Clive
There is a certain paradox that may be seen here from the fabulous job of the rail replacement bus services. One particular shining example is the luxury executive replacement bus departing Tiverton Parkway at 20.17 arrives in Bodmin Town centre 1hr 55mins later. Compare this with the a standard 'principal stations' service from Tiverton Parkway e.g. the 17.18 to Bodmin Parkway 19.18 (3.5miles ...
@Lynne - happily, all the indications are very positive that this railway will be kept, long term whatever the cost, because there are so many good financial (and iconic) reasons to do so. the worst that may happen over time is that the steepest parts of the cliff behind the wall (in the above picture) may slip to become a little more battered back to a more natually stable angle (unless ...
No, bit tricky to get there at the mo , never trust everything you read in the papers, eh? Just really saying that you can be sure the solution will be far more robust than pre-storms.
Would be interesting to know if the 'Tom Worsley model' factors in major business losses due to unreliability? Also I wonder how much of a circular arguement it is that, Plymouth only has 2.6million passengers (surely long distance to Cornwall should be included in the number) and therefore gets underinvested, but that due to underinvestment and so 3hr to 4hr services (realistically!) it only ...
@Lynne - i think you have raised an interesting point about houses - there are essentially four vulnerable zones: 1. Hard defences (i.e. the sea wall) 2. Cliffs behind the hard defences 3. Cliffs unprotected from the sea (Mansion picture) 4. Low lying, vulnerable to flooding A reef or similar helps with all of these vulnerabilities, but without one, then the long term prognosis ...
@Lynne - reference to 'breakwater' by nr - shows the thinking of what is genuinely required to protect both rail and town. this will of course have a certain amount of bogof advantage when it come to costs advantages. if i lived anywhere near the front i would be puttting my hand up to see all available money going into this as the sole investment for a long term solution.
@leatash - yes i see what you mean, there's is the rub right there. unless the other 3+something remaining miles gets the treatment of similar vast quantities of mass concrete (or reefs etc) it could easily become the 'weakest link' next time.
@Lynne - won't even start to make a technical comment on the mansion story....the pictures say more than enough...very sad, the name king cannute has just come to mind.
@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 ...
