Dawlish - permanent resilience work - ongoing discussions

[whole diary]

[bobm]

Sadly I cannot get down to Dawlish but I can post these pictures taken by a local resident yesterday.

[paul7575]

I was wondering about whether or not the “Wavewalker” can use its legs to rotate about a point?  It’s easy enough to visualise how it can walk along a relatively straight baseline, and if they need to they can float it at high tide, and use tugs.

All the videos I’ve seen seem to show it moving in a straight line.

Paul

[REVUpminster]

The folk at Dawlish seem happy with the work there and appreciate it protects the town as well as the railway.

The next section seems to have plenty of objections and this is in part network rails fault in trying to do much. Why bother with huge earth moving works. If the cliff falls down so be it. The railway is not there to protect properties above create walkways and non railway improvements.

They should just build a new line slightly higher next to the existing line on piers that would take the least amount of beach. The existing railway can be left as a footpath and access to remove any rock falls. the railway should have no physical connection to the unstable cliff face.

[Jamsdad]

If the cliff falls down it blocks the railway line!

[grahame]

I know this picture IS NOT WHAT IS PLANNED ... flashed up on my screen this morning and what looked like railway tracks across the bottom right corner, with a leisure and fanfare facility on the seaward side.  I wonder what the good folks of Dawlish might make of that ...

[grahame]

Amazing.  We complain about lack of progress, but we also seem to require that local residents are almost able to veto any change. 

Can’t have it both ways...

Paul

PS - didn’t we hope to keep Dawlish resilience discussion here: http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=22771.0

Yeah ... merged.    Sorry about my over enthusiasm for a new thread!

[Lee]

I know this picture IS NOT WHAT IS PLANNED ... flashed up on my screen this morning and what looked like railway tracks across the bottom right corner, with a leisure and fanfare facility on the seaward side.  I wonder what the good folks of Dawlish might make of that ...

Why not fit a scaled version of that on the Wavewalker once its initial job is done, and have it tour the resorts along the coast - The perfect post-Covid antidote.

[stuving]

I was wondering about whether or not the “Wavewalker” can use its legs to rotate about a point?  It’s easy enough to visualise how it can walk along a relatively straight baseline, and if they need to they can float it at high tide, and use tugs.

All the videos I’ve seen seem to show it moving in a straight line.

Paul

Well, no, not if you mean standing on one leg and doing a pirouette. It has two legs on each side in a moving piece that can slide 4 m. So with its weight on four legs on two opposite sides (and the other four raised), it can move its body relative to those, and the other four legs at right angles, then lower them. So it can do a bit more than straight lines, but within the limits of its 4 m range (from wherever in that range it started) in x and y. The datasheet is not very technical (it calls that 2D motion "bidirectional"), but it certainly doesn't mention rotation, and I can't see any way of altering the orientation of the sliders. But then I reckon it can do most things without it.

[REVUpminster]

If the cliff falls down it blocks the railway line!

Capture by Robert, on Flickr

It would fall on the old track alignment and if a gap was created down to the beach. Did the cliff fall in 2014 reach the beach or was it just on the railway line.

[paul7575]

Dawlish beach cam man reckons the Wavewalker is departing today. A couple of videos he uploaded yesterday suggest the piling is complete along most of the “station to Coastguards” length. 

Eg this one:  https://youtu.be/QemcfkJY174

Paul

[REVUpminster]

Network Rail has submitted plans to Teignbridge District Council to extend an existing rockfall shelter over the railway line between Dawlish and Holcombe.

The 209m long extension of the rockfall shelter north of Parsons Tunnel will help protect trains against falling rocks along this section of vital stretch of railway that connects communities across the south west with the rest of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), which is home to a number of cliffs in close proximity to the railway line.

[PhilWakely]

Network Rail has submitted plans to Teignbridge District Council to extend an existing rockfall shelter over the railway line between Dawlish and Holcombe.

The 209m long extension of the rockfall shelter north of Parsons Tunnel will help protect trains against falling rocks along this section of vital stretch of railway that connects communities across the south west with the rest of the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), which is home to a number of cliffs in close proximity to the railway line.

See here

[bobm]

Dawlish beach cam man reckons the Wavewalker is departing today. A couple of videos he uploaded yesterday suggest the piling is complete along most of the “station to Coastguards” length. 

Eg this one:  https://youtu.be/QemcfkJY174

Paul

Certainly seems to be on the move - on the horizon yesterday afternoon.  Makes a change from cruise ships!

[bradshaw]

Following on from the Okehampton news is the funding for the rock shelter on the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) line between Dawlish and Holcombe

https://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/vital-rail-artery-to-be-better-protected-as-rockfall-shelter-plans-handed-gbp-37-4m-boost

[TonyK]

From Richard Clinnick, Head of news at Rail, on Twitter:

Teignbridge District Council has approved @networkrailwest's plans for a rockfall shelter over the railway line between Dawlish and Holcombe in Devon.Work should start in August, and take around a year to complete.