IT is now almost 18 years since a suggestion to shunt the railway line inland was tabled by the Teignbridge Environment Cllr Gordon Hook.

Looking at the potential effects of global warming, he was strongly in favour of the Paddington to Penzance line veering away from trouble spots on the coast. He warned that Devon and Cornwall would become the paupers of Europe if we lost the so-called holiday line and described that eventuality as ‘nothing short of cataclysmic’.

He favoured a new route to run along the corridor of the A381 to include Newton Abbot or an alternative to re-use an old rail track across Dartmoor. Oddly, Brunel had considered the moor himself in an attempt to avoid a coastal route, but the idea was abandoned and the present route was decided upon.

Brunel’s genius overlooked the fragility of the coast and within a decade, the elements were to show their upperhand. A combination of rough seas and easterly winds closed the line for 11 days in 1855 and the stretch between here and Langstone Rock has since shown up as being among the highest in the UK in maintenance costs.

In January 1931, further landslips provoked talk of re-routing the line inland...

READ THE FULL STORY IN FRIDAY’S TEIGNMOUTH POST.