Travellers in south west England will get more flights and discounted train fares to help them after the rail in Dawlish in Devon was wrecked by severe storms.
McLoughlin said that, following discussions with the DfT, airline Flybe will double, to six, the number of daily flights between Newquay in Cornwall and Gatwick airport in West Sussex from next Wednesday.
This will provide more than 4,500 extra seats.
Source: http://www.transportxtra.com/magazines/local_transport_today/news/?ID=37159
'Ministers' answer'? Just short term measures. Misleading headline.
I wonder how much the seats for the flights will cost, how much cheaper the discounted train fares will be and what restrictionsthere will be on such discounted tickets.?
And just to point out that extra flights into Newquay from London or even discounted train tickets aren't much use if you live in the Exeter/South Devon area where the nearest airport is Exeter and where, as I write this, not only is the Dawlish part of the rail network defunct but so is the rail connection in Somerset between Exeter to Bristol and beyond, and the connection between Exeter and London on the Waterloo line is also not in operation due to a landslip at Crewkerne.
Anyone needing to travel by train to London this week from our end of Devon is going to find it an arduous and very long journey. We have a lot of people living down here who need to get to London for business purposes. FGW really are going to have to pull out all the stops to get people to work. The same applies for anyone travelling to the midlands and north of England and for all our local commuters; their journeys are going to be twice as long just travelling between Dawlish and Exeter. FGW did a good job ferrying people between Exter and Taunton over the last three weeks whilst the work on the Whiteball tunnel took place so let's hope they manage to continue the good work.
Crewkerne land slip cleared, services between Exeter and London have resumed
Do you know if the work on the Whiteball tunnel has been completed? It was due to be finished today. If it hasn't then FGW trains will still have to use the SW line, which adds at least an hour onto the journey. Add another hour on because of using the coach link between Dawlish and Exeter.
No mention in the report about the tunnel
its an important point you make that the journey is delayed as much (and maybe even more) by problems between Exeter and London,
Thats my experience too, and an issue that needs to constantly be put to the re-route lobbyists
To be fair to FGW the delays between Exeter and London up to this weekend have been solely due to the much needed work on the Whiteball tunnel. I travel to London every week and sometimes twice a week and have not had any significant delays up until this engineering work. People who use the longer SW trains route do so because they choose to go into London Waterloo. Whether the trains run as they do now through Dawlish or on an inland route won't make any difference to the journey between Exeter and London. We will need to have more cogent arguments for keeping our line, the main one being it is cheaper to build the breakwater than create a new inland line.
Hope this link is useful ,,,showing current 'South West Trains' departures to London Waterloo and others.
@ Margaret.The Engineering works at Whiteball Tunnel finish tomorrow morning 2am. I did reply to a post saying that you talked to railway staff, and I said was It FGW or Network Rail. I did not receive a answer. I have not heard anything different about Engineering works finishing on a different day or days.
Sorry Margaret just seen your answer.
Just had the latest from FGW and the work on the tunnel continues tomorrow so trains still going on the SW route.
Please 