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...
Changes to our YouTube Channel from 1st August 2020
When lockdown happened in early 2020 we put all of our live cameras on YouTube to help people through this tough time. During this time we have been listening to our subscribers as a lot of people found it difficult to watch our live streams from our website on their...
English Riviera Statesman Rail Tour
On Saturday 18th July a welcome sight on the sea wall was the first rail charter excursion this year which ran from Peterborough to Paignton. The locomotive and coaches were a credit to Statesman Rail Tours who had organised the tour. It was intended to use two locos...
Weedkiller & High Output Ballast Cleaner trains.
First up last night was the weedkiller Windhoff Multi Purpose Vehicle top and tailed by DB Cargo 66107 & 66015 seen in the video from the San Remo and Blenheim cameras and by Nick at Teignmouth as it entered the station. There has been a change in the HOBC train...
The Mask, Thank you Key Workers, a Castle class and Sleeper ECS
Plenty to see on a lovely sunny morning on the Dawlish and Teignmouth sea walls.The video starts with a Castle set racing along the Teignmouth sea wall passing Sprey Point and will be seen again as it reaches Dawlish. On its first time of running over the wall in its...
Recent Rail Non-Passenger Movements
There has been plenty of interesting loco hauled trains this week. The HOBC, High Output Ballast Cleaner has been working from Monday to Thursday travelling along the sea wall en route to Totnes where it reverses and sets off on the up line to the worksite between...
The HOBC………..High Output Ballast Cleaner Train
This behemoth of a train passed along the sea walls and through Dawlish and Teignmouth last night, Monday 22nd June. It is impressively lengthy and much longer than any other train that we see here. It is currently based in Fairwater yard in Taunton and will be coming...
Two Top & Tail Trains
On Friday 19th June, seen as they travelled from the Penzance Long Rock Depot to the Reading Traincare depot where the two sleeper trains of the Night Riviera service are based. GWR 57603 Tintagel Castle leading and 57605 Totnes Castle bringing up the rear of the five...
Shortage of Social Media
Apologies for the shortage of social media posts recently, unfortunately, I became unwell on Monday 15th June and have been on bed rest ever since.
Weekend Infrastructure trains to Cornwall
Track was being renewed near Lostwithiel in Cornwall by using two Infrastructure trains. The first through was on Friday evening when 66024 headed the Balfour Beatty rail laying train which had been seen replacing track at Teignmouth Station back in February. The...
Busy Day at Dawlish with non passenger trains. June 5th 2020
The day saw two track machines, an empty coaching stock sleeper train and the stand-in for the usual Network Rail HST test train pass through Dawlish. The stone blower is a machine that levels trackwork in situ to make the riding qualities more comfortable and safer....
Cement powder bound for Cornwall.
This is the third week since restarting the regular weekly delivery of cement powder to the Tarmac Works at Moorswater near Liskeard, so it looks like the building trade is getting back to normal and let's hope the rest of our lives do as well before too long. This...
More information on the Provisional Dates for 2020 Special trains through Dawlish & Teignmouth
Due to the outbreak of Coronavirus all of the originally planned excursions have been postponed since March. There are hopes or expectations of the tour companies that there will be a loosening of the regulations in the movement allowed by the population to edge the...
Dawlish 1850’s
One of the earliest photos I have seen of Dawlish, I reckon it’s late 1850’s, before William Chapman opened his photography business (1863). A great view of the original station with a wide gauge steam locomotive. Brunel’s Atmospheric Pumping Tower is in the...