Suggestions for Dawlish avoiding route(s)

[455driver]

So are you quite happy to have Britain's biggest Naval port cut off intermittently without notice from the UK rail network.

How much rail traffic cannot get to the Navy Port at the moment?
How much rail traffic is there nornmally to the Navy Port?

Rather a weak argument isnt it!
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Not for long distance traffic, they don't need to remain open, though. It's a very tiny percentage that go further than 50 miles, except some freight. This 'strategic link' nonsense was a 90s Highways Agency con (which worked) and got all those schemes built. The A30 and A38 are just essentially for local traffic within the two counties. It is rail that provides the strategic link for business travel (same as everywhere else).

Have you seen how many articulated lorries use the A30 and A38?
How much of the consumer goods are normally brought into the South West (Exeter downwards) by train? Answer naff all, it is all brought in by lorry!
Local traffic my arse!

 

[Kali]

While I'd rather enjoy the Dartmoor gap being bridged, surely the only solution is the one that -

* Doesn't leave Torbay to the capriciousness of the weather.
* Doesn't leave the entire SW to the capriciousness of the weather either.

Flooding on and near the Somerset levels cut off both GW routes out of Taunton - any fix in Devon won't do anything there. Not sure if the Culm valley flooded given the flooding elsewhere was enough disruption to render it moot, but that is something that interferes rather more often than disruptions at Dawlish. Surely the solution has to be either

* Build a better sea wall/improved overall sea defences - there are other places in Devon, not least where I am, who have to manage coastal erosion. As has been noted many times, the sea defences aren't just for the railway.

Or ( make that "and", in a long term view ):

* Build a bypass around the sea wall section only. Maybe one day we'll have to abandon Dawlish and Teignmouth partially, but we'd still have a route to Torbay as well as the rest of Devon & Cornwall.

And!

* Upgrade Exeter-Yeovil-Castle Cary as a diversionary route that can at least attempt to handle GW/SW/CC services without collapsing horribly. That is assuming the flooding was between Taunton & Castle Cary, and not Castle Cary and Westbury... ( and assuming there wasn't any flooding between Bath and Westbury, but we're getting a bit out of the way there ). I suspect flooding on the levels might also be a bigger future problem than the sea wall.

I'm going to assume Bere Alston-Tavistock is going to go ahead whatever, so is 20ish ( sorry, forgot the exact number ) miles of effectively new railway to carry Tavistock commuters to Exeter, and Okehampton ones to Plymouth, and be an occasional emergency diversion - which wouldn't cover one of the big population areas of Devon anyway - really a more effective spend than rather less miles of new build which doesn't leave holes in the network? I don't buy it for more than the romance of it, I'm afraid. And I'm someone who's regularily bemoaned the lack of rail left in North Devon...

 

[yorksrob]

More effective than spending hundreds of millions on a new railway which, 90 percent of the time will do nothing more than shave existing journey times by quarter of an hour ? Of course it is.

It‘s about added value as well as just providing resilience for those occasions when the main line is out. How much will it cost to upgrade the Yeovil line to take diversions more effectively ? The loop at Axminster cost a few million didn‘t it so are we talking redoubling ?

The central section between Okehampton and Tavistock is where you‘d get most bang for a couple of hundred million.
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Just to add to that, Evergreen cost £66m to redouble Princes Risborough to Banbury, so we're not talking chicken feed to merely improve an existing route that already has a good service and allows for diversions.

 

[Oscar]

You have to compare how many people will switch from cars to rail as a result of the slightly shorter journey time affecting several large population centres with the number of people who will do so following the re-opening of a line between Okehampton and Tavistock.

As rail and bus subsidies are allocated separately, the question is never asked: would residents of Okehampton and Tavistock prefer a bus service every few minutes with modern buses or an hourly rail service with a limited number of stopping points? Bus services are much cheaper to run and each bus uses much less fuel than a train.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

You have to compare how many people will switch from cars to rail as a result of the slightly shorter journey time affecting several large population centres with the number of people who will do so following the re-opening of a line between Okehampton and Tavistock.

As rail and bus subsidies are allocated separately, the question is never asked: would residents of Okehampton and Tavistock prefer a bus service every few minutes with modern buses or an hourly rail service with a limited number of stopping points? Bus services are much cheaper to run and each bus uses much less fuel than a train.

Do not forget that many car users, many of which are company car drivers, use their vehicle to travel direct from their home abode to their place of employment, without the need for changing en route to achieve this.

 

[Buttsy]

You have to compare how many people will switch from cars to rail as a result of the slightly shorter journey time affecting several large population centres with the number of people who will do so following the re-opening of a line between Okehampton and Tavistock.

As rail and bus subsidies are allocated separately, the question is never asked: would residents of Okehampton and Tavistock prefer a bus service every few minutes with modern buses or an hourly rail service with a limited number of stopping points? Bus services are much cheaper to run and each bus uses much less fuel than a train.

There is also the difference in perception between buses and trains. Those who may take the train would never take a bus...
Some people think that buses are solely for students, the unemployed, chavs, the young and the old...

 

[jmc100]

Here is another interesting web page.

http://www.southwestcoastalgroup.org.uk/cc_future_sealevelrise.html

It would appear that many institutions and agencies have been aware of the problems along the south coast for some time. Many investigations and reports have been produced and commissioned about the south of the country 'sinking' and climate change causing higher levels of the sea at high tides. Couple these factors with southerly or south-westerly storm force weather is a recipe for catastrophe yet very few counter-measures seem to have taken place.

Maybe what we have seen over the last couple of months will force the powers that be into some immediate positive action as it could all happen again next winter - but hoping it will not as this would give some breathing space for some necessary civil engineering projects to take place.

I still think in the long-term, either a high-speed twin-track rail tunnel under Haldon hills or a Teignmouth and Dawlish underground railway project, including underground stations, may be the way to go if no sea wall strengthening projects are forthcoming in the near future.

 

[LateThanNever]

How much rail traffic cannot get to the Navy Port at the moment?
How much rail traffic is there nornmally to the Navy Port?

Rather a weak argument isnt it!

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It's only weak if you think severing the rail connections with the quarter of a million people of Plymouth and the half a million of Cornwall is weak - or perhaps it would be preferable to close down the railway west of Exeter?

 

[D1009]

You have to compare how many people will switch from cars to rail as a result of the slightly shorter journey time affecting several large population centres with the number of people who will do so following the re-opening of a line between Okehampton and Tavistock.

As rail and bus subsidies are allocated separately, the question is never asked: would residents of Okehampton and Tavistock prefer a bus service every few minutes with modern buses or an hourly rail service with a limited number of stopping points? Bus services are much cheaper to run and each bus uses much less fuel than a train.

On what is normally a pro railway forum, I am amazed at the tone of some of the posts opposing the restoration of the line between Bere Alston and Okehampton. Presumably you have something far more important that could be done with the money, such as investment in the road network for example?

 

[Oscar]

There is also the difference in perception between buses and trains. Those who may take the train would never take a bus...
Some people think that buses are solely for students, the unemployed, chavs, the young and the old...

This is the situation in the UK now. It's not really the case in other parts of Europe where local rail and bus services are managed by regional authorities and are seen by the public as part of the same service. With a different approach to public transport planning and a different structure to the bus industry, we could and should change the British attitude to buses. Attitudes towards public transport as a whole seem to be changing, but bus usage is held back by the fragmentation of the sector. Direct rail services will never be able to cater for all journeys. That's why managing connections and bus links better is vitally important for the success of public transport as a whole. Improvements to the bus network across the country could serve many more people than a limited number of rail re-openings. The current total cost of maintaining and operation the railway is around £12bn and government support is around £3bn. Most of this support pays for regional rail services. A lot of the time regional railways are appropriate. However, some of these lines serve very few people. Many proposed re-openings are likely be very detrimental from a financial point of view. Bus subsidies in each county typically total a few million pounds. It would be worth considering how much difference £1bn could make to buses and how many railway lines could be re-opened with this money.

 

[YorkshireBear]

On what is normally a pro railway forum, I am amazed at the tone of some of the posts opposing the restoration of the line between Bere Alston and Okehampton. Presumably you have something far more important that could be done with the money, such as investment in the road network for example?

No just other parts of the rail network.

 

[L&Y Robert]

This is a sort of parable, but don’t worry you Mods, it’s right on topic even tho’ it seems not to be. Once, many years ago when we first moved here we were doing some heavy digging in the garden. My son, lustily swinging the pick-axe, went right through the electricity feed cable between meter (it was out in the garage) and the house. Bang! The big main supply fuse! So no lights, no fridge, no toaster, no washing machine, no nothing. And it was going to take a couple of weeks for them to put in a new cable. But we had another supply to the flat, a little distance away, but on the property. So after a day or two, we ran out a cable from a socket in the flat to a wooden pallet in the kitchen where we could plug in a couple of things – not a lot, but something - a light at least. Ah – what bliss! Lights again, could run the washing machine as well – but not much else. Never mind, we could now manage.
The point here is the huge difference there was to us all between having NO electricity and SOME electricity. Never mind the quality of the temporary feed, the inconvenience of unpluging this before you could plug in that – at least we were operational. Of course in the fullness of time we were re-connected and lived happily ever after.
Remembering all this, my view is that it’s better to have a slow clunky route via Okehampton than no route at all. At least, one is still in business whatever the weather down on the beach!

 

[DavidBrown]

On what is normally a pro railway forum, I am amazed at the tone of some of the posts opposing the restoration of the line between Bere Alston and Okehampton.

Pro-rail doesn't mean anti-road, bus or anything else for that matter - including opinions and debate. In MY opinion, you simply cannot have funding for one transport method dominate over everything else - especially in a rural area like this where for many people the car is the ONLY option, but public transport use is increasing rapidly. You have to cater for both.

What you need to do is look at where the demand is, where the problems are, and where priorities lie. The A303 is congested and dangerous, and needs to be upgraded (unless we start hearing announcements at Exeter St Davids along the line of "The 1330 First Great Western service to London Paddington is delayed by approximately 30 minutes because there's a caravan going slowly in front of us.") But that road investment should not be at the cost of rail investment.

So, where to spend the rail money? Well, avoiding Dawlish is the obvious number one priority, but by what method? The truth is nobody really knows what demand for a train service there is on Dartmoor. One way to roughly find out is to start a daily, hourly Exeter-Okehampton service. If they're well used, then it's definitely worth looking at filling the gap which would allow more local services and long-distance diversions. If there's only one man and his dog on each train, then even as rail enthusiasts you have to admit that throwing money at a service nobody uses is pointless and we'll be better off building a new line between Exeter and Newton Abbot.

 

[The Ham]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-26260053

Further damage to the railway line in Dawlish means it will not be repaired until mid April, Network Rail has announced.

It had originally hoped to complete the repairs by the middle of March but the line suffered more damage on Friday.

A section of the line, which connects Cornwall and most of Devon to the rest of the UK, was destroyed by an earlier storm at the beginning of February.

Network Rail said it was "conscious of the importance" of the railway line.

The predicted date comes just ahead of the Easter Bank Holiday. Good Friday falls on 18 April but the company hopes to "beat" its date.

Patrick Hallgate, route managing director for Network Rail Western, said: "We are all conscious of the importance of this railway to the South West, its economy and the people of Dawlish.

"We are confident that we will have the railway back by mid-April and if we can we will beat that date."

Shipping containers used as a makeshift sea wall in front of the damaged track were almost destroyed on Friday.

Even if NR manage to just beat the reopening of Dawlish date so it's open by the Easter Weekend it may still not be open for all of the school holidays at Easter. Although from what they are saying they are mindful of this and that is when they are aiming to have the line open by.

Just image the political fall out if Cornwall if was still not on the rail network during the whole of the Easter holidays.

 

[DDB]

No just other parts of the rail network.

Ah but the crucial thing is there might be extra money not from the rail or transport budget but from the "money no object" politics demands we must be seen to be do something budget.

This isn't really "money no object" and will only be available for a short period before memories fade.

The Okehampton-Tavistock is particularly attractive on this basis as it should be relatively low cost and quick to do because the alignment is mostly intact and so the time consuming legal bits should be short. There is a chance that a politician that orders it would still be around to take the credit when it opens.

The route has the added benefits of radically improving the links for Okehmapton and Tavistock while not threatening the status of the Dawlish route as the main line, so retaining the political support of the tourist industry of the south Devon coast.

Is there land in Okehmapton that could be developed to pick up more developer funding for the route?

DDB

 

[po8crg]

So, where to spend the rail money? Well, avoiding Dawlish is the obvious number one priority, but by what method? The truth is nobody really knows what demand for a train service there is on Dartmoor. One way to roughly find out is to start a daily, hourly Exeter-Okehampton service. If they're well used, then it's definitely worth looking at filling the gap which would allow more local services and long-distance diversions. If there's only one man and his dog on each train, then even as rail enthusiasts you have to admit that throwing money at a service nobody uses is pointless and we'll be better off building a new line between Exeter and Newton Abbot.

Cosigned.
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The Okehampton-Tavistock is particularly attractive on this basis as it should be relatively low cost and quick to do because the alignment is mostly intact and so the time consuming legal bits should be short. There is a chance that a politician that orders it would still be around to take the credit when it opens.

If they ordered it today, it wouldn't be open for 7 May 2015.

Any opening date after that, and they don't care.

If this had happened last winter, then Okehampton-Tavistock would be announced as funded from Treasury contingency already, because they'd be confident of being able to turn up to a grand opening about six weeks before polling day in the General Election.

 

[HSTEd]

You could always build my proposed high speed line Exeter-Plymouth and then convert the whole Paignton-Plymouth-Exeter route into a light rail line - sort of a supermodern Belgian Coastal Tram thing.

 

[LateThanNever]

This is a sort of parable, but don’t worry you Mods, it’s right on topic even tho’ it seems not to be. Once, many years ago when we first moved here we were doing some heavy digging in the garden. My son, lustily swinging the pick-axe, went right through the electricity feed cable between meter (it was out in the garage) and the house. Bang! The big main supply fuse! So no lights, no fridge, no toaster, no washing machine, no nothing. And it was going to take a couple of weeks for them to put in a new cable. But we had another supply to the flat, a little distance away, but on the property. So after a day or two, we ran out a cable from a socket in the flat to a wooden pallet in the kitchen where we could plug in a couple of things – not a lot, but something - a light at least. Ah – what bliss! Lights again, could run the washing machine as well – but not much else. Never mind, we could now manage.
The point here is the huge difference there was to us all between having NO electricity and SOME electricity. Never mind the quality of the temporary feed, the inconvenience of unpluging this before you could plug in that – at least we were operational. Of course in the fullness of time we were re-connected and lived happily ever after.
Remembering all this, my view is that it’s better to have a slow clunky route via Okehampton than no route at all. At least, one is still in business whatever the weather down on the beach!

Excellent parable! But I'm not even sure the line is altogether as clunky as it sometimes suggested. Think I read somewhere that a short section of the existing line was authorised for 125mph running!

 

[Bald Rick]

This is a sort of parable, but don’t worry you Mods, it’s right on topic even tho’ it seems not to be. Once, many years ago when we first moved here we were doing some heavy digging in the garden. My son, lustily swinging the pick-axe, went right through the electricity feed cable between meter (it was out in the garage) and the house. Bang! The big main supply fuse! So no lights, no fridge, no toaster, no washing machine, no nothing. And it was going to take a couple of weeks for them to put in a new cable. But we had another supply to the flat, a little distance away, but on the property. So after a day or two, we ran out a cable from a socket in the flat to a wooden pallet in the kitchen where we could plug in a couple of things – not a lot, but something - a light at least. Ah – what bliss! Lights again, could run the washing machine as well – but not much else. Never mind, we could now manage.
The point here is the huge difference there was to us all between having NO electricity and SOME electricity. Never mind the quality of the temporary feed, the inconvenience of unpluging this before you could plug in that – at least we were operational. Of course in the fullness of time we were re-connected and lived happily ever after.
Remembering all this, my view is that it’s better to have a slow clunky route via Okehampton than no route at all. At least, one is still in business whatever the weather down on the beach!

Excellent story. Although the alternate supply was already there and working, and I hope the cable didn't cost £250m

 

[TheKnightWho]

Cosigned.
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If they ordered it today, it wouldn't be open for 7 May 2015.

Any opening date after that, and they don't care.

If this had happened last winter, then Okehampton-Tavistock would be announced as funded from Treasury contingency already, because they'd be confident of being able to turn up to a grand opening about six weeks before polling day in the General Election.

Except that's not true. If ordered today it would be well underway by the time the election comes around. They can certainly still claim credit for it afterwards, and if it was cancelled by another party that would be good ammunition for them.

There's certainly value in them signing it off now.

 

[yorksrob]

As rail and bus subsidies are allocated separately, the question is never asked: would residents of Okehampton and Tavistock prefer a bus service every few minutes with modern buses or an hourly rail service with a limited number of stopping points? Bus services are much cheaper to run and each bus uses much less fuel than a train.

As far as I'm aware, they've not been asked whether they want their railway back yet either (at least not by anyone with any power to make the investment decision).

One of the problems with bus services is that people are loathe to take into a account a bus link in terms of being willing to invest in an area (for business for example) where as they are more likely to do so for a fixed link. This is because they take the physical infrastructure as a commitment to continue running the service into the future. Therefore, the "fixed" link has more of an effect in regenerating the area. This is one of the justifications for NGT in Leeds (the trolleybus).

 

[Kettledrum]

Ah but the crucial thing is there might be extra money not from the rail or transport budget but from the "money no object" politics demands we must be seen to be do something budget.

This isn't really "money no object" and will only be available for a short period before memories fade.

The Okehampton-Tavistock is particularly attractive on this basis as it should be relatively low cost and quick to do because the alignment is mostly intact and so the time consuming legal bits should be short. There is a chance that a politician that orders it would still be around to take the credit when it opens.

The route has the added benefits of radically improving the links for Okehmapton and Tavistock while not threatening the status of the Dawlish route as the main line, so retaining the political support of the tourist industry of the south Devon coast.

Is there land in Okehmapton that could be developed to pick up more developer funding for the route?

DDB

Building new houses around a re-opened rail link is a sure-fire way to improve the business case, particularly if you require the developer to make significant financial contributions.

 

[yorksrob]

The current total cost of maintaining and operation the railway is around £12bn and government support is around £3bn. Most of this support pays for regional rail services. A lot of the time regional railways are appropriate. However, some of these lines serve very few people. Many proposed re-openings are likely be very detrimental from a financial point of view. Bus subsidies in each county typically total a few million pounds. It would be worth considering how much difference £1bn could make to buses and how many railway lines could be re-opened with this money.

You say so yourself that for every pound spent by the treasury to subsidise the railway, it gets four pounds worth of service. Obviously the less subsidy the better, but that's hardly disastrous. One wonders how many other taxpayer funded services have such a good rate of return. Plus we all know that a large chunk of subsidy goes directly to Network Rail, which in turn concentrates investment towards the trunk routes, so the Regional Railway doesn't look too bad value at all.

I think a one billion fund to reopen some of our missing rail links would be an excellent use of funding.
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One way to roughly find out is to start a daily, hourly Exeter-Okehampton service. If they're well used, then it's definitely worth looking at filling the gap which would allow more local services and long-distance diversions. If there's only one man and his dog on each train, then even as rail enthusiasts you have to admit that throwing money at a service nobody uses is pointless and we'll be better off building a new line between Exeter and Newton Abbot.

I'm not convinced that's the best way. Thinking about the Settle - Carlisle, I'm sure if they'd closed the central section and just run it as two branches, Carlisle to Appleby and Leeds to Settle, each would provide a decent commuter traffic to their termini, but they wouldn't nearly fulfill their potential (compared to today). Certainly you get a lot of people travelling from the North towards Appleby and plenty of people visiting the countryside in between (and they're not all rail enthusiasts gawping at the pretty viaduct by any means)
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Except that's not true. If ordered today it would be well underway by the time the election comes around. They can certainly still claim credit for it afterwards, and if it was cancelled by another party that would be good ammunition for them.

There's certainly value in them signing it off now.

Exactly. Plenty of photo opportunities for MP's in hard hats, playing with levers in JCB's and shaking hands with workmen before the election.

 

[Bald Rick]

Except that's not true. If ordered today it would be well underway by the time the election comes around. They can certainly still claim credit for it afterwards, and if it was cancelled by another party that would be good ammunition for them.

There's certainly value in them signing it off now.

Unfortunately that's not true. No government risk going to give a commitment to build this, or indeed any major project, until it knows roughly how much it is going to cost.

Even if the investigation into an alternative started tomorrow, it would be 3 months at the very best before even a rough idea of cost would be ready, and 12 months before cost detailed enough for Government to say yes or no. Then you could start design and the planning process. That would take not less than another year, and if there was even one objection to the plan, it would take 2 years. Then another 6 months to take possession of the land and mobilise.

So realistically, if a very brave Chancellor said 'we'll build it without knowing how much it costs before we start' there wouldn't be a spade in the ground before mid 2017.

 

[yorksrob]

Unfortunately that's not true. No government risk going to give a commitment to build this, or indeed any major project, until it knows roughly how much it is going to cost.

Even if the investigation into an alternative started tomorrow, it would be 3 months at the very best before even a rough idea of cost would be ready, and 12 months before cost detailed enough for Government to say yes or no. Then you could start design and the planning process. That would take not less than another year, and if there was even one objection to the plan, it would take 2 years. Then another 6 months to take possession of the land and mobilise.

So realistically, if a very brave Chancellor said 'we'll build it without knowing how much it costs before we start' there wouldn't be a spade in the ground before mid 2017.

They might have started the Tavistock section by then (phase 1).

 

[Bald Rick]

They might have started the Tavistock section by then (phase 1).

And it would only have taken 11 years+ from feasibility study!

 

[yorksrob]

And it would only have taken 11 years+ from feasibility study!

About time then isn't it

 

[Kali]

More effective than spending hundreds of millions on a new railway which, 90 percent of the time will do nothing more than shave existing journey times by quarter of an hour ? Of course it is.

The central section between Okehampton and Tavistock is where you‘d get most bang for a couple of hundred million.
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Just to add to that, Evergreen cost £66m to redouble Princes Risborough to Banbury, so we're not talking chicken feed to merely improve an existing route that already has a good service and allows for diversions.

You're still proposing to abandon Torbay to the weather, though. What's the cost of upgrading Exeter-Okehampton and Plymouth-Bere Alston/Tavy to handle diversion traffic, ignoring the cost of the centre section for now? surely "feed all Cornwall traffic through a basic branch line" is not a real plan?

I don't particularily care how CC-Yeovil-Exeter is upgraded ( I haven't mentioned total redoubling once, you did that ), it just chokes every time it's used as a diversion at the moment. Given the increasing problems in Somerset and the usual problems in the Culm valley, improving things west of Exeter without looking at east of Exeter at the same time seems a little blinkered.

 

[yorksrob]

You're still proposing to abandon Torbay to the weather, though. What's the cost of upgrading Exeter-Okehampton and Plymouth-Bere Alston/Tavy to handle diversion traffic, ignoring the cost of the centre section for now? surely "feed all Cornwall traffic through a basic branch line" is not a real plan?

I don't particularily care how CC-Yeovil-Exeter is upgraded ( I haven't mentioned total redoubling once, you did that ), it just chokes every time it's used as a diversion at the moment. Given the increasing problems in Somerset and the usual problems in the Culm valley, improving things west of Exeter without looking at east of Exeter at the same time seems a little blinkered.

I don't believe that we are at the stage where the Dawlish Coast route will be lost permanently to the sea. There may come a time when it needs to be permanently diverted, but that isn't yet. It seems to me that the GW route is fine most of the year but it needs back up.

We talk about the "central section" as costing £150 - 200m, but the reality is, that will include the necessary loops and signalling to allow diversions (the fact that the Tavistock branch at present doesn't have any signalling might explain why it is only predicted to cost £26m).

I'm not against improvements East of Exeter, but in reality the route already takes diversions and supports a reasonable service. Yes, I did mention redoubling, but it is the single track nature of the route that prevents us dispatching successions of trains down it. Yes, you could put in more loops, but the one at Axeminster cost £20m, so by the time you've got two of those in, you're at £40m already and you might as well go the whole way.

 

[Graiser]

Quite but this is the first major problem to affect this route since the Beeching days. Until now it's been limited to the odd landslip fixed within days.

No it's not I can remember working on 3 serious breaches in 1986 and 1992 between Parsons and Teignmouth, the big differences then was we were able to move quicker to fill in the breeches quickly with block stone and preventing the up line from being washed out