With a consultation underway on plans to move the GW main line out to sea at Teignmouth and work already started at the wave defences at Dawlish, I thought it was time to look back at plans for the Dawlish Avoiding line drawn up by the Great Western Railway in the 1930s.
At the time the Government was keen on big infrastructure scheme to tackle unemployment. Programmes amounting to £185m had been approved by June 1931. The GWR had already used some of this money for avoiding lines around Westbury and Frome.
The need for a new inland line avoiding the sea wall between Dawlish Warren and Teignmouth had been highlighted by two incidents. The first happened on Christmas Eve 1929 when waves blown in by a storm damaged the downline between Dawlish and Dawlish Warren. The second was two years later when there was a major landslip at Sprey Point near Teignmouth.
In all three plans emerged for the avoiding line. The first proposed in 1936 ran from Exminster, the second started nearer Powderham and the third just north of Dawlish Warren. All three ended just east of Newton Abbot near Hackney Marshes at Bishopsteignton passing west of Dawlish and Teignmouth. By 1937 only the lowest cost line from Dawlish Warren was a serious contender.
After gaining parliamentary approval, construction started in Spring 1939. The line was to have passed from a junction at Eastdon (gallery below top left), crossing the Dawlish Warren road north of Hazelwood Caravan Park (top right). It then ran parallel to Shutterton Road before crossing the A379 (upper middle left) near the Lady's Mile Park. The route then passed north of Gatehouse (upper middle right) and into a tunnel (lower middle left). It emerged near Badlake Hill (lower middle right) crossing the road (bottom left) before a bridge took it over Weech Rd (bottom right). To facilitate the work, houses along the route including the vicarage in Weeth Road were purchased.
There would then have been an embankment across the western end of The Newhay (top left below) and loss of about half of this park area. After that the line would have skirted the mill pond on a viaduct at the top end of The Newhay and followed the Aller Valley road top right below) crossing over Aller Brook roughly where the current ford is (bottom right) on the lane towards Holcombe. It then went into a 2624 yard long tunnel which reached a depth of 450feet (bottom right).
The route emerging on Exeter Road in Teignmouth just north of the school at the junction of Exeter Rd and New Rd (top left). It then went into a short tunnel which ended near the Broadmeadow Sports Centre (top right) before entering another past Morrisons (middle left). The last bit to Hackney was a gradual descent over the A381 (middle right) finally paralleling the current line (bottom left) but at a higher elevation till the old and new routes re-joined at Hackney (bottom right).
The advent of the second world war a few months later brought the project to an end. The GWR was nationalised on 1 January 1948, and the land sold. The former Dawlish vicarage was converted into the station master’s house and is now being renovated (see below). The powers of the associated Act of Parliament only lapsed in 1999.
The former Vicarage in Weech Road Dawlish under renovation. 2020.