Rail investment now for Devon’s future

I have been a Devon transport campaigner since 1975, during which time we have pressed for greater investment in railway lines and trains. In that time we have successfully seen the re-opening of stations at Pinhoe, Digby & Sowton, Ivybridge and the reintroduction of more frequent services on many local lines. This is to be applauded.

However it is now becoming abundantly clear that our railway infrastructure in and around the county is in trouble. We desperately need urgent and deep attention to the whole rail system in the region. No wonder people are feeling abandoned by central government. Our population is not high compared with other counties so economic returns are less attractive and money gets diverted into distant schemes like HS2.

At a time when the local authorities, train operators and others ironically want to develop the rail network through a Devon Metro project, the system is once again significantly under threat by chaotic weather conditions. We have experienced major temporary cuts to services in north, east and south Devon every year since 2007. The collapse of the sea wall at Dawlish is but one of a series of disruptions.

I suggest there needs to be action on four fronts to make key improvements for the future, as well as repairs to track lost to the sea in Teignbridge and flooding in Somerset:

• a re-doubling of the track (or at least a further 3 passing loops) on the Exeter-Salisbury line to secure the reliability required on this route, including for trains to be diverted from the Taunton-Reading line
• an urgent re-installing of the track between Exeter and Newton Abbot via the Teign Valley (with passing loops)
• a serious assessment into the re-opening of the Okehampton-Plymouth route via Tavistock
• long term investment in rail electrification in the South West, beginning with the old Southern line from Basingstoke

It is essential that local train services to Dawlish and Teignmouth (and on to Torbay) are preserved, but this does mean making a second route viable sooner rather than later. The Okehampton line has its attractions but this should be seen as an addition not instead of the Teign Valley option.

A proposed new route under the Haldon Hills was dismissed a few years ago as being too expensive and not serving local towns.

So in the future we could well go back to seeing rail links to Plymouth and Cornwall north and south of Dartmoor.

Unless these kinds of choices are taken seriously soon, the planned new stations in Exeter, Cranbrook and elsewhere could become vanity projects. The security, safety and reliability of the whole network have to be given priority by the government and the rail agencies which it manages. And if it is said all this is likely to be too expensive, I would ask what is the alternative for hundreds of thousands of people in the Westcountry without trains and the millions of pounds being lost to the economy on a daily basis?