Clive
Ah, the old conundrum of 'everyone wants the station but nobody wants to see trains pass them by'. Technically, if the Cornish Riviera stopped at Dawlish it would put Dawlish at only 2.15hr from London!!! compared with an average journey time of 3.05hr. Nevertheless, if the current connection wait time at St Davids when getting off the Riviera of 22mins (i.e. 12.08/12.30) was shortened to say ...
...and to 'put a fiver on it' I would guess they will return on the 14.46 from Dawlish, which as I am sure you all know already is the one and only direct fast train (2.38hr) either way as a regular scheduled service. p.s. The real reason that this is a fast train is to compensate mid-day Cornish travellers for having to suffer a diddly stopper all the way from Penzance to Newton A. before ...
Makes sense for them to be on the first train from London in months. However, this special 'extra stop' just for their convenience gives the 'decision makers' the view that Dawlish is better served by direct London Trains than it usually is!! Normal direct service is 3.10hr just twice daily (i.e. 10.00 and 17.33 from Paddington). Their one off 'special extra stop benefit train' is ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DU7wiwGbrIc
This incident at Paignton today probably hasn't helped improve things either
Maybe that explains all the questions about poor TV reception
There may have been a cost benefit factored in to cover at least some of the cost, e.g. extra tourists encouraged to head along that way.
Here's a suggestion assuming the weather permits on the 4th. Have a group of 'flag wavers' on the sea wall to make 'group cheery waves' to train travellers passing through. It may be quite an interesting social experiment to see how much positive reaction you get, as well as making those who have looked forward to using the line feel welcome back as well - you never know they also make a choice ...
In the 'dog v cat rights', I believe a run over dog must be reported whereas a run over cat is not reportable. Not mentioning this as hinting at a solution in anyway, but shows the dog at least wins out at the 'pearly gates' scenario. With around 8million cats and 8million dogs as pets in the UK, the bottom line (no pun intended) is that they will impact in many different undesirable ways.
http://www.cornishguardian.co.uk/Sea-turned-red-specialist-crews-cause-deliberate/story-20843044-detail/story.html Handy 'drone flying' video of the work done.
