
Grayling announces new funding for Dawlish
New funding worth up to £80 million has been announced to build a higher and more resilient sea wall at Dawlish in south Devon, where storm-driven seas frequently cause damage to the main line railway. Bad weather destroyed part of the line in early 2014, blocking the only railway to Plymouth and Cornwall for six weeks. The Department for Transport has also published a new programme of wider investment in the region entitled ’Investing in the South West’, which is being launched today by transport secretary Chris Grayling during a visit to Dawlish.

The new chief executive of Network Rail has revealed his plans for the organisation’s future, after a three-month period of consideration. Andrew Haines had already warned that railway operation was too far down Network Rail’s agenda, and Network Rail said the new plans involved ‘reorganising to put passengers and freight users first’. The key will be more devolution, with the creation of five new regions and 13 routes, rather than eight. The 13 routes will be responsible to five regional managing directors. NR said that the new regions would support the routes, ‘making us fleeter-of-foot’, as one insider described it to Railnews.
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