At the begining of the IET▸ saga, I expressed doubts about the ability to cope with the conditions at Dawlish. An IET supporter assured me that it was an "essential requirement" that the new units be able to cope with conditions at Dawlish, so what happened ?
I guess the simple answer to that was posted earlier on another thread:
It is resistant to sea spray, not huge waves! Wasn’t that the definition of Dawlish proof.
The more detailed answer would be that their performance has been disappointing - a reflection on their design.
Yesterday was obvously a major storm which probably comes along once every couple of years, once a year at most. However with an increasing reliance on them in the area it falls on those responsible for sorting out the train plan to work around their vunerablilities in such conditions. It is a pretty poor show that lesson were not learnt the last time they sent units through and they limped to the next station or failed en-route. To send in another IET to rescue risks the same thing happening to that unit - a risk far greater than should be taken. Yesterday, the IET that sat down at Teignmouth should have been left there with a reduced service working around it formed of
DMU▸ 's or Castle Class trains. Ideally IETs should not operate between Newton Abbot and Exeter when conditions are that bad (which was well forecasted in advance), and a shuttle service should run instead formed of other traction based on a defined train plan.
Another question to ask, is that, without the enchancements to the sea wall that have recently been completed, would yesterday have resulted in a full line closure anyway? Or even worse, permanent damage such as that we saw nearly ten years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBqDoFVpLoI
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