Maybe if HS2 was scaled back then a tiny amount of money could be spent on the south west? Radical idea i know, but a diversionary line plus some small speed improvements NTA to Plymouth, say upto 75mph would make a huge difference to Cornwall and Plymouth.
HS2 is not a pot of money so there's nothing to plunder. It's an investment against a defined payback in the future. The running of the south devon mainline is funded by passenger receipts and the transport department budget dished out by the treasury.
I would argue it is becoming harder not to justify it. It is becoming clear that long term traction on the route will not be able to cope with winter storms. West Devon and Cornwall cannot be cut off each time the weather is bad.
Not now it isn't...
I think he meant poorest parts of the UK?
Yes. I think it comes from a Daily Mail article here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...amilies-Wales-Cornwall-Europes-worst-off.html
They arent cut off. They are put on buses which arent appreciably slower are they?
They are, embarrassingly, faster for a lot of journeys
A sensible Dawlish Avoiding Line (DAL) would either include a complete new-build section between Plymouth and Newton Abbott facilitating higher speeds or avoid Newton Abbott altogether and run direct to Exeter in as straight a line as possible. (See post 90) Any DAL must do double duty: be both a reliable 365 days a year railway and a modern fast route between two large conurbations.
It isnt really a Dawlish Avoiding Line though (in financial terms) as the current line will still need expensively maintaining unless the coast towns are happy losing their services and someone else takes on the cost of the sea wall. This means the business case must absolutely suck!
It would be possible to split the line into two branches: Newton Abbott - Teignmouth and Exeter to Dawlish Warren, and avoid needing to maintain the expensive bit except that the railway line and its sea defences also provide the main sea defences for Dawlish town, so NR would also need to somehow convince the Environment agency or similar to take that off its hands, which also seems unlikely.
Precisely, so the only option for GWR is to fix the trains, - because citing the design shortfalls of the 802s as a justification for yet more new trains for the franchise is hardly likely to get any support.
And even that is tricky for those units supplied through the Intercity Express Programme (IEP) as the franchise contract — or whatever the current version is called — requires that GWR uses the trains supplied by Agility Trains West. I have no idea what leverage GWR has on Agility/Hitachi to put things right as it is not a normal customer/supplier relationship. Apart from, that is, the loss of the payments for the non-supply of those diagrams or part thereof.
Global warming and all that, we are likely to see an increase in stormy winter weather.
Oh well, why not just close the railway and replace it with a fleet of coaches then??!
True, but the point still remains it is one of the poorest parts of Europe, and with the way inflation is going, it ain't getting any richer!
From an environment point of view, the solution with the lowest carbon emissions would be to fix the 80X trains (on the assumption that regardless if there was or was not a new route, it is these trains that would run). Building a new railway route to replace an existing one is not exactly a low carbon solution unless it results in taking a substantial amount of traffic off the road network.
Yeah, but how much notice does the current government take of the voters in this area? If the answer is ‘not much’, I don’t see anything changing anytime soon.
A look at a map showing the contours of that area will show how tricky that would be, unless rack-assisted. Any link along that sort of alignment would have to be tunnelled. The section past Dawlish isn't all that slow, 75mph, with faster sections either side so it's not going to save very much time either. The really slow sections are all west/south of Newton AbbotRun it round the back of Dawlish & Teignmouth if you can then, build the stations there instead. I'm not sure if that's an actually feasable alignment if you want any decent speed, but it'd be faster than the current one. If the inhabitants of Dawlish & Teignmoutn complain then ask them if they want stations at all - they can have stations or everyone else gets a faster alignment. The inhabitants to the east & north of Exeter would dearly love some stations
Yes, it looks very blue for the 2019 General Election result:
Yes sadly only Plymouth and Exeter remain the voice of reason throughout the greater South west, although id be shocked if the map still looks like that after the next election. The tories are so preoccupied worrying about losing the red wall seats in the north they haven't noticed how unpopular they have become in the south! They really should pay more attention to the pressing issues down here as they are going to lose alot of seats.