The Dawlish Débâcle
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- A compilation of television newsreel and documentary clips, recording the disastrous breach of the railway's sea wall at Dawlish, the subsequent eight-week blockade and the triumphal reopening of the line in 2014.
The engineering work is rightly given prominence but it is not overlooked that there was feverish activity behind the scenes as controllers dealt with the unprecedented disruption. Hardy passengers have their say, too.
Also covered are the inspections of the line across the flooded Somerset Levels; the relining of Whiteball Tunnel; the removal by road of H.S.T. power cars and trailers to and from Laira Depot; and the loading of logs at Exeter Riverside Yard.
The recordings were made originally on magnetic tape. They were transferred to D.V.D., uploaded to the computer and converted to MP4. The eighty minutes were edited and divided into five-dozen segments using Movie Maker.
One of the great strengths of the British railway system was its route diversity. All the effort and expense in the ten years since the débâcle has been devoted to reducing the vulnerability of the main line, while not one chain of an alternative route has been built.
www.teignrail....
Correction: The presenter at 11:55 is Andy Breare, not Justin Leigh.
It's ironic really, apart from the now ongoing resilient works at Dawlish, the old LSWR line via Okehampton and Tavistock could have probably been rebuilt by now, when you think of the billions of money that has gone into building and wasted on the white elephant, HS2. At the time of looking into alternative routes, Network Rail's preferred route is the line via Okehampton. They've rebuilt the line back up to Okehampton on time and under budget, Network Rail own the additional track up to Meldon Viaduct. Apart from building a new viaduct at Meldon, the existing being too weak, the track bed is already in-situ, there are a few obstacles, a number of old stations are now private residences and the line at Tavistock has been built over, but this is not insurmountable. Apart from an alternative route to the South West, this line would provide Rural Devon communities with modern and adequate transport facilities, which disappeared in the late 1960's, it's about time this was put right.
The five miles of new trackwork to reconnect Tavistock to the rail network from Bere Alston at least now seems to be in the planning stages, with talk of cash being released after the collapse of the HS2 plans north of Birmingham. Lets hope that 'planning' is not all they do here. The success of the Okehampton line, with over half a million passenger trips in the two years since reopening must also be a huge incentive for further reopenings, including the Okehampton to Tavistock connection.
@@frglee Meldon Viaduct was assessed in 1990 as being too weak to carry trains & the rails were removed. It is a significant obstacle to the re-opening of the line & would need to be replaced before trains could run on the line. Meldon Viaduct is also a scheduled monument.
😂 David Cameron said "this must never happen again" and "we should look in to a second route"I've paraphrased but 😂😂😂😂now he is secretary of state for the foreign office😮I shudder at what money has been wasted in faffing about with HS2 which could have been spent on the South West....of course the South West is an economic drain so no chance.As for DC 🤦♂️
Oh god.
@@perrydebell1352 If delisting the existing Meldon Viaduct would enable the line to be reinstated then so be it. Reinstating the line is more important than preserving a bit of old iron!
This is why the north Devon route should be reopened, I'm sure the people of tavistock would welcome the line being reopened so they could get to Plymouth or Exeter,
really, when you look at the damage, it's pretty impressive that they repaired it within 8 weeks.
I worked as a surveyor in Civil Engineering and did some freelance work on the North Wales Coast Road between Penmeanmawr and Llanfairfechan. Boulder armor was placed on the beach to break up heavy seas and to lessen erosion. I do not understand why the beach at Dawlish has not been similarly armed.
This was also used at Minehead and Scarborough to protect the coast, however the tide does not go out very far at this point on the Devon coast and one of Dawlish’s tourist spots is the beach of which there isn’t a lot to start with. Good point though and eventually this may happen if it gets the battering it’s had since being completed.
I’m convinced that there was a body politic against reinstating the Oakhampton route. The Dawlish route was undoubtedly ‘engineered’ in more ways than one!
Why is this called a débâcle , it was a success 🤔
@@dougmccoy100
IIRC NR's quote for the Okehampton route full reinstatement was £950M (say £1.25BN today). To make a cost/benefit case the route would have to generate sufficient year-round traffic in its own right. As a diversionary route avoiding Dawlish for trains to/from upcountry:
(a) the Dawlish route would have to be 'unavailable' (either planned or emergency) fairly frequently through each year,
(b) All trains have to change ends at Ex St D, and Cornwall trains also at Plymouth, each reversal adding (guesstimate) 12min to the standard station call times,
(c) The Okehampton route between the two cities is six miles longer than the 52 miles via Dawlish. The Oke route would need to be specced for highest possible linespeeds so that the effects of (b) are minimised.
It seems from reopening proposals elsewhere, West Devon will only get the whole line back in exchange for thousands of extra new houses and business parks. These can only happen if 'the price is right' for developers to contribute and if there are enough good jobs for all the new residents to fill.
@@mikejones-go8vzThey successfully reopened the route yes, but it remains an ongoing potential problem for the future until they get an alternative route sorted out.
I read that Brunel didn’t intend that to be the main route, Tavistock, Okehampton was meant to be.
Brunel was engineer to the South Devon Railway and it was his job to build the line that eventually went to the far west and served the fashionable resort of Torquay.
As one who remembers riding the route north and west of Dartmoor, I feel it would have been a great shame if another company had not eventually built the second main line to Plymouth.
Nothing changes, Dawlish has always been battered in winter storms and the railway has always suffered even in the days of Westward Television.
Not the case.
The avoiding line needs rebuilding as should never have closed. That way we avoid this sort of thing again in the future.
Had they only mothballed the South Western line as a strategic reserve...
Indeed. In Germany it was decided to leave trackwork of closed lines for many years in place in case reopening was needed. Here in the UK there was always an ungodly haste to rip the trackwork out, often starting within weeks of a line closure.
Since then, the line is much improved.and safer for all😊
I normally watch any content about British railways with glee but honestly, this is the most overhyped load of rubbish. Quite true to say Britain’s weather is out of control. It always has been. We have never controlled the weather.
The costs of trying to maintain the Dawlish route defy logic. Why do battle with rising sea levels and intensifying winter storms when it makes more sense to reinstate the inland route?
@@dougmccoy100institutional thinking and throwing good money after bad
Because the inland route would not serve all the towns along the coast! Duh!! It's not just about getting to Exeter! @@dougmccoy100
This is why don’t build your tracks on weak ground on a costal shoreline without removing the weak materials and switching it with much stronger materials, as this video shows what happens when you over estimate natural.
My first grand son was born in February 2014 in Cornwall. I traveled from Somerset to Cornwall by car and I came back by train and coach. Got the coach from Plymouth to Exeter. It was fine.
Billions spent on HS2 from Birmingham to London, a journey route which already has an existing service, yet nothing for a fully operable alternative route down to the far reaches of Cornwall. Absolutely disgusting!
This is the main railway line down to Cornwall and likely to happen again at the sea in Dawlish in the future.
Sadly the new wall will hold but, the waves still come over plus this is just a small section of 4 to 5 miles of crumbling coastline. The Oakhampton route must now be an option.
Route should never have been closed,
Should not be that hard to do... Much of the track bead is still there.
@@TheMateriaalkunde I understand there's talk of the line from Plymouth to tavistock being put back, but I can't understand why oakhampton to tavistock is being left out it's said that the viaduct won't stand trains over it, so why not build a new one next to it, a survey was done on the trackbed and there's not really a lot needing done,
@@TheMateriaalkunde Alot of the track bed has been built on? So it will be harder to restore it.
@@SBRailways1992 The only reason that so many disused lines can’t be easily or cheaply restored is because the track bed wasn’t protected in case of future need. One has to assume that the politicians of the time were so beguiled by the Road transport lobby that they conveniently ignored such ideas?
Crazy place to put a railway line in the first place‼
Crazier still to leave it as the only surviving one, and close two alternatives!
Absolutely ludicrous location for a rail line.
When was the British weather ever under control ?
I’m a bit confused. People commenting seem not to know the problem was solved some time ago. A new sea wall did the trick.
there should be two new rotes, a tunnel for fast trains to Newton abbot, and a northern route for stopping trains. Then, you could build a new double track to plymouth to separate slow and fast trains. more better trains & more resilience.
My goodness! This is quite the problem! I had known it was complicated.
"Bury the line underneath the repair" -- that'll bollox up some Archaeologist in 200 years' time.
The manufacturers' names embossed on the rails and sleepers will be a giveaway🤣
Archaelogists are unlikely to have access in 200yrs. If they did railways are well recorded. 2000 yrs might present a problem.
Looking at the critical failure even from the perspective of a destroyed structural sea wall, this was a very nasty problem. Add to that both the requirements of a very busy rail plus road link built on top of it, this would have hit the structural team hard.
Even the fate of the temporary solution (with shipping Containers filled with hard core) you can see how much damage the waves can cause. In retrospect, repositioning the whole line, may have been the only long term solution, but that would have involved a whole new line design and profound problems for people living on this coastline.
I did work in heavy civil engineering decades ago. But never on transport links or coastal sea defences, they require amazing skill and the work can be very high pressure, because of site access and vulnerability. This project had ALL the possible major problems, plus fantastic time pressure and no way to plan ahead in fixing it. What a project.
In the life of the wall, the more years that passed without a major breach, the more complacency developed. Before 2014, Network Rail was saying that no problems were foreseen. Now it is arguably spending too much on the weakest points of a generally vulnerable route.
The video was put together as a record of the event and of the triumphal resumption of service.
Questions, criticism and analysis will be published separately on my web pages.
@@exeterteignvalleyrailway6713
Quite rightly, the immediate response to organise and then complete the sea wall's reinstatement plus the highest-priority cliff face works in such a short time was a triumph worth. Equally relevant is all the follow-up work in the nearly nine years since then to strengthen the sea wall and stabilise the cliff faces further. How long until this more robust railway fails the "once in 100 years storm" test no one knows, but at least the effort and budget put into it killed off any past "complacency"!
No mention has been made of the closed route via Heathfield from Exeter to Newton Abbot. Reopening this would provide an alternative to the sea wall route via Dawlish. It would be nice to see the Okehampton - Tavistock route reopened too, but reinstating the Heathfield line would alleviate the problem.
The inland diversionary route is covered in detail here: www.teignrail.co.uk/political-campaigning.php#dawlishdebacle
Why were the men not roped together, when they went there at high tide?
What I’m trying to understand why nobody thought that building a railroad practically on the coastline was going to be problematic….not that I’m anyway an expert on engineering far from it,but one would think that there had to be somebody who could recognize the inherent problems coastal railroads would face particularly along a beachfront…I’ll admit I could be terribly wrong and I’m not trying to offend anyone but I’m simply staggered by what looks like a lack of foresight for what is (at least to an ignorant peasant as myself )an obvious engineering problem from the start…..(scratching my head)
Brunel, the world famous civil engineer, looked at the range of hills that stands between Exeter and Newton Abbot and decided that a level estuarine and coastal route, serving more settlements, was preferable.
He judged that it would be little troubled by the sea, as the prevailing wind was south-westerly and strong south-easterlies were rare.
He also judged that sand cover would protect the wall and keep wave action to a minimum.
On the whole, the line has been quite reliable. Severance wasn't such a problem when there were two diversionary routes available.
These days, the trains are the weakness, being susceptible even to sea spray.
@@exeterteignvalleyrailway6713 thanks,it makes sense now, I guess it’s just a matter of changing weather patterns,wear and tear of the infrastructure and erosion….again thank you for the insight…
@@exeterteignvalleyrailway6713 We should also point out that he built this section as the atmospheric railway too, and that keeping the line as level as possible was key to the route. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Devon_Railway_engine_houses
Actually, the atmospheric system was chosen because, not relying on adhesion, it was far more suitable than locomotive power for the severe gradients that lay beyond Newton Abbot.
@@exeterteignvalleyrailway6713 Fascinating, I'd always assumed it was the other way! Well, as they say, you learn something new every day.
You may correct me on this, but am I correct in thinking that before the World War II the Great Western had bought land to move part of the route away from the sea?
To be honest, as many have stated, I don't understand why, for the money the Dartmoor line was reopened.
God Bless you Dave for what you do for ALL of us Congrats to ALL
28:10 Track ballast being glued together. They get this idea from ballasting model railway track?
Quite possibly they did.
I live in Buckinghamshire and have witnessed what has & is still being wasted on HS2 … redirect some of this money to reinstate the North Route via Tavistock. I visit Dawlish Warren & Dawlish on a fairly regular basis .. and the alternative route is still needed .. even here in Bucks .. re-instating the link between High Wycombe and Maidenhead (by re-building the the line to Bourne End) would be a far better use of money .. especially with The Elizabeth Line now running through Maidenhead .. this link was actually severed post Beeching!
There was NEVER this fuss when BR had control.
In its last years 'business-sectorised' BR didn't have the money to prioritise/ fuss about Dawlish. BR's successor R*******k was too institutionally incompetent to understand let alone prioritise/ fuss about Dawlish despite having more renewals money to spend.
How Tragic.
'you dont think it could happen to you' what, every day when you look out your from window at the ocean metres away? 😂
the weather is the same now as when it was built. errosion over time is the problem, it needs something earlier to kill the power of the waves
Not true. There has always been storms but in recent years they have been getting more severe and more frequent
This looks like peanuts compared to what the Dutch are doing and have done since the North Sea Flood in '53. I guess it'll be an ongoing battle.
Yeah, the Dutch are the best in the world when it comes to building sea defences.
This video only covers the immediate works done to reopen the line. A helluva lot more has been done since to both wall and cliffs. The wall includes a concave profile to minimise overtopping and is proving effective in recent storms.
Problem is that the cutting edge technology is slower than the original NAVVIES with their picks and shovels!
Yes, they were proper hard working real men. I watched a documentary about the canal navies and it said they consumed around 20,000 calories a day. No HS BS, no bright orange vests, no bureaucratic crap. They just got the job done.
The steel rails are still there... 5 mph - steady as she goes - it'll be fine, ladies and gentlemen hold on to your coffee cups!!!
What happened to that women whose house was hit by the weather?
The house was repaired and reoccupied, I believe.
Great video and great work but, who wrote the narrative… they are using special remote controlled camera… a drone. Came up with an ingenious way to overcome the problem….they put the locos on low loader…
The "narrative" is word for word, as far as I could tell, what is being said.
I agree that putting locos on lorries is not new or ingenious.
Since this was made Dawlish has been ruined by ugly, new sea wall that has about as much artistic merit as a sewage works.
W-w-
WAS THIS RECORDED ON VHS IN 2014????????
adjust the tracking! 😅
Why didnt they move the line inland, surely its cheaper in the long run than repairing it every single year
Who narrated this programme please?
The narrator of the clips taken from Channel Five's documentary, "The Railway," is Paul Copley.
If you think you recognise the voice and watched Downton Abbey, its the chap who played Mr Mason. I recognised the voice and couldn't initially place it.
This is absolute guff.
Face the fact: You will not win against the sea. Just abandon the town bit by bit, and move further inland. This will be an endless concrete and money grave.
Businesses won’t win against nature.😊
Where did you find this? And completely out of date now. The new wall put a stop to that.
Rebuild the line on stilts and let the sea run under the line.
20:45 - no it wasn't. But try telling the GWR that...
Constantly repairing the sea wall is a nice, guaranteed nest-egg. Who would want to replace that with a logical solution that would provide a permanent solution?😉
Absolute lies from Cameron 43:33
Institutional thinking and throwing good money after bad and the conciet of BR selling off the land GWR bought to build an inland route
All the North are shouting welcome to our world with services 😂
2014? Video looks like 1986 😳
Lol @ weather out of control.
There has been some seriously short sighted cuts to the UK Rail Network and we all should know why…..Beeching, Tory Cuts and Privatisation.
11:00 Has me wondering about the organisations of england/ britain. WIth the railway crew having an urgently pressing mission to protect/ rebuild the track..... they appear to be protecting the contents of a private house instead. I agree that assisting folks is a noble venture, but aren't there volunteer emergency services in the UK to assist those in need as a result of disasters?
Tally ho.
In fairness, I think all they were doing was rescuing some things that had fallen into the void, which the next tide would take away.
TREVOR HARRIS GWR TORQUAY PLYMOUTH TOTNES
Debacle 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Cameron, the human jellyfish, who laid down his country for his life.
🌬🌀🌦🌩🌪⚡DAWILSH GWR TORQUAY PLYMOUTH TOTNES
Hippercrits! Thay worrey about the Economiey thay shut dowen the UK for over two years not giving a dame about the economiey or about how people got around? Send for the Chinees thayed have built with in HRs? We BRITISH are still living in the Stone Age has far as building go.s Come to think of it there isant enneything good about my country 😢😢😢?.
Sure the Chinese do things their way and get things done sooner...when in China, complying with what few employment protection and construction safety laws they have. Presumably as a Brit you'd rather have "got Dawlish done" in a week on Chinese wage rates and on your Chinese employer's terms and conditions...and ending up more likely to seriously injured or worse.