An Arup flood risk report issued in 2020 mentioned protection of the railway for 100 years. I think posters expecting or hoping for problems in their lifetimes, to justify another route, will be very disappointed:
A straight line from near Exminster to Newton Abbot would save about ~10km yes.
Neither can I, but a high speed solution doesn't necessarily need to do those things.
As a climate researcher, the error bars on the flooding maps are huge.
Agreed, enables IC services to Paignton to be sped up as well, with frequent locals on the existing line. There will come a time where a new line will be needed no matter the cost, even if Okehampton is rebuilt
Include a connection to Newton Abbot to enable trains to serve Torbay? Is Totnes a significant destination? Alternatively, the new line could cut through Edginswell and a new interchange station with the Riviera line built. Negates the need to serve Newton Abbot or Paignton. It's not as ideal as serving Paignton directly, but it does simplify the service pattern and enables everything to run to Plymouth and serve Torbay as well. The downside is that passengers from Totnes would have to travel to Exeter or Plymouth for IC services which isn't ideal, which makes serving Newton Abbot a good compromise for that connection
A suggestion and a pipedream are not incompatible! Nor is a pipedream not constructive. Incidentally the big boys have come out to play:
For such a short distance on a route that is otherwise barely more than 160kph until you get to Reading, even 200kph seems excessive, absolutely no need to waste money by building it to a higher spec than that. The more challenging the terrain, the more rapidly the cost of high speed grows.
Totnes had 800k passengers last year, significantly more than Torquay.
I would probably just route an hourly Paddington service via Totnes as an extension of the Exeter semi-fast which should become hourly with a fast running non-stop to Exeter. The XC would run non-stop to Exeter. The Bristol-Manchester could be extended to Plymouth stopping at Newton Abbot and maybe Totnes. I imagine most of the XC passengers from Totnes aren't going much further than Birmingham New Street
I have a feeling that political factors would likely force a route with substantial tunnelling whatever we do, at which point the increased cost of high speed seems to fall rapidly.
It is great to see Richard Bowker pontificating about an area he clearly doesn't know - the River Creedy is between Crediton and Cowley Bridge, not between Tavistock to Okehampton. This problem will have to be dealt with anyway if the Barnstaple and Okehampton branches are to remain open.
There's no sensible reason not to build a route for 200-250km/h (especially if most of it is in a tunnel, which means most of the alignment constraints disappear). The additional costs are negligible
Makes logical sense especially for journey time reductions. Exeter-Plymouth is currently around an hour with an average speed of around 50mph. New line should get it to around 30 mins at an average of 100mph. That's 30 mins knocked off every IC train heading that way. Paddington-Plymouth down to 2:39, Paddington-Penzance down to 4:27 for the fastest service, Bristol-Plymouth down to 1:30ish. A journey time saving of that length is worth the cost compared to odd minute saved here or there by upgrading bits of the existing line where possible
Simple station entry/exit figures don't help much to indicate the proportion of lucrative long-distance tickets sold. While there's no doubt substantial local traffic to bigger towns and cities nearby from Totnes, the popularity of the pretty bohemian town and its beautiful hinterland with successful media professionals, actors, artists, business leaders etc likely leads to frequent work journeys to and from London and other large cities.
The A384/5 Totnes to Buckfastleigh route is narrow, twisty, and very busy now, particularly at the Totnes end. Adding A381 South Hams and Totnes town railheading traffic could lead to much worse congestion at busy times, and accessing Buckfastleigh via local bus networks is far less practical than Totnes. There have been proposals for a further town bypass to relieve the previous Totnes bypass. That might extend to Dartington to parallel the worst section of the A385, but it could be extraordinarily expensive with the river, railways to cross, passing through very sensitive areas on popular walking routes, in a town known for strong environmental activism...
Stations | 2024/5 Million Pax/Yr |
Paignton | 0.7 |
Torquay | 0.5 |
Torre | 0.4 |
Branch Total | 1.6 |
Ivybridge | 0.2 |
Totnes | 0.8 |
Newton Abbot | 1.3 |
Mainline Total | 2.3 |
Branch & Main Total | 3.9 |
Exeter St Davids | 2.9 |
Plymouth | 2.7 |
Cities Main Stations | 5.6 |
Probably more difficult to thread out of Exeter by my route, which seems to demand some steep gradient in that vicinity whether it goes under or over the A30.
That could work, with the rail level ~10m above the A30. Would give ~1:40 rising from the existing embankment level near Marsh Barton Rd bridge. The elevated structure would be massive, over a kilometer long and rising to nearly 30m above the fields just before the A30, but it could avoid a lot of demolition and disruption, while remaining well above the flood plain.
What would it get you? From a quick search, the A30 upgrade is £330 mn for nine miles.
I think the Ceneri Base tunnel is closer to the 'short' Dawlish avoiding line in length terms. That finished in 2020 for 2.5bn CHF for ~15km or so.
I think 6 billion to dramatically reduce journey times to London, whilst providing a resilient route that would increase business confidence, in turn increasing investment and prosperity to this part of the world would be money well spent. We can't only invest in the north you know.....
But if someone said they would provide 3 new hospitals and a load of affordable housing etc in Devon and Cornwall for that 6bn, what are people going to vote for?
I hate to be that person, but what would the economic value of that additional investment and prosperity add up to?
OK, but that is taking the populist view that politicians should only make decisions based on what they think will win votes. Rail lines are rarely popular politically. Grow the economy of the south west with a faster more resilient line, and perhaps the additional affordable housing ( at the very least ) will pay for itself.
Admittedly north and east Devon benefit less from increased resilience and a faster rail line, but everything in Plymouth and Cornwall suddenly becomes closer to London, and that can't be ignored. Plymouth could become nearly as close to London (journey time wise) as Liverpool or Manchester and that wouldn't be ignored by business.
Approximately the same number (1.2m) of people live west of Exeter and Barnstaple as north of Edinburgh and Glasgow. You may be right to compare spending in different areas (by different governments), if you look far north enough.
The inflation calculation's result is rather CHF2.5bn in 2000 is.... CHF2.9bn in 2026.
So that’s 5% of the budget to build 0.5% of the network. What isn’t going to be maintained or invested in to free up the cash.
It might not - but the issues aren’t just about intercity journey time. The challenges to factories in Barnstaple aren’t about the ability of execs to travel there - but they are about the time a lorry takes from the midlands and what that does to cost.
To put it in context, it would buy 2 world class hospitals, 20 brand new primary care medical facilities, 20 outstanding secondary schools, enough wind turbines, solar panels and batteries to give every home free energy for thirty years, electrify the entire bus network (with free energy, and run it for free for a decade) and still have enough spare change to pay for every resident of Cornwall to go on a course to learn how to serve a cream tea properly.
Not sure they'd want it spent on a single item, or all spent at all.
