Trains to South-West England again disrupted by storms.

This video came in the Facebook feed from my train-nut friends yesterday. I cannot believe they built the train lines so close to the sea!!

Porcupyn

That's so scary! If it happened later in winter, the water would freeze on the train and tracks.

"That's so scary! If it happened later in winter, the water would freeze on the train and tracks."

The water freezing on the tracks is the least of their worries. The dunes and land have been washed out from underneath the tracks in places, so the tracks are just hanging there in mid air above the beach. If the train came along and the driver had not been warned about this, and could not see it because of being pelted over the top of the train with waves, the train could fall through the unsupported tracks into the sea.

Take a look at the second picture in this article. Photo taken after the storm was over and weather was clear:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-30040238

Rebecca,
That photo you posted of the washed out tracks was taken last winter. The line was closed for 2 months to repair the damage. The sea wall and line were rebuilt, and is (so far) surviving this winter's storms.
The reason the line was built there (way back in 1846) was that inland it is all hills, and would be a lot more expensive.to build. And in 1846 they hadn't heard of Global Warming and Sea Level Rise.
Storms affecting the railway line are becoming more frequent, and there are new demands for it to be re-routed inland, but that would require tunnels and be very expensive.

There was an inland route from Exeter to Plymouth but it was closed in the late 1960s.

The trains run by cross country through Dawlish are much more affected by sea spray than the rather older ones run by first great western.

Another video here: http://news.sky.com/video/1372725/waves-batter-trains-in-dawlish

The Class 220 Voyager and Class 221 Super Voyager trains run by Cross Country do just fine in rain, even torrential rain. They are designed to work with normal fresh water falling from the heavens.

Unfortunately they were never designed to work with copious quantities of salt water landing on the roofs. The salt water is much more electrically conductive than fresh water and it shorts out systems on the roofs.

The ancient HST and Class 150 (and variants) trains run by First Great Western are much simpler trains and don't have the electronics on the roof that the 220s and 221s have.

Indeed - it is the over the roof sea-spray that is the key thing.

The station itself was closed, but that may well have been from the platforms being awash rather than the trains themselves.

From what I recall the problems with Voyagers has been going on ever since they were introduced onto this route, the special requirements of which had supposed to have been taken into account during its design. There have been successful attempts to improve it over the last 12 years but ultimately they can't completely overcome the inadequate initial design making them susceptible to the on-board computers shutting the engines down when sea water goes over the roof before it drains away.