The night of February 4, 2014, will live long in the memory of Dawlish. The town had been battered non-stop for hours by one of the worst storms for decades. Waves were whipped higher and higher by vicious winds which increased in intensity. The sea pounded against the sea wall. Something had to give. And it did. Residents of Riviera Terrace – the inoffensive little road running alongside the railway track – were evacuated as things got worse. And the railway line gave up the uneven battle as water was forced through the wall, leaving the main line from Paddington to Penzance hanging in mid-air above a boiling cauldron of water, thousands of tonnes of ballast simply swept away by a mighty angry sea.