On the wall of Mark Carne's office in King's Cross hangs a 1901 print of Brunei's drawings of the Dawlish sea wall. The print was given to Network Rail's chief executive by staff at the National Rail Museum's archives and he need only glance from his desk to be reminded of his baptism of fire when he started his role in February. The wild winter weather which battered the UK's coastline had led to flooding at almost 300 sites and more than 100 landslips. Dawlish was the most high profile, with slips on two separate occasions and eight weeks of repair works. The estimated cost of the clean-up to Network Rail was around £170m. Mr Carne brought forward his starting date by five weeks to try to become the focal point for getting the crisis under control.
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