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...
Black swan deaths attributed to bird flu
Defra has confirmed today (Wednesday 11 November) that the deaths of several black swans, including five cygnets, in Dawlish this week is due to a strain of avian flu. On Monday this week (9 November), the death of one adult black swan and five cygnets was confirmed...
Nuclear Flask collection 2nd&3rd November 2020
DRS 66301 "Kingmoor TMD" and 66304 travelled down from Crewe to Devonport to collect a nuclear flask and returned the next day to take it as far as Crewe. The video shows them sauntering along the Dawlish sea wall after being held in Dawlish Warren station for a...
The Worlds’ First Ever Live Streaming, Black Swan Camera Debuts in Dawlish, UK.
Black Swan Cam is a joint venture by Dawlish Beach Cams and Dawlish Town Council to provide worldwide coverage of the famous, Dawlish black swans. The state of the art camera located on Sea Breeze Cafe roof can focus on the black swans and their nest or can be moved...
Rail News- Rare Visitor.
On a very infrequent working from Crewe to Devonport and return brought two ex Fastline Class 66 locos now branded in the Direct Rail Services compass livery. It is believed to be the first occasion when 66303 and 66304 have been down to Plymouth. The consist of the...
Rail News 6th September 2020
A busy Saturday for trains on the sea wall. Main interest was the passing of the luxurious Northern Belle Pullman train which was on a day tour from Swansea to Torquay. Headed by 57316 now unnamed, but called FAB1 (which was Lady Penelope's 6 wheeled Rolls Royce) when...
100,000 Followers and counting – Competition time for around £600 worth of prizes
We would like to thank everyone that follows us on social media as we have reached 100,000 followers this month which is incredible. We are close to 60k on Facebook, 30k on YouTube, 8k on Instagram and nearly 6k on Twitter. That's an increase of 40,000 followers for...
Rail News 22-08-2020
The next and last steam train special to pass through Dawlish and Teignmouth this year, according to the Railway Touring Company, will be LMS Stanier Class 5 44871 in place of the previously advertised 6233 Duchess of Sutherland. This is the Royal Duchy from Bristol...
Brunel Holiday Park Cam
For close to a year now we've all been enjoying our latest camera, Brunel Holiday Park cam. Unfortunately, since lockdown was lifted, the camera has become very temperamental as a result of the sheer number of people at Dawlish Warren. We've had a meeting with Brunel...
Rail News 14-08-2020
Events featuring a Class 37 National Rail test train and a wrong line working by the cement train. The test trains to the South West seem to have been plagued with problems resulting in cancellations and curtailments but on 5th August a successful run by Colas 37219...
Freight train freight train going so fast!
A round up of some of this weeks freight trains seen on the sea walls of Dawlish and Teignmouth. For those of tender years the title comes from a song sung by Nancy Whiskey with the Chas McDevitt Skittle group which was a hit when I was a youth in 1962. You can hear...