Train service in England

Old Feb 15th, 2014, 04:13 PM
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Train service in England

We planned to go from Paddington Station to Teignmouth (Devon), but the recent bad weather wiped out the train track in Dawlish.
Any suggestions on how to get there?
neilnmarty is offline  
Old Feb 15th, 2014, 04:59 PM
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You will probably get an answer sooner with a more specific question. This cold be about rail passes, train versus car, or a number of other things
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Old Feb 15th, 2014, 05:59 PM
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I think the question is plenty specific enough. The OP wants to know how they will get to Teignmouth.


neilmarty: When is your trip? Unless there is more damage the line should be restore by mid-march. At least that's what I've read in various news releases.
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Old Feb 15th, 2014, 11:43 PM
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You don't say when you will be travelling, and the answer depends very much on that. There is widespread disruption to rail services in south-west England, and it will not all be fixed at the same time. The lines in Cornwall and much of Devon are currently cut off from those in the rest of the country.

Your best source of information is provided by the train company concerned at www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk. It would appear that currently there is an hourly replacement bus from Exeter station to Teignmouth, and train tickets are also accepted on the normal bus service between the two places.

You would be advised to limit the number and size of the bags you have.
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Old Feb 16th, 2014, 03:38 AM
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All that can be said with certainty is that the washed away line will not be replaced before the end of March, and that there are half-hourly buses from Exeter to Teignmouth, taking minutes, through most of most days anyway - even apart from the rail replacements.

It's highly unlikely that the rebuilding of the line will be delayed significantly by the debate about the long-term role of railways in the area: there's a very strong, but expensive, argument for building a railway to Cornwall that bypasses this stretch of coast, at least as a backup - but everyone's committed to rebuilding the Dawlish stretch anyway. There's no way of knowing whether the 6-8 week building estimate will be achieved: the weather remains unpredictable.

There's also no way of having complete certainty the railway lines TO Exeter via Reading will be running all the time over the next six months. They run close to the Thames, and both have been flooded at some point (and the alternative routing, from Waterloo via Salisbury, can't be guaranteed to be unaffected). Trains look likely, though (assuming weather stabilises) to be running more or less as normal in the next day or so

But there is now also serious discussion about temporary closure of part of the railway system round Reading to flood-proof it before completion of hugely expensive electrification, expansion and resignalling programmes. If that's to be done, it really has to be in the next six months, and almost certainly means some complete closure, if only at weekends.

The real weather, the state of the ground around the railway and the reaction of Network Rail, the government and of passengers are all in a state of great flux.

Any answer given now about train travel through the Thames Valley for any time in the next six months has to be considered provisional.
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