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What a strange place to build a railway!
On the east coast the sea is constantly encroaching the land so things keep falling in the sea but nothing new is built near the sea. They spend millions on trying to keep the sea out, the beaches have great piles of boulders brought in and deposited on them and metal flood gates along the prom. They're slowing it down a little but every winter more is lost. It's obvious the sea will win in the end!!
Still very wet & windy here but not quite so fierce. The coastguard helicopter has been buzzing around all morning. Not sure if they are looking for someone or just monitoring the tide. For those of you longing for snow I think it would be the last straw for many people who are already id great distress with the weather.
The Dawlish railway line was probably not on the edge of the sea when it was built back in Brunels day. Those houses behind the line were new though & asking for trouble.
@chickengrandma-2008 wrote:What a strange place to build a railway!
On the east coast the sea is constantly encroaching the land so things keep falling in the sea but nothing new is built near the sea. They spend millions on trying to keep the sea out, the beaches have great piles of boulders brought in and deposited on them and metal flood gates along the prom. They're slowing it down a little but every winter more is lost. It's obvious the sea will win in the end!!
I think the east coast (North Sea) is a little more ferocious than the English channel though and they are well aware of the erosion problems.
The Dawlish railway line was designed and built in the 1840's by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of our greatest engineers. The line runs directly along the coast for about 14 miles. The sea will find a weak spot and this obviously seems to be it unfortunately. As for the houses, most of them are Victorian but the ones (2 I think) that have been hit the hardest were built in the 50's.
Having been flooded twice (River Parrett near the Levels) in the last 2 years and watched a river wall ( also Victorian) collapse under the pressure of storms, the water will seek out the vulnerability of any structure. If they can rebuild Dawlish using modern engineering techniques, it'll survive for many years to come and those houses will be safe. Engineers will hopefully check the whole sea wall along the route to see if they can identify any other weakness and put it right before it goes wrong. It's a wake up call for many of the old infrastructures in my view and we need to invest in repairs as well as investing in new infrastructure.
