National Rail Infrastructure trains
It's been a busy time along the sea wall with four different types of train. Starting on Monday evening the TRT Track Renewal Train came down from Fairwater Yard at Taunton to replace track in the Dainton area. On Monday its timetable included a stop in Dawlish Warren...
The Royal Train June 11th 2021
The Royal Train was in use on June 11th to take members of the Royal Family from Windsor to Par in Cornwall to attend the G7 meetings. On the train were Prince Charles, Camilla and Prince William. The train has been recorded as it passed through Dawlish and...
Saphos Rail Tours “Devonian Express” Steam Train
Saphos Rail Tours "Devonian Express" ran today from Solihull to Plymouth. It began its journey under diesel power with LSL 47614 and made its way down through Warwick, Leamington Spa, Banbury, and Oxford picking up passengers before heading to Bristol Temple Meads....
The Cornish Coastal Pullman
A full day out from Wolverhampton and Tame Bridge to Penzance. The train was double-headed by two LSL Class 47 locomotives 47593 which is named Galloway Princess and 47614 plus eleven Pullman luxury coaches. The train set off at 5.09am and arrived at Penzance at 1pm ...
HST Midland Pullman
The Midland Pullman is owned and run by Locomotive Services Ltd. ( LSL) The tour was from Eastleigh to Penzance and was the first occasion that the train has been to Devon & Cornwall. The power cars were numbers 43055 and 43046 which is named Geoff Drury...
Rail News 27th May 2021
First of all to get it out the way the bad news is that steam train 60163 Tornado's tour which was due to pass through Dawlish on Saturday 29th has been cancelled. The good news is that the newly formed HST Midland Pullman train's tour to Penzance and return is still...
The Weedkiller train
It is the time of year that the weedkiller trains operate. The Windhoff MPV (multi purpose vehicle) normally would operate on its own but because of the lingering Covid Regulations it is being top and tailed by two DB Cargo locomotives to keep the staff apart and able...
Dawlish Brewery
At the end of the 17th century, there were six or seven pubs in a village of about 2000 residents. By 1845, there were more than a dozen and the population had increased to about 4000 people. Now, there are about 14,000 living in Dawlish and there are only eight pubs...
The Funeral – Royal Visitor
Having written about the auction of the Dawlish Brewery in 1825 by my four greats grandfather, John Force, I have to say that I enjoyed writing about an actual event, even if the details of the story were a figment of my imagination. The problem was, as I mentioned in...
Sea Wall Rail News 22nd April 2021
Due to the Covid restrictions it was deemed not cost effective to operate the Devonian Express Midland Pullman excursion from Peterborough to Kingswear on May 3rd which has now been re-programmed to run on August 30th which is good news. The Midland Pullman is still...
At the fall of the hammer
My previous blog introduced Mary and her family, and it gave me the idea that my imagination could create an adventure out of any situation, even if it was only a work of fiction. However, I wanted to use a real event and weave a story where I could influence...
Railway interest at Dawlish April 14/15th 2021
Plenty going on between 6.30pm 14th April and 7.30am on the 15th. The video shows in time order firstly the Thank You Key workers IET 802020 on the rear of 802021 followed by HST Class 255 43170 Chepstow Castle and 43098 Walton Castle. Next along is GBRf 66748 "West...
GBRf on HST Power Cars Stock Movement 13th April 2021
GBRf 66748 named " West Burton 50" brought 4 HST Power cars 43197 43193 43087 43056 out of long term storage down to Laira from Long Marston. It is due to return to Long Marston on Weds 14th to collect further locos and return to Laira Depot. ...
Gone Fishing
Welcome to my latest musings about the past in Dawlish, which have formed the basis of my second book about the town: Eavesdropper – Dawlish Tales from Long Ago. For those of you who have been following these blogs, I have now recounted snippets of half a dozen tales...
First special train of the season.
And what a delight it was to see this private train. Immaculate throughout from the gleaming Class 37 locomotives powering it to the last of the Pullman style coaches provided by the Locomotive Services Limited Company. It is available for hire to wealthy business...
A Watery Tale
Welcome to my latest blog and musings about Dawlish in days gone by. For much of its history, Dawlish remained a small and insignificant village where nothing ever really happened. The villagers lived their lives generation after generation, either tilling the...
Dawlish – Anglo-Saxons times
I do hope you are enjoying reading about the tales in my book of short stories: “Eavesdropper – Dawlish Tales from Long Ago.” Whenever I have done a talk about Dawlish, I have always said that the earliest settlement in Dawlish itself was established by the...
The Tomato Banana!
Friday 12th March saw the regular monthly visit of the New Measurement Train known by rail fans as the Flying Banana passing through Dawlish twice in each direction. Currently a temporary replacement for one of the normal power cars is a debranded ex LNER locomotive...
Rail News week ending 7th March 2021
Throughout Sunday night eight infrastructure trains made their way from Westbury to Parr and beyond St Austell to Burngullow junction. The Cornish main line between Par and Truro was closed from Monday to Friday though the branch lines maintained there train services....
Iron Age warriors
Here is my latest offering about the tales in my book of short stories about the past in Dawlish, “Eavesdropper – Dawlish Tales from Long Ago.” Those of you who have been following the tales will remember that, so far, I have witnessed adventures in 1840, 1740, 1640...
The Wedding
The Wedding. Continuing my blog about the book: ‘Eavesdropper – Dawlish Tales from Long Ago’, we now reach Chapter 3 - ‘The Wedding’. By now, I was beginning to feel that I had enough material to write a book; not necessarily a full-length tome, but maybe half a dozen...
Railway News week ending 27th Feb2021
Yet another wet and windy week making life difficult with the salty spray affecting the web cams earlier on in the week but fortunately coming up trumps towards the end when we said farewell to the Wavewalker which has dominated the Dawlish scene for the past three...
The Sea Rescue
When I started thinking about a fourth short story to include in my book, ‘Eavesdropper – Dawlish Tales from Long Ago’, I intended to go back another hundred years to the time when Henry VIII was on the throne and falling out with the Catholic Church. However,...
The birth of Dawlish as a seaside resort
By the time Brunel’s railway came through Dawlish in 1846, Dawlish had already established itself as a seaside resort and watering place for wealthy Georgians and Victorians. This was in no small part thanks to King George 111, who reigned from 1760 until 1820. He...
Trains v Wind & Waves Dawlish 11th February 2021
Morning broke with a freshening wind and choppy sea. Even though it was an hour and a half after the 6.05am medium height tide, the spray from the waves was breaking well over the wall and over the railway tracks. Normally Cross Country voyagers do not operate in such...
Rough Sea Dawlish 09-02-2021
The sea was splashing a bit around high tide at 16.55 sending spray over the sea walls and gave an opportunity for Cross Country engineers to see how a modification to a Voyager roof with a silica film to prevent water ingress fared. This was nowhere near how bad...
Brunel and the coming of the railway
When I was looking for a subject to write a short story about Dawlish, Isambard Kingdom Brunel seemed to be the obvious choice. Not only is his name very well known, but his influence on Dawlish was immense during the 19th century. Even now, the railway through...
Rail News w/e Feb 7th 2021
In February's Railway Magazine it was reported that subject to covid restrictions there will be a Great Britain X1V steam hauled railtour this year. It begins with Tornado on April16th from Kings Cross to Edinburgh. After touring Scotland with different motive power...
Dawlish History in the Making
From Sunday the 7th February 2021, we are excited to introduce to you a weekly blog post by local historian and author, David Force. You may have seen us post many historic photos over the years on our Facebook page that David shares and now he will be teaching us a bit more about Dawlish town over the years.
Spent ballast collection from St. Ives branch
Following the recent track replacement on the St.Ives branch the civil engineering department is starting to collect the old used ballast from the worksite. DB Cargo were entrusted with the first load sending 66020 and 66107 top and tailing ten empty box wagons on the...
Dawlish Rail News week ending Jan 17th 2021
A busy week on the railway with having six infrastructure trains travelling from Westbury to St Erth from where the branch line to St.Ives is having a lot of the track renewed. Fortunately the outward and empty returns have been in the daytime whereas normally they...
10 Million Views
On the 17th of October 2019, I was out doing my Dawlish rounds, taking photos for social media when I bumped into Don, the waterfowl warden. He was ushering the black swans and their one-week-old cygnets into the brook as the seagulls on the lawn behind us were very...
Current Dawlish Railway News
For the last 10 days or so there has been a lot of infrastructure trains from Westbury to the Penzance area where the line between there and Truro has been closed to Passenger traffic for several days. Buses have operated in the meantime. Class 66 and class 70 from...
New Live Camera for early 2021
Thanks to Sea Breeze in Dawlish, a new live camera will be installed in early 2021 to watch the Dawlish railway station upgrade. This will also be our first ever 4k, Ultra HD camera that will broadcast the station upgrade over the next couple of years. Sea Breeze in...
A day’s run for a rail test train.
On Friday 20th Nov 2020 the regular 4 weekly Network Rail HST powered test train was unavailable and the stand-in locomotives on a 4 coach replacement set were Colas 37254 "Cardiff Canton" and 37099 "Merl Evans". The two locomotives are a credit to English Electric as...
Gunnislake branchline Infrastructure train
On Sunday 15th evening the Westbury to St. Budeaux Network Rail Infrastructure train could be seen passing through Dawlish and Teignmouth top and tailed by GBRf's 66790 & 66789. Somewhat unusual was that the consist was made up with rail, sleepers and...