Today is a sad day. I fell in love with Dawlish in Devon many years ago. I have had holidays there, stopped off there en route and had days there while staying elsewhere just to wander along the sea wall and do a bit of train enthusing. There is nowhere else in Britain that I know of that gets you so close to such a variety of rolling stock.
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| Dawlish as I know and love it - 67008 hauls a 12 car train westbound |
One of the attractions of Dawlish is seeing the waves crash over the sea wall - really spectacular, and Virgin had to change the design of the intakes in their Voyagers to cope with the salt water after one became stranded during a storm.
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| The spectacular side of Dawlish as a Cross Country Voyager gets a soaking. |
But today it proved a storm too many as the ground underneath the line at Dawlish was totally washed away and the line is now basically suspended in mid air. Lord knows how long it will take to repair but I'll be surprised if it's by summer. This has effectively cut off West Devon and Cornwall and the A30 is going to be a well worn road for the next few months. A sad day and I hope the line can be rebuilt to resemble its former glory.
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| The line, path and some of the road just gone., washed away by a storm so powerful it beggars belief |
All pics readily available on Google. If anyone objects to any of the pics let me know and I'll remove them.
Such a shame to see something like this. Lets hope they develop a sense of urgency to fix it.
ReplyDeleteNotwork Rail are saying 4 - 6 weeks. With the forecast saying there is a conveyor belt of storms heading our way for the foreseeable future I'll believe that when I see it.
ReplyDeleteFour to six weeks? Haha dream on Network Rail, as if that will happen!
Deletewhat is also concerning,is the massive hole right by the house at the back,if that gets any worse with more storms expected,that building could fall away taking others with it,no doubt fall forwards
ReplyDeleteI don't hold out too much hope for that house to be honest with more severe weather forecast - they said tonight there could be a continuous procession of these storms for the next 6 weeks.
ReplyDeleteAs more storms are due,this must prevent Network rail from attacking the massive problem there,i hope it doesn't happen,they may find that they will have house rubble to contend with if they can't shore up in time.
DeleteVery sad day indeed about Dawlish, I have just been watching Transport Questions in the House of Commons this morning and they are looking at it.
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