I was in my flat in Dawlish on Tuesday and Wednesday. It is located on the sea front about 50 yards from where the 2014 sea wall breach occurred, is on the first floor of a three floor terrace house, has a narrow road in front then the two railway tracks and the well known sea wall path. The sea conditions were 2.5 metre waves rolling in from the ESE direction and high tides of around 3.6 metres at around 21.00 Tuesday evening and 09.30 the Wednesday morning. I would describe the tide height as fairly full however the ESE wave direction is quite unusual. I think the wind was around 40 to 50 KPH although some gusts were probably higher than that. Note: this is all from memory so please treat these figures as approximate.
It was a pretty interesting couple of high tides, I think the morning of Wednesday was just the bit more intense. Since the sea wall was rebuilt in this area (Riviera Terrace) the waves technically don't wash over the wall, they break against the wall and are directed upwards including any debris contained in those waves. The wind then catches the spray and blows it along which in this case was ESE and about 45 degrees to the direction of the track. I would think that over at Marine Parade with the new sea wall the waves were hitting full on. The sea was absolutely boiling and every now and then our front windows were hit by spray and completey drenched. One hit so hard my wife actually screamed because she thought the window was going to break. I have lived here for four years and this certainly was one of the most active seas that I have experienced. However, I have neighbours who experienced the 2014 breach and they said that they had seen much worse in the past.
I did take some videos of the trains on Wednesday morning and put a couple on Youtube. My fave is of 2U10 yesterday morning on the Up at just about high tide here:
I'm not qualified to comment on train operations however it was clear from Open Train Times that there was an issue at Teignmouth and now I have a better understanding of it thanks to this thread. Personally I think the sea wall did its job and did it well but it was an 'interesting' couple of days.