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To: Chris Grayling, Transport Secretary

Railway diversionary routes

This campaign has ended.

Engage an independent consultant to examine and cost the reinstatement of former railways which connected Exeter with Newton Abbot and Plymouth, and which provided diversionary routes when the line through Dawlish was closed.

Why is this important?

No amount of money spent on the coastal route will make it invulnerable and arguably some of what the fantastic schemes being proposed would cost should be spent on route diversity.
Rail passengers will accept being diverted in an emergency because they remain at their seats and know how much longer their journeys will take.

Devon and Cornwall

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Updates

2018-12-16 20:08:21 +0000

50 signatures reached

2018-12-01 23:41:15 +0000

Days before the "Great Western Main Line West of Exeter Route Resilience Study" landed on the Transport Secretary's desk, this was sent:
http://www.teignrail.co.uk/pdfs/R2.pdf

2018-11-28 15:51:24 +0000

"I'm only asking the state to do a thousand times more than I've done."

http://www.teignrail.co.uk/political-campaigning.php#askingstate

2018-11-27 17:16:44 +0000

25 signatures reached

2018-11-27 13:01:07 +0000

The danger is that far too much money will be spent on the coastal route and that vastly better resilience than it has now will never be achieved. With worsening conditions, it is possible that no real progress will be made and all the while there will have been no attempt to create route diversity, once a great strength of the British railway system.
Short of tunnelling behind the cliffs, no amount of work will make this route invulnerable: it only needs to fail in one place to stop trains. As was said after the Dawlish débâcle in 2014: "The challenge is to ensure that the existing line has the greatest possible resilience, but to have readily available an inland diversionary route between Exeter and Newton Abbot."

http://www.teignrail.co.uk/political-campaigning.php#NetworkRail

2018-11-27 11:32:36 +0000

10 signatures reached