Great Western Coffee Shop

"Drivers are advised to slow down and proceed with caution. Speed limits can even be lowered down to walking pace - about five miles-per-hour - in case they need to stop suddenly.

"We take safety extremely seriously. We work with emergency services and act on their advice so we can take steps to alert train drivers of any problems."

Trains between Exeter and Plymouth were severely disrupted as firefighters tackled a blaze at a holiday cottage.  The blaze broke out at the chalet near Teignmouth and the line had to be closed for two hours during Sunday evening because of safety concerns.  Firefighters feared gas cylinders nearby might explode in the heat and there was asbestos in the building.

A controversial device has been turned off at a Devon railway station, after complaints from school children.

Pupils catching trains from Teignmouth were subjected to a high-pitched noise from a Mosquito device, installed to try to reduce anti-social behaviour.

First Great Western has apologised and said it will not activate the device when passengers are travelling. The company said it would continue to use it late at night, when the station was most at risk from vandalism.

The device emits a high-frequency sound which is normally audible to people under the age of 25. The "youth crowd dispersal device" had previously been switched on all day, until pupils complained.

Dominic Falco from Teignmouth said the Mosquito was affecting some students very badly. "Trying to study for exams with a splitting migraine is no joke," the 18-year-old student said. "It doesn't make sense to attack children going to and from school."

First Great Western spokeswoman Cath Millman admitted that legitimate travellers should not have been subjected to the constant noise. "We put a stop to it as soon as we found out about it," she said.

Since it was installed about 18 months ago, Ms Millman said there had been a big reduction in graffiti and crime at the station. She said it was a really useful device, which properly used, would benefit everyone.

"It makes the station a nicer place to be," she added.

'Mosquito' inventor welcomes switch off at station

The man who invented a machine designed to deter teenage vandals has welcomed the device being turned off during the day at a South Devon railway station.

Howard Stapleton has campaigned for controls on the use of his device, known as a mosquito, which creates very high-frequency noise which normally only people under the age of 20 can hear.

The aim of installing the machine at Teignmouth railway station was to stop groups of troublesome teenagers gathering in areas known to suffer from anti-social behaviour.

But there had been complaints as the machine had been working about every 20 minutes for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to the discomfort of travellers and babies.

Schoolchildren from South Devon Liberal Youth, councillors and MPs wrote to station owners First Great Western, which has agreed to put the device on a timer to come on only when the station is unmanned.

Mr Stapleton, managing director of Compound Security in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, welcomed the move.

He said: "That is how the mosquito device should be used. On railway stations in Holland it is connected to and activated by sophisticated CCTV systems and only used when someone is acting suspiciously.

"The system is effective. One Plymouth school installed them after replacing ^20,000 worth of panes of glass. After the system was put in, the annual damage bill was ^30.

"But there the machines are principally used in extended holiday periods.

"It concerns me that they are being used to create no-go areas for young people. That is discriminatory.

"I am the father of five children and I never intended the machine to be used to keep young people out of areas.

"That is why I have been talking to the Home Office but no-one in this country is interested in legislating to control the use of the machines, though they are talking about it in Holland which I am very pleased about."

He said of the 5,000 units sold, some 3,000 are used in Britain.

A First Great Western spokesman said that following a meeting with Teignbridge MP Richard Younger-Ross it had been decided to only turn on the mosquito device at Teignmouth when the station is unmanned.

Just to update you on the current situation.

The CIS at Teignmouth has been down now for about a week and a half.  Apparently everything started due to a power cut at Dawlish from where the system is fed, the modem failed then and spme fault on the line made it worse.

The system has been working intermitently today because the engineer has been working on it all day and he had to connect and disconnect the modem all the time.  Looks like it has been sorted, although dome errors on the telephone line still remain and he couls come again tomorrow to try to definitely fix it.

The system is very unreliable due to all the components being very very old.  In this case the modems cannot be found in the market any more, so every time one of them fails has to be 'nicked' from somewhere else or recycled from other modems

Anyway, the new CIS system is by the looks of it coming soon...

Also noticed (when the system was working  ::)) how Dorris now announces non-stop services there! "The train now approaching platform x does not stop here. Please stand clear of the edge of platform x"

It sounds as if the announcement aspect of the CIS has been upgraded - from what I've learnt, the 'ex-Wessex system' didn't have the capability to announce the warning of through trains.

Sounds it, or it has just been enabled after wessex having it disabled?

They could have disabled that feature, although I never heard it when Wales and West were in existence or have heard it on the Arriva Trains Wales network.

Was the voice the same?

A railway worker suffered injuries to his face when an object was thrown from a road in Devon.

The man was working near Teignmouth station when the object, thought to be a stone, was thrown from about 14m (45.93ft) above the railway line.

The man's colleagues said they had heard a group of youths prior to the object being thrown at about 0030 BST on 8 August.

Anyone with information is urged to contact British Transport Police.

PC Alan Freeman said: "This was an unprovoked attack. Had the worker been struck directly in the face, the injuries could have been much worse."

What I cannot work out is whether there is any significance in the colour scheme chosen.

A Grade II listed footbridge at Bookham Station has been described as “unsafe” and “rusting away” by residents who are calling for it to be renovated.

The iron-clad bridge, which is the only route for commuters to go between platforms, has been a concern for more than five years with one woman saying she felt it “move under foot”.

One of the oldest bridges of its kind, the bridge dates back to 1885 and was listed in 1990 but has been in steady decline since the last time any maintenance work is believed to have been done, ten years ago.

Keith Reynolds, 72, is the Bookham Residents Association transport officer and says the group has had several people contact them about concerns. He contacted Network Rail about it earlier this week but is yet to get a response.

Mr Reynolds, of Sole Farm Road, said: “It's deteriorating and people have said it’s not safe to walk over.
"It’s very rusty looking now and even if we had a royal visit coming they would be able to make it look good very easily.

“It has [become worse] more recently but it’s been an issue for a number of years. We have noticed bits of the bridge [developing puddles] and we want something done about it before an accident happens. They need to do more preventative work.”
Mr Reynolds said that when Network Rail have had to do work on the nearby railway tunnel, which runs underneath Great Bookham Common, they have closed the station on Sundays and he sees this as an option for maintenance work on the bridge.

He added: “If it isn’t safe then people can’t get over to the second platform and what are they going to do, walk up the road, over the common, through the mud and around?

"I know it’s only a branch line but it’s a service people rely on and [the infrastructure] needs to be constantly maintained.”

Shirley Bullen, 57, of Little Bookham Street, is one of those who wants to see the bridge renovated.

She said: “It’s disgusting on Network Rail, they shouldn’t be allowing a listed bridge to get in such a bad state.

“I’m not shocked because I’ve see it rust but it’s appalling that they think it’s acceptable to not constantly look after it.
"I’m not an engineer but some bits look like they are cracking and overgrowth has sprouted through the bottom step.”

A Network Rail spokesman confirmed that they have “been contacted by a member of the public and are looking into the matter”.

I hope they can do that at my local station too. The bridge has been rusting away since long before I moved there in 2010. The local news site has also had a feature on it recently. The worst of it is on the bridge itself rather than the stairs or supporting pillars. You can't really see that from the photos taken.

I hope they can do that at my local station too. The bridge has been rusting away since long before I moved there in 2010. The local news site has also had a feature on it recently. The worst of it is on the bridge itself rather than the stairs or supporting pillars. You can't really see that from the photos taken.

BTW I have no fears walking across that bridge but others are allegedly very worried for their lives.....

http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/bridge-bookham-train-station-rusted-13628671

Grahame, perhaps you should report that to the ORR and H&S Executive...... ???

What gets me is that it is obviously more than possible to do exceptional work to restore these magnificent structures, fit for the 21st century, yet given the slightest excuse bridges such as the one at St Austell are to be removed and given away, when with a little thought they could sensibly and aesthetically be reused elsewhere on the network.

Overnight the bridge has been craned back into place although not yet in use.

Doesn't look as if its been craned back high enough for wires to pass under at some future date. ::)

A large object believed to be an unexploded half-ton world war one bomb has been found under Teignmouth Pier.

Police, Royal Navy Bomb disposal squad and coastguards called for reinforcements and an exclusion zone was extended at lunchtime today after an initial inspection of the suspect device.

Divers who found the bomb say it is 4ft long and 2ft wide.

Police have now closed the whole of the beach and seafront from The Point at the Shaldon side to Teignmouth Yacht Club next to the Dawlish rail line.

I thought this was over engineered with too much earth moving when a simple pier system anchored to the bedrock alongside the existing track allowing any rock fall to fall on the beach.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50487955582_a9a55de666_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2jVrYdN)dlr (https://flic.kr/p/2jVrYdN) by Robert (https://www.flickr.com/photos/revupminster/), on Flickr

This is the best I could come up with. You have to imagine the road the beach and the offices the cliff face. The beach would still be there except for the piers. The existing track bed and embankment would could be cut back to allow rock fall on to the beach where it could be cleared. Complete separation from the rock face.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50490314892_c160f4a14d_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2jVE4yy)dlr - Copy (https://flic.kr/p/2jVE4yy) by Robert (https://www.flickr.com/photos/revupminster/), on Flickr

Got Picasso to knock this up.

It's a good idea, but from speaking to local people they want the railway line to stay where it is, The loss of Spray Point is one of the main issues along with the reduced beach. I don't see why grout couldn't be pumped into the cliff to permanently bond it together?

So what is the alternative? 

What are these far simpler and cheaper solutions they speak of? 

How would the locals feel about moving the cliffs back so they have a nice neat engineered slope or a quarried face further inland?  The visual impact would be quite significant.  Can't see it would be cheaper either.

Edited to add note about cost

As I said pump grout(liquid concrete) into the cliff face, the same technique has been used to shore up parts of London during the Underground & Crossrail constructions.