General Discussion
@leatash - ref. concrete - which is exactly what is being done at the breach - 5000m3 of mass concrete for starters!! @Lynne - according to the latest dawlish news in the 'new civil engineer' magazine, "...network rail has 32 separate landslips and cliff failures to deal with." - qed
Sorry, don't know the previous situation well enough to be able to say which was/is higher, though I wouldn't expect the new one to be lower! It sounds like reasonable compromise of heights to give protection without being too outlandishly high, but beauty will always be in the eye of the beholder, i.e. reinforced concrete will be a very robust solution but not always everyone's idea of an ...
@Mrs C - some extra detail from the new civil engineer which may be of interest - at the main breach, the hole has now backfilled with 5000m3 of mass concrete to a depth of 3m against a shutter of concrete vehicle barriers. these have been tied together vertically and horizontally into the concrete with steel bars. this week a reinforced concrete strip footing is being poured complete ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26361280 Looks chunky - Nothing like commiting to loadsa loadsa concrete to solve the problem :)
@roberta - good link thanks. from an engineering point of view, i.e. to maintain high line speed, the route is best diverted north of the starcross yacht club. i think this means the exminster route wins.
@Lynne - great news to hear about. i sense from it that the underlying message is, if they can only get the money for one long term solution, then a fast dal is actually the clear favourite, pleasing the max. number of people and ticking the most requirement boxes. in particular, it would crucially get the max. support from businesses, which is the factor that usually wins out with ...
Hurrah, did someone tweak something? All the capitals just worked for the first time
A little off topic, but sort of follows the above. The following link gives some clear picture examples and reasonably clear text on issues and solutions to coastal errosion. http://www.se-coastalgroup.org.uk/our-coastline/ In particular, the third photograph (Folkestone) shows a rock armour solution (rocks from Scandinavia). You cannot see it too clearly in the photo but before the works the ...
@leatash - i appreciate the long term concern that once there is a superior (i.e. fast, reliable in railway terms) alternative, the budget to maintain the seawall could temptingly be downgraded in some way. however, populations the size of dawlish usually fair quite well in terms of hard defences (railway or no railway) being maintained/paid for. most coastlines are perfectly possible to ...
p.s. Anyone know why my 'capitals' randomly don't happen?
