& The sea wall broke...

As an update to yesterday's post: the sea wall at Dawlish has collapsed overnight; leaving the houses behind it very vulnerable to flooding, and the railway damaged and even inaccessible to start repairs. See this news item at the BBC website, which includes a short video and several pictures illustrating what's happened (pictures below come from this BBC site): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26042990












And here another short you tube movie from today (Feb 5th) of the waves coming over the sea wall at Dawlish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSfr6U4chfI

First Great Western, the railway company, has even increased their warning notice about the train service west of Exeter (http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/): 
Wednesday 05 February 2014.

Disruption to First Great Western Services

Severe Weather Notice.

All lines between Exeter St Davids and Penzance are now closed - Update at 1200

We are unable to offer a  train service West of  Exeter St Davids towards Penzance due to further overnight severe weather conditions. We are working with Network Rail to evaluate the rail conditions in many areas. Some Branch Line services in Devon and Cornwall are now operating . We are unable to procure road transport as many of the roads have been affected by the weather conditions.

We would strongly advise customers not to attempt to travel for the rest of today.

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Please check  JourneyCheck website and Twitter feed @FGW for up to date information before attempting to travel.