Dawlish Avoiding Line - ongoing discussion, merged topic

[whole diary]

[Red Squirrel]

Yes - GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) station was at Mary Tavy and Blackdown, a few miles down the valley and not very close to either.

[34104]

Not good news;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-26260053

[TonyK]

"The predicted date for the work to be completed comes just ahead of the Easter Bank Holiday. Good Friday falls on 18 April but the company said it hoped to "beat" its date."

Presumably so it can shut the line on schedule for engineering works?

[alexross42]

Not good news;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-26260053

Is it wrong to assume that the majority of passengers that were planning to travel over this route for Easter Weekend would have aimed to book tickets some 8-12 weeks before to take advantage of more affordable prices? - given that we're in that period now, how many will continue to do so given the uncertainty of it actually opening on time? I'd expect more people would be opting for the bus as either way it'll be cheaper and far more likely to run.

My point being that even if they do get it open 'in time for Easter', it'll still be too late for a good proportion of those that wanted to travel, unless some serious concessions are being offered.

[ChrisB]

Too early to say - FGW^▸ (First Great Western) have made some serious concessions already, and will definitely want to attract customers as soon as NR^» (Network Rail - home page) can be more definite about a finish date - so it really won't surprise me to see some silly priced Advances as soon as that date is more confident.

[grahame]

Is it wrong to assume that the majority of passengers that were planning to travel over this route for Easter Weekend would have aimed to book tickets some 8-12 weeks before to take advantage of more affordable prices?

Yes, I'm afraid the assumption is wrong.   I recall some figures for the proportion of journeys made on various ticket types, and advance fares account for only around 15% of journeys.  We hear a lot about those fares on the forum because (a) we're cheapskates here and want to save money and (b) these fares are used by people who just make occasional journeys and so they get a lot of publicity / talk per journey.

However ... I think many people do plan ahead on off-peak / superoffpeak tickets and will buy / book / plan ahead, and it's fair to assume, I'm afraid, that a proportion of them will not risk planning to go by train when it could turn out to be train - bus - train.   We know from local research that only a small minority of people transfer from a train to a bus service when it's substituted, unless they have no choice.

My point being that even if they do get it open 'in time for Easter', it'll still be too late for a good proportion of those that wanted to travel, unless some serious concessions are being offered.

So, therefore, I am agreeing with your conclusion

[JayMac]

Moderator note: Subsequent silliness has been diverted to another topic. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=13623.0

[alexross42]

Network Rail document (via BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page)) discussing storm damage at Dawlish, works to date and proposals for increased future resilience by considering alternative routes (of which there are 5!)

News Article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-26349928

Document:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/26_02_14_dawlish_jmo.pdf

[exeterkiwi]

It looks like Network Rail have copyied an old Railway Atlas of the area

Option A Indland Route Via Okehampton and Tavistock (LSWR^▸ (London South Western Railway) Route)
Option B Marsh Barton to Heathfield Route (GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) Teign Valley Line)

Dawlish Avoiding Line proposed  in 1930's by the Government of the time and GWR
Option C1^▸ ((on coaches) National route restriction) Exminter (DAL Route)
Option C2 Powderham Castle ( DAL Route)
Option C3 Dawlish Warren  (DAL Route)

Guy

[Red Squirrel]

Barring the kind of seismic activity that hasn't been seen for a few million years, and assuming that most major towns and cities stay more or less still, and that we want any new route to connect in to the existing network, then it stands to reason that the options will involve re-using old corridors or options.

On the face of it ^700 million to re-open the Okehampton route seems like rather a lot though; it is more per mile (even assuming we're talking the whole 50 miles) than the Borders Railway. This seems odd considering that half the route has track on it, which hopefully means that some sort of maintenance is being done to the infrastructure...

[Worcester_Passenger]

On the face of it ^700 million to re-open the Okehampton route seems like rather a lot though; it is more per mile (even assuming we're talking the whole 50 miles) than the Borders Railway. This seems odd considering that half the route has track on it, which hopefully means that some sort of maintenance is being done to the infrastructure...

I agree - ^700M seems a staggering amount of money for this.

[Plymboi]

^700m wow, that's a lot. Figures designed to be off putting?.

My preference is A followed by B.

[alexross42]

At the moment it's only an estimated cost and it's from ^500m to ^700m - until a full survey is completed who knows for sure what will be uncovered - there are a lot of factors to take into consideration, ranging from the condition of surviving structures, to land ownership and CPO's.
I'd certainly be wary of underestimating at this very early stage!

[exeterkiwi]

If one of the option that doesn't go via Okehampton is chosen it should be made a priority to re-open the branch line to Okehampton to passenger traffic.


Guy

 

[grahame]

Very sensible to start of by looking at previous schemes.  However, they're all based on routes over 60 years old, and in that time technology has move forward, and that could make a difference.  

As an example, a gradient of 1 in 38 (Dainton) used to be regarded as the limit, or near to it. Lickey is 1 in 37, and Wikipedia claims "The Lickey Incline is the steepest sustained adhesion-worked gradient on a British standard gauge railway".  But Wikipedia is wrong, I think; there are gradients on 1 in 28 on the line from St. Pancras to Ebbsfleet.

As another example, has the relative cost of building a line across marshland, through a soft rock tunnel, and across a high bridge changed?

So it would probably be a sensible idea for an engineer / surveyor to take a quick look / sanity check to see if there are extra alternatives at least to take a brief look at.    For all I know, this may have been done already before the old routes and proposals were listed as the options - I hope it has!