run the risk of passengers getting stranded half way or unable to get home later.

 

John

[Davexoc]

But whenever you make the call to stop, there will always be some who get stranded at work. We work around the clock these days, not just 9-5, so there is never a good time to curtail services....

[Dunsignalling]

13 hours ago, Davexoc said:

But whenever you make the call to stop, there will always be some who get stranded at work. We work around the clock these days, not just 9-5, so there is never a good time to curtail services....

Speaking as someone who did work that way, I agree. I was fortunate in that my own shift-working mainly took place within walking distance of home. Had things got bad enough to strand me in the box, my relief wouldn't have got in anyway!

 

I'm not sure I'd want to rely on anything but my own transport under these kind of conditions, and then not without taking additional precautions. My current car has 4WD so should get me home better than most, but in winter I carry a sleeping bag and a few provisions in case of stranding. (FYI, never a Scout). 

 

John

 

 

Edited February 20, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[The Stationmaster]

20 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

Always a dilemma.

 

Whether it's better to stop anybody setting out, and then the storm is less than forecast! Or not!

 

The instinct is always to run what can be, but then you run the risk of passengers getting stranded half way or unable to get home later.

 

John

Having had to plan for such things on more than one occasion it is far easier to criticise what has been planned than it is to plan it.  Just as it is far easier to say you should have planned to chop the service at whatever time than it can be to decide at what time you will chop the service.   This whatever you do might be right but equally it might be wrong but always the guiding principle used to be that you tried to run what you sensibly could run to provide the bets level of service in the citrcumstances.

 

Don't forget that in many special service/service reduction emergency planning situations the planner is often trying to hit a moving target while providing what he (and no doubt any commercial input) hoped would be the best they sensibly could do.  Planning an emergency train service - frequently overnight before the 'day of the race' - is very much like playing three-dimensional chess but with a lot more imponderables and there are far more people incapable of doing that than there are of those who can do it.  

[Dunsignalling]

TBF, under most "exceptional circumstances" it'll be impossible to devise a solution that doesn't make matters worse for somebody however well it may work overall.

 

John 

[RJS1977]

In fact, almost by definition an emergency timetable will be worse for some - if not all. If the emergecny timetable was an improvement, they'd be using it all the time!

[The Stationmaster]

In the good bad old days of stick & string signalling (aka semaphore signalling) and reliable weather there was usually one 'emergency' that could be prepared for in advance and that was a 'black service' timetable for times of good old 'pea-souper' fogs especially for the London suburban area.  Not only were such timetables prepared in advance they were even available as public timetable leaflets in some areas.

 

But there is one big problem with pre-planned emergency timetables - ideal if you can start off with one first thing in the morning and run it all day.  but if you have to changeover to it, or from it,  part way through the day it is of little use because you then have to replan on the hop just as you would for any other unplanned/unexpected emergency.  there was - as a working document only, no public times, the near infamous CP 1 (Contingency Plan 1) for the elctrified WCML south of Stafford/Birmingham/Rugby to be into into operation if the wires descended to the ground and no power happened to be available.  It was based heavily around diversions to paddington and i think there were even a few instances of the MML being intended for some sort of replacement service.  A mighty document which covered the entire working day - except that every time it needed to be used it didn't work, usually because the resources intended to be used were in the wrong place or didn't exist at all (and probably never had existed).   I remember one occasion when it was decided to introduce it following a 'wires down' incident south of Rugby a train stood at New Street for over an hour beyond its booked departure time to Paddington waiting for a loco and someone to drive it.  In the end it only got as far as Oxford where it was terminated because it was running so late it would miss its booked back working from Paddington.

[Dunsignalling]

29 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

In fact, almost by definition an emergency timetable will be worse for some - if not all. If the emergecny timetable was an improvement, they'd be using it all the time!

The best one can hope for is a "least worst" result that is less chaotic than what might have ensued from carrying on regardless and attempting to firefight each incident as it arose....

 

A case of coordinating limited resources rather than just watching them get used up piecemeal to little effect.

 

John

 

 

[Ramblin Rich]

A few photos from last Saturday 26th February 2022. Line closed to traffic to allow works on seaward platform. Removing the old platform supports, infilling and relaying the surface. New walkway beyond at same level as rest of the sea wall walkway. Hopefully this will be reopening to foot traffic at the end of March.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hadn't realised until finding this viewing spot that the up line platform is somewhat shorter than the down line. Obviously this dates from the time that there was a small goods yard here, but it seems strange the platform has never been extended since.

 

The outflow of the Dawlish Water stream has been re-directed north of the original route, so that the area around the outflow can be rebuilt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The existing sections of sea wall were doing a good job of deflecting a rather rough sea!

 

 

 

Distant view of the area from Lea Mount

 

 

And towards Red Rock (edit - correction Langstone Rock) from above Coastguard Cottages showing the sea state

 

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Ramblin Rich
replacing images 3/4/22

[Miss Prism]

Great pics.

[D826]

Great pics Rich but please not "Red rock" - it's the  Langstone  Rock - please humour the geographical pedant in me.  

 

Best regards

 

Matt (who spent many a happy hour on the Langstone Rock).

[Gwiwer]

5 minutes ago, D826 said:

please not "Red rock" - it's the  Langstone  Rock

Home to the Red Rock Cafe   

 

[D826]

Indeed Gwiver.

 

Last time I was there- a couple of years ago taking my old Ma for a stroll down memory lane. it was called the Rocca Rossa cafe or something like that.

 

Even those allusions of semantics don't make South Devon the Amalfi Coast ....not even the GWR publicity department tried that one.

 

I get very particular about place names.  Especially since, when I were a lad, there was a platelayers hut at the Langstone Rock, (lineside), not a cafe.  If its good enough for the Ordnance Survey, it's good enough for me.  Mind you, I get ratty about the 3 words georeferencing for the UK on the basis that anyone worth their salt should be able to give a 6 digit OS map reference.  Being able to read a map maybe isn't the necessary skill it used to be.  (See, I'm stuck in old git mode, perhaps I need to reboot).

 

Yours tongue in cheekedly Matt Wood- residing not far from a place we love to call - 

 

Saint Evenage, or just, 'the nidge'.

 

 

40 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Home to the Red Rock Cafe   

 

IGreat pics Rich but please not "Red rock" - it's the  Langstone  Rock - please humour the geographical pedant in me.  

 

Best regards

 

Matt (who spent many a happy hour on the Langstone Rock).

Edited March 1, 2022 by D826
Old gitedness!

[Gwiwer]

45 minutes ago, D826 said:

I get ratty about the 3 words georeferencing for the UK on the basis that anyone worth their salt should be able to give a 6 digit OS map reference.

I agree but there is a generation or two younger than some of us who have never learned that.  It's all GPS and if you can't do it on a mobile phone you throw your toys out of your pram.  

 

47 minutes ago, D826 said:

If its good enough for the Ordnance Survey, it's good enough for me. 

To a large extent yes but even the OS aren't perfect.  One of my pet peeves is "Carn Galver" (as on their maps) on the moors of Penwith which, correctly, is Carn Galva.  Backalong some researcher asked what that summit was called and wrote it down phonetically.  

 

[corneliuslundie]

Indeed. I cannot find it now but I recently came across an old an OS map with the same place spelled differently in different places - the village and the station if I remember correctly. But I too shall stick to OS maps and grid references.

Jonathan

[Ramblin Rich]

2 hours ago, D826 said:

Great pics Rich but please not "Red rock" - it's the  Langstone  Rock - please humour the geographical pedant in me.  

 

Best regards

 

Matt (who spent many a happy hour on the Langstone Rock).

You are right, I was using a bit of shorthand there. I'll go back and add a correction.

[jcredfer]

1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

I agree but there is a generation or two younger than some of us who have never learned that.  It's all GPS and if you can't do it on a mobile phone you throw your toys out of your pram.  

 

To a large extent yes but even the OS aren't perfect.  One of my pet peeves is "Carn Galver" (as on their maps) on the moors of Penwith which, correctly, is Carn Galva.  Backalong some researcher asked what that summit was called and wrote it down phonetically.  

 

 

17 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

Indeed. I cannot find it now but I recently came across an old an OS map with the same place spelled differently in different places - the village and the station if I remember correctly. But I too shall stick to OS maps and grid references.

Jonathan

 

Those are not the only OS deviations from reality and [almost all] are deliberate, so that copyright can be identified / proved. I used to take A Level PE pupils to the Welsh mountains near to Abergavenny, where a Cairn was marked.  The real lesson, of course, was asking them for proof of their conclusion, that it was not actually there and a nod to copyright, too.

 

 

[PhilJ W]

6 minutes ago, jcredfer said:

Those are not the only OS deviations from reality and [almost all] are deliberate, so that copyright can be identified / proved. I used to take A Level PE pupils to the Welsh mountains near to Abergavenny, where a Cairn was marked.  The real lesson, of course, was asking them for proof of their conclusion, that it was not actually there and a nod to copyright, too.

The AA were the worst offenders for copying OS maps. Until the OS sued them for breach of copyright and it cost the AA two million pounds.

[Chris M]

Langstone Rock was of course made by the South Devon Railway. It was just part of the cliffs until Brunel came along.

[D826]

As were Kennaway, Coryton, Phillot, Parsons and Clerks tunnels   Chris. 

 

Whether in the fullness of time Sprey point disappears in some new route alignment we shall see.  

 

I'm looking forward to walking the sea wall at Dawlish again, but progress will be tinged with memories and ghosts of dead relatives. (And of long gone traction and trains - especially goods, particularly the Milks- distinctive sound they made and always an impression of weight and speed).

 

Matt W

Edited March 2, 2022 by D826