http://uk.screen.yahoo.com/video/playlist/storms-videos/
At a place called Dawlish where the tracks run VERY close to the sea.
THIS is the MAINLINE London to Plymouth and on to Penzance (Lands End)!!
Wow, thats a tad scary.
Natures automatic train washer???
Tis a lil scarey…Notice the writeup said ““The train gave up after 2 attempts.””
Are there life vests under the seats?
I live on a headland further along the coast from where this picture was taken. That is a small wave in comparison to some that are seen there and waves crashing over the sea walls are not uncommon. This section of main line is often closed due to violent seas: waves crash over the trains, diesel powered with the usual vents and fans on the roof, which forces the closure of the line for passenger, crew and stock safety reasons. At one point the waves were hitting against the houses in the pic. And, believe it or not there is a station there as well.
What happens is that the waves scour the ballast away making the track quite unsafe. This happened again yesterday morning and the repairs to right of way and track will not have been rectified until Friday - providing the very high winds and tides expected over the next two days make the engineering work possible.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-26012890
If you were to peruse the Counties newspapers you would find little mention of this: it happens so often.
As I type the wind is soughing in my chimney and gusts of up to 50 mph. are present. Higher winds are forecast - up to 100 mph. At least the heavy rain has stopped for a while.
The SW of England and western Wales have had a severe battering: much farmland and villages are still underwater and have been for a month. Residents in seaside towns have cleaned up after the new year floods only to be deluged again this week.
But I guess some of you in many of the States north of the Mason-Dixon line - and maybe further south - are getting more snow storms again so it seems Mother Nature is having fun!
And yet, people continue to choose to live there. Fascinating. 
just like LA and some other places Steve lol
It has become more frequent though: summat to do wi global warmin they say!
When I lived in Sandy Eggo, we used to go to this restaurant that fronted the sea wall in La Jolla. During the winter storms the “bullet proof” windows would be battered by similar waves. It was great sport to get a window seat and drink coffee and eat pastry, wondering just how long the windows would hold out.
We never got wet.
tac Foley said:
Steve Featherkile said:
And yet, people continue to choose to live there. Fascinating.
This is UK - where else is there to go to?
tac
Canada…???
By the way Steve I got it wrong …again. Another senior moment.
I meant to print San Francisco not LA - earthquakes and all that.
I have a son and family that lives on an island with four active volcanos: it worries me at times. But then I can’t change anything. I just wish this dang rain would go away and I could run some trains!!!
Ross Mansell said:
tac Foley said:
Steve Featherkile said:
And yet, people continue to choose to live there. Fascinating.
This is UK - where else is there to go to?
tac
Canada…???
I hear Australia is warm and dry…well maybe a little TOO warm and dry, how about New Zealand, All you gotta worry about there are earthquakes, so I’d be just like California, without the traffic
tac Foley said:
Mr Mansell, as I’m sure you know, living in KENILWORTH, WARWICKSHIRE UK, people who live where THEY live tend to have families who have lived there for hundreds of years. Like I said, this is UK.
There are people who live in the same village as me whose family names are on the parish registers of 1578.
tac
When I was stationed at the US Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, the parish that I was a member used Communion ware that was “Given to the Glory of G-d and in loving memory of __________ Pinkney, who was carried off by the Yamasee Indians in 1715.”
Not as impressive as 1578, but it certainly got my attention, given that the non native history of my home only goes back to 1804 with the Corps of Discovery (Lewis and clark).
Well, that rail line shown at the start has been washed out. Now maybe they will re route North around the town and away from the coast (a 9 mile new line) as has been mooted since 1938!! Quite a mess down there apparently. So, the South west peninsula of the UK is cut off by rail…Some reports of 90 mph winds and huge waves…
An update on our severed rail connection. The night has been pretty grim in this peninsular. We have more to come they say. Actually it is all the fault of North America! It is the arctic vortex (or whatever it is called) that is causing these issues here. lo
There was an inland link proposed just before WW2 and the war, presumably stopped any more discussions. There was already an alternative route, albeit in single track from Newton Abbot to Exeter, but the shortsightedness of the infamous Beeching report - which was all about saving money - curtailed and lifted most of that alternative route.
Hope you are ok Alan…and to think I nearly bought a place years ago on the harbour at St Ives!!!
Even beyond the obvious physical damage to tracks, etc… it seems to me all that salt water would really take a toll on the trains due to corrosion.
tac Foley said:
Steve Featherkile said:
tac Foley said:
Mr Mansell, as I’m sure you know, living in KENILWORTH, WARWICKSHIRE UK, people who live where THEY live tend to have families who have lived there for hundreds of years. Like I said, this is UK.
There are people who live in the same village as me whose family names are on the parish registers of 1578.
tac
When I was stationed at the US Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, the parish that I was a member used Communion ware that was “Given to the Glory of G-d and in loving memory of __________ Pinkney, who was carried off by the Yamasee Indians in 1715.”
Not as impressive as 1578, but it certainly got my attention, given that the non native history of my home only goes back to 1804 with the Corps of Discovery (Lewis and clark).
The bridge in our village was finished in the 12th C. Parts of the local church date back to pre-1066, and the local cathedral is based on a Christian church that dates from the reign of the Anglo-Saxon King Peada in about 655 AD, as one of the first centres of Christianity in central England. The monastic settlement with which the church was associated lasted at least until 870, when it was supposedly destroyed by Vikings.
In the mid 10th century monastic revival (in which churches at Ely and Ramsey were also refounded) a Benedictine Abbey was created and endowed in 966, principally by Athelwold, Bishop of Winchester, from what remained of the earlier church, with “a basilica [church] there furbished with suitable structures of halls, and enriched with surrounding lands” and more extensive buildings which saw the aisle built out to the west with a second tower added. The original central tower was, however, retained. It was dedicated to St Peter, and came to be called a burgh, hence the town surrounding the abbey was eventually named Peter-burgh. The community was further revived in 972 by Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury.
The painted ceiling is the longest in the world.
Just sayin’.
tac
Ottawa Valley GRS
OK, tac, I surrender. You win. We are children.
I’ll have to ask my friend Will, of the Nez Pierce Nation, if he can top that. 
Oh, I dunno, Ray, with all the rain we have been having lately (and its still at it) they’ll be well washed (make a change)…
Steve and all, I apologise for my posts. After all, all this English history really has nothing to do with me; my family are all immigrants with no history of our own at all, apart from the bit that you can read in the origina part of the bible.
I’ve therefore pulled my posts on this subjects.
tac
Ross Mansell said:
Hope you are ok Alan…and to think I nearly bought a place years ago on the harbour at St Ives!!!
Thankfully and by the Grace of God, I and mine are, thank you for enquiring.
91 mph gusts did cause concern about the house. Being 200ft. asl and on a headland flooding is not common, if at all, but a block away very large trees came down. St. Ives, Cornwall, is a little sheltered from the Atlantic, facing NE, and, as far as I know has got away with it somewhat. This eastern side of Torbay got the battering wheras the mid and western part did not. Dartmouth/Kingswear is in the river so sheltered: the main issue there was wind and tide to high for vehicle ferries to operate. Othwer South Devon towns were not so lucky.
I just want to run trains again: no chance in this weather.