Published on : Friday, April 4, 2014
The main railway line through Dawlish in Devon which was destroyed during the winter storms has been reopened.
The tracks which were laid on the coast along with a sea wall were swept off on 4 February and service linking Exeter St Davids with Newton Abbot, Plymouth and Penzance were completely cut off.
But a 300-strong Network Rail (NR) team has managed to rebuild the line at a cost of £35 million. Prime Minister David Cameron reopened the railway and hailed it as a great day. He said that the hard working people of Dawlish, the daily commuters across the South West whose life have been affected by the devastating loss of the train line has been brought back to normal.
Early repair work was hampered by another severe storm on the night of 14/15 February when colossal waves battered and damaged the 10-tonne shipping containers forming the temporary sea wall. The storm damaged a further 10 to 20 metres of sea wall and more shipping containers had to be moved in.
On 4 March engineers discovered that 20,000 tonnes of cliff face near Teignmouth, just south of Dawlish, had crumbled away above the railway. This meant stabilisation work had to be carried out.
Prime Minister Cameron pointed out that it was important to make their railway strong enough to weather any storm. He added that this was the reason why a £31 million package of improvements was announced.
The repairs have encompassed rebuilding and fortifying the breached sea wall with more than 6,000 tonnes of concrete and 150 tonnes of steel, as well as removing 25,000 tonnes of collapsed cliff at Teignmouth.
Half of Dawlish station has been rebuilt with a new platform and engineers have installed more than 13 miles of new cables, designed and installed a new temporary signalling system and replaced over 700 metres of track and ballast.
He praised the railway engineers who had worked hard to restore this critical piece of the network, ahead of schedule, and in time for the Easter holidays.
Tags: Dawlish railway, Easter holidays, Newton Abbot, Plymouth and Penzance
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