Great Western Coffee Shop

Information for anyone travelling tomorrow.

There’s is a 50mph blanket emergency speed restriction because of the forecasted high winds. This restriction applies on all lines west of Taunton between 0900 and 1500.

There will also be level one working across the Dawlish Seawall between 0730 and 1030. Haven’t seen anything from CrossCountry yet as to wether they will be running services between Exeter and Newton Abbot.

The wild & lonely Isle o' Barra!

XC tweeted at 2010 this evening

“ Alterations to services on Tuesday 7 November

CrossCountry services will not be able to run between Exeter St Davids and Plymouth until 10:30 tomorrow morning. Alterations are now in journey planners”

They’ve now added this….

“ Our 0627, 0727 and 0927 departures from Plymouth will start at Exeter St Davids

Our 0640 Bristol TM - Plymouth and 0610 Derby - Plymouth will terminate at Exeter St Davids.

GWR will accept CrossCountry tickets until 11am. Sorry if affected”

Presumably "level one working across the Dawlish Seawall" means something along the lines of "with extreme caution"?

Level 1. Trains are accompanied over the seawall by a Network Rail pilotman and run to the pilotmans instructions.

Level 2.  The down line is closed. All services will run over the Up reversible. 

What happened to the "essential requirement" that IETs be able to cope with the severe conditions at Dawlish ?

When this was previously discussed, I recall a respected member of these forums stating that the "essential requirement" only referred to the survival of decorative finishes with no requirement that the trains actually work ! Others stated that this was not the case.

Voyagers were hugely criticised for not  handling Dawlish conditions, and the specifications for the new trains was claimed to include a requirement to cope with these conditions.

So what went wrong ?

As well as west of Taunton, quite a few other blanket 40/50mph speed restrictions are to be enforced from mid-morning in various other places, especially near the coast, and IET’s will be using ‘Dawlish Special Mode’ until mid-afternoon.

It’ll be interesting to see how the new sections of the sea wall cope with today’s storm.  There’s a great video showing recent progress at https://youtu.be/GYTv3R3vs4w

Could be quite a bruising day for performance given those measures and the ever present risk of fallen trees blocking lines and localised flooding.

‘Dawlish Special mode’ is next to useless.

After an engine has shut down after being flooded with sea water it is possible to restart the engine nearly straight away, however, you can only leave in idle mode. If you put any load through the engine it’ll shut down again straight away. Leaving it in idle allows it to dry out.

I once heard Voyagers are supposedly Dawlish proof now but Network Rail still refuse to allow them to run over the Seawall when sea conditions are rough.

1A77 has ground to a halt at Dawlish!

Running in 'Dawlish proof mode', it has been 'killed' by a wave. So much for 'Dawlish Proof'. Nothing going towards Exeter can get passed. Announcement at St David's.... 'We have no idea when the next direct service towards London Paddington will arrive. Please use XC services to Bristol Parkway or London Waterloo services'.

Follow progress of 1A77 on the Sea Breeze Dawlish Beach Cam.

It’s ‘Dawlish Special Mode’…not ‘Dawlish proof mode’.  Though we do have more proof that it doesn’t work.   :-\

Rescue train 1Z99 for 1A77 now immobilised by a wave on the sea wall.

CSL2 Code BLACK declared.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TRAVEL between Newton Abbot and Exeter.

Looking at the webcam you can see why!  Looks like a stupid idea to try rescue it from that direction.  Good to see the bits of the sea wall that have been completed doing a much better job of preventing the waves…bodes well for the future.

The worrying aspect is that it immobilised a train on the UP (i.e inner) track.

That track still currently gets battered when conditions are as bad as they currently are - as can be witnessed on the webcam.

1C70 on the down declared a failure after leaving Teignmouth

I see both that train, and 1A77, have booked calls at Dawlish.

It shouldn’t be difficult to work out that in severe storm conditions, IETs stand little or no chance stopped at a station for a minute or two where they are being hit by waves every ten or so seconds.  Why weren’t those calls removed?  They may well have been ok passing through non-stop as previous services did.

What about the passengers on the drowned trains ?
Was rescue arranged or they still stuck there.

Remind me why the excellent crews who relaid to Okehampton haven't been carrying on their good work to Meldon and beyond, and started from the other end at Bere Alston too ... been talked about long enough!

Just a thought.....OK it's a bit radical....given there's been a bit of warning of this weather, wouldn't it have made sense to run a train service to the station either side of the affected area, and then bus people between these two points, or Exeter if it's more practical?

Before the "yeahbutwhere'sallthebuses" starts, I'm not suggesting a full service, it isn't needed at the moment anyway, but surely it would be better than this chaos?

There were buses on standby at both Newton Abbot and Exeter St Davids this morning and both lots put to use.

A better idea would have been to have had a couple of Castle sets stabled at Newton and St Davids rather than buses. The Castles would have survived the waves.

Agree with you entirely, grahame. Sadly, and I am sure you appreciate all too well, but rather more work would be required that simply relaying the track. Meldon viaduct needs major investment to reinstate trains; plus the trackbed is in private ownership in several places along the line - not to mention the housing estate at Tavistock.

Bearing in mind these strong gales were forecast, as are tides well in advance;
this morning's high tide at over 4 metres high at 0826 at Dawlish was a Spring high tide.

Clearly it would have been prudent to have taken out stops at Dawlish scheduked  by the problematic IETs.
But then who is in overall charge in the South West to make a decision with wide rail industry experience and knowledge these days ?!

As for rescue by a LOCOMOTIVE ..where is the nearest suitable; Crewe?

Some Exeter and north thereof rail passengers who would have used stations between Penzance and Plymouth are known today to have instead driven to Okehampton where the line is proving popular and so far very reliable.

That would have been too embarrassing I suspect. Buses instead of trains during bad weather are just about acceptable "we cant run trains in these conditions, but have done what we could be providing a bus"

Old trains instead of new ones would be hugely embarrassing. "New trains cant work in these conditions, despite this being an essential requirement of the design, but the old ones are fine"

2 out of 3 stranded IETs now moving under own steam (1C70 and 1Z99), 1A77 waiting for 3rd engine to restart.

1A77 now on the move.

Didn't Network Rail judge it to be "expensive but feasible" ? Is the plan to knock down anything in the way? If so, what specifically gets bulldozed?

What I don’t understand is why GWR/Network Rail agreed for the rescue IET to come from Exeter.
They’ve basically had to run the rescue set on the most exposed part of the seawall and then park it there whilst they prepare for coupling allowing it to be battered by the waves. Surely it would have made more sense, and probably more successful, if the rescue set came from Newton Abbot direction?

Agree 100% (as I said in post #15).  One quick glance at that webcam and it was pretty obvious to me that it stood little to no chance!

I think you will find that 2F12 (0917 Paignton to Exmouth) was blocking the UP in the Teignmouth area.

I think that they are still trying to kid themselves that this was a "one off" breakdown, rather than being a defective design that resulted in the rescue unit suffering the same fate as the first one.

A normal breakdown may be resolved by attaching another unit, at either end. Defective design results in both the assisting unit, and a third unit on the other line suffering likewise.

Presumably hitachi will be picking up the bill for all the delays ::)

Sorry, missed that post.


I think that should have been easy to withdraw, you’ve got the crossover at Teignmouth afterall.

BBC spotlight news are reporting on the 18:30pm tuesday evening news

BBC Local news available for 24 hours only

A fantastic video showing just how bad conditions were and the trains involved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa-cZ6V3tRo&t=494s

And it confirms a few things:

1) The down train that failed didn't make its booked call at Dawlish but still succumbed.
2) The new area of strengthened sea wall makes a big difference, but was unable to stop all the sea water from coming on to the tracks, so a rescue from that way may also have been problematic.
3) The rescue train was clearly being hit badly, making rescue from that direction with an IET pretty much impossible and I don't understand why the attempt was authorised.
4) The sea wall needs to be strengthened quite a way east of Dawlish station - further than the Phase Two works currently underway?
5) Conditions were awful!

Frankly it might, IMO, have made more sense to put a block on both tracks and run trains between Penzance / Plymouth to Newton Abbot and then north of Exeter St. Davids. Not terribly convenient but probably a good idea next time.

I had heard yesterday (I forget where) that it was planned to use working by pilotman along the sea wall.
Dave

Absolutely right.

Blocking both tracks at times of high tides and high winds might be the only option. But that would heap EVEN MORE adverse publicity upon the failed IET project.
"We used to have through trains from the far west to London, even in bad weather. But now we have a connecting bus because the new trains dont work in bad weather" That will go down well with Cornish MPs and their voters. So much for new purpose designed trains.

And that presumes that a connecting bus actually works, likely problems include;
No bus because we forgot to book it. Procedures are being reviewed.
Bus cant/wont take cycles or dogs.
No bus available from our supplier. We are looking at alternative providers.
A single small bus cant take the all the passengers from a busy train.
Incoming train is late, bus leaves on time and empty. Never mind there is another one in only a couple of hours.
Bus is delayed and connecting train leaves on time before bus arrives. As above.

To complete the experience change also at Reading, or Plymouth. The whole thing would be a farce.

I say again that Hitachi need to be told "Enough excuses, you made them, you make them work, or replace them"

In an attempt to answer my own question, I came across this blog piece. (https://petercleasby.com/tag/reopening/)

Bear in mind that it is anti-reopening, but it does have some good photos of some of the potential problems and obstacles previously mentioned.

I agree it might have been a better option, especially given the fairly short longevity of the storm itself, though producing enough buses on weekdays when many are doing school runs is far from easy.

Let’s hope the phase two works are completed before the next storm and those mitigation measures are enough to keep the trains running.

Or use the 7 coach XC HST's from Laira

Use of HSTs, whether the shortened Castle sets, or the stored Cross Country ones would be just too embarrassing.

The department for transport and GWR have gone to a lot of trouble to persuade us that IETs are a great step forward and that HSTs are obsolete, non compliant, and not to be used.
Bringing them back would be an admission of defeat.

Whatever next ? bringing back HSTs to replace cracked or otherwise not available IETs ? no way !

I expect a rush to scrap the withdrawn mothballed HSTs before the idea of reuse spreads.

IETs represent progress, passengers are starting to get used to shorter trains, uncomfortable seats, no catering, etc, they will soon get used to no through trains during high tides. Blame this on bad weather not on faulty trains.

I've done an in-depth survey (alright, a quick shufti at Google Maps), and the only physical barrier seems to be West Devon's council offices, which they have said they would happily relocate. Some of the trackbed has disappeared into farmland, but actual demolition work isn't likely to take more than a morning.

I'm afraid it will take another sea wall collapse, rather than just a dew hours of disruption once or twice a year, for the inland route to get seriously back on the agenda.

Not just ordinary bad weather..............it's "climate change", we are repeatedly told. That will be made worse by me driving round more in my Fiesta because the rail service I used more than any other is about to be withdrawn !!

Expecting any sort of change of tack by those who procured the IETs is futile. We've had the wrong sort of snow followed now by the wrong sort of wind ...................wrong sort of trains ??? ....Nooooo chance !

This particular fiasco should be blamed not on those who PROCURED the IETs but on those who BUILT them. Years ago, I and my now famous crystal ball, and others expressed doubts about the ability of the then proposed trains to cope with Dawlish conditions.
Advocates of the new units pointed out that the ability to cope with these conditions was an "essential requirement" and that this would not be a problem.
So this failure is down to Hitachi "you built them, you make them work"

Likewise the multiple cracks and lack of any action to deal with same is not the fault of those who procured the wretched things, but is down to Hitachi for defective design or construction "you built them, you make them work"

Other problems such as being too short, and the absence of buffets, hard seats, and the inadequate luggage space, ARE the fault of those who specified and procured the nasty things.
Cant blame Hitachi for building 5 car units as that is what the customer ordered.

I am afraid it is not quite that simple, as the photos in the anti-reopening blog piece (https://petercleasby.com/tag/reopening/) I linked to last night showed.

So, aside from the council offices we also have:

Housing at the old Tavistock North Railway Station.
(https://petercleasby.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/tavistock-north6.jpg?w=300&h=169)

Housing blocking the route at the end of the Tavistock Viaduct.
(https://petercleasby.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/tavistock-viaduct3.jpg?w=300&h=169)

Other issues the anti-reopening folk point to include loss of cycle/walking paths, impact on rural dwellings and farms, including the former Brentor railway station, (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-26163597) impact on wildlife, the need to replace Meldon Viaduct, and the impact of new modern replacement bridges and associated permanent way and other infrastructure on the landscape and tranquility thereof.

None of it insurmountable in the face of precedents such as the Borders Railway of course, but perhaps not a given either.



Perhaps not right now, but the Network Rail Resilience Study was conducted well before the Okehampton reopening, and if Bere Alston-Tavistock follows relatively swiftly, and given that a dedicated bus link is now already established between Tavistock and Okehampton in the middle, then suddenly the prospects and business case for full reopening may start to look very different.

I hope so...but I doubt it.

 There does not seem to be any contingency now, for what is usually an
annual event. Virtually no replacement coach service, due to cost ?

 Wouldn't a Castle HST shuttle service between Newton Abbot/Exeter worked ?

Yes an HST shuttle would work, but see my earlier remarks regarding the use of an HST being simply too embarrassing.
Coaches too hard to arrange and also expensive. Simpler just to say "do not attempt travel in bad weather" Blame the weather NOT IETs.

A YouTube video with 115000 views in a day, and lots of negative press for IETs/Hitachi. 

I'd say that was more embarrassing than had a shuttle service of Castle HSTs been arranged - which, after all, regularly ply up and down the same tracks anyway.

This fiasco was indeed embarrassing and generated negative publicity, but this should be one off.
Much better in future to simply say that "services are liable to be suspended during high tides" After a while people will simply blame the weather/global warming. And forget all about the defective trains. And forget that they USED to have through trains even in bad weather.

Use of HSTs would be an ongoing embarrassment EACH TIME they were used.

Why should it be a one off?

Totally agree with you there - but many/most/all of the large contractors out there who bid for Government work of all sorts know full well that this procurer never enforces its legal rights.

Trains, aeroplanes, submarines, hospitals, motorways, PPE, rail electrification, etc, etc are procured with the supplier knowing full well that if it doesn't meet the spec then the only way for the customer to get it fixed is for him to cough up more taxpayers' money. Then depending on the end user the money either appears - or doesn't - the rail passenger comes well down that list. So it is highly likely that the IET will limp on for many years to come (except past Dawlish of course)

No one tries that trick on Tesco, John Lewis or M & S - not more than once anyway !

Been there, seen it, done it, had it done to me !!

Because the future policy is likely to be "carefully targeted" closures of the line at Dawlish when high tides and high winds are expected.
Blame it on the weather, not faulty trains.

Passengers can be advised not to travel, and those who choose to try and travel will have to wait for the tide to go out. Being stuck on a clearly dead train at or near Dawlish gives a poor impression of the new trains.

Being held at Taunton for a couple of hours "due to extreme weather" attaches no blame to the trains, just to the weather.

Why is that likely?  Do you know something I don't, or is this just opinion/prediction?

Would it not be embarrassing to instigate a 'targeted closures the line' policy just after you've spent £80m finishing extra defences for it?

It is a prediction, based upon previous experience.
Voyagers failed to work in severe but entirely predictable conditions at Dawlish. And what was the result ? Modify the voyagers to work ? not likely, simply say "no voyagers in bad weather"

It was an "essential requirement" that IETs should withstand the conditions at Dawlish. They do not as multiple failures have shown. Will hitachi be compelled to make them work ? Not likely ! Simply say "NO IETs in bad weather" and avoid bad publicity.
Cancel services, or delay them until the tide goes out. All due to extreme weather. Just as Cross Country do.

After a while most passengers will forget that they used to get through trains even in bad weather. Those who DO remember can be told that this  is due to climate change and nothing to do with new trains.

A lot of money has indeed been spent on rebuilding/improving the sea wall, but AFAIK this was primarily to stop it washing away, and not to facilitate the operation of faulty trains.

No trains at all during the next storm then.  You heard it here first.

I dont expect trains to be cancelled/delayed throughout every storm, but I do expect such cancellations when high tides coincide with high winds. Possibly for an hour each side of high water.

Ok, so complete line closures but only very short lived and only very occasionally then?

OK, make it two days for demolition. It's hardly HS2.

Maybe not quite complete, but probably no voyagers and no IETs which is almost the same thing as regards the average passenger.

Only perhaps for about an hour each side of high water, when high winds are also expected.

OK, so no Voyagers (as now) and no IETs, but HSTs and GWR DMUs will continue to run (but no extra ones in the form of a shuttle service). 

Thanks for clarifying - Seems sensible to me.

Perhaps D1015 should be kept on standby for stormy days.

OK, make it two days for demolition. It's hardly HS2.
[/quote]

OK before we start dusting off the wrecking balls, deciding who's going to have their houses knocked down and spending tens of millions of £ of other people's money, let's remember that storms of this severity with these consequences are a once in several years event.

It seems to me really simple - there is normally at least a few days warning of these events - so when this warning comes through, GWR instigate a contingency plan of;

1) Warning people not to travel unless absolutely necessary and offer full refunds for those who've booked.
2) Run bus replacement between Newton Abbott and Exeter and similarly warn people of the limitations
3) Don't run trains which can't cope with these conditions through the affected area

I must admit that i never previously credited you with such boundless optimism for the future, TG. Have you ever considered a career in the No10 team? I suspect that a number of vacancies may open up shortly.

On the "other people's money" quote, I have a question - How many supporters of alternatives to the Dawlish status quo could reasonably be described as "taxpayers", and are they all members of a lower tier of "taxpayer" with lesser rights and status compared to "taxpayers" who support the Dawlish status quo, or who have no particular interest or opinion on the matter?

All perfectly sensible and a good, cheap solution for the odd few really bad days,  but none of it likely to result in trains from Bere Alston to a reborn Tavistock Station.

By coincidence, I was in Tavistock today, and through the rain and low cloud, I thought:


... might have to be narrow gauge, and


...tight, but just about doable as a curve at low speed. It would be a unique view from the small window.

In the end, this is all going to be a matter for the good people of Tavistock, probably any bad ones too, to decide if they want a railway connection again, or whether they are happy with things the way they are at present. If a decent majority does, and I don't think 52%-48% either way would be good enough, then the local powers that be should redouble efforts to get the government to make it happen. Connecting Bere Alston to Okehampton is really another matter, and largely for central government alone to decide on. There isn't much in between with a business case for a railway. If central government decided to reopen it on grounds of diversionary route alone, which I very much doubt, a couple of houses and a cycle path won't get in the way.

In a properly run world, "the railway" or some government agency or department connected with the railway, would keep an eye on that house, and purchase it if it comes up for sale.
Demolition perhaps years before the new line is built would be a needless waste, but the property could be let as a holiday home, thereby avoiding future problems when demolition is required.

You mean like the way that Exmoor Associates buys property for reopening the L&B?

It is rather more than 'one house' (https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.5514695,-4.1466554,133m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en)

Money grabbing developers building houses on the trackbed is not suprising. But a council building it's offices on the trackbed of a former main line is just crazy.

West Devon Council Offices at Tavistock! No one will shed a tear if that gets bulldozed.

Not even West Devon Council.

Good practice in doing this sort of thing could be seen in Manchester, during Metrolink planning and works. It would take me a while to look up the notes, but I recall that very early on in the process to build the extension to Manchester Airport, the local authority bought 3 houses on the edge of a development that would need to be demolished. They then used them as temporary accommodation for homeless families for a few years, until the operational need to shift them came about. In Oldham, the first works on the entirely new tram route through the town centre involved the construction of a Baptist Church and a funeral parlour to allow the subsequent demolition of both, rather than having services disrupted by trams running down the aisle. As both were an improvement on the original, all involved were satisfied with the results, and protracted legal wrangles were avoided.

The RFU did a similar thing when they were looking to expand the stadium at Twickenham.

There was a row of houses "in the way" which they gradually bought up when they became available and used as offices.

In the end there was one left and they basically went to the resident and said "how much do you want to move out?"

I believe Liverpool used a similar tactic years ago when they wanted to expand Anfield.

It will always be a better way than a CPO, but not always possible.