Snow Service Changes 25/02/18 onwards.

[Wivenswold]

Greater Anglia running a reduced service from 8pm tomorrow, no trains after 10pm.

https://www.essexlive.news/news/greater-anglia-warn-services-could-1261613

A weather warning has been issued for Essex between Monday (February 26) and Wednesday (February 28).

The snow and icy conditions could cause chaos for roads and transport services, which has led Greater Anglia to draw up contingency plans for the forecast of extreme weather.

As it stands, a reduced service will operate between, Ipswich, Colchester and London Liverpool Street due to slower speed restrictions.
Services on Monday will end at 10pm to enable trains to return to depots and stations before the forecast snow storms start, so services will start to be reduced from 8pm.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, should the weather remain as bad as expected, the reduced service will operate between 6am and 10pm...

 

[Confused147]

Don't worry.........

 

[Antman]

https://www.essexlive.news/news/greater-anglia-warn-services-could-1261613

Greater Anglia running a reduced service from 8pm tomorrow, no trains after 10pm.

C2C are planning something similar

https://www.c2c-online.co.uk/about-...r&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SocialSignIn

 

[Mag_seven]

Good to see the old "snow timetables" coming into action - it allows people to plan accordingly. BR used to do it.

 

[Ianigsy]

Yes, I remember when I lived in Canterbury in the early 1990s, the full SE section timetable booklet had a page detailing the arrangements to apply in the event of disruptive snowfall. Basically hourly or half hourly service with fast lines closed to prevent points failures.

 

[Wivenswold]

It was a bit of a free-for-all in terms of rolling stock in 1991 when Essex had blizzards, I remember seeing a photo of a 315 that had run an all-stations special from Shenfield to Witham. That was the year that the new fangled mark 3 EMUs suffered failures due to the powdery nature of the snow. Same type of snow this time too!

 

[RichJF]

For all us folk in the SE... taken from Southern website.

Looks like a wk majority working from home which is a bonus!

https://www.southernrailway.com/tra...959010000#INCA240F0C90A3C4DA288162120E164337B

A number of train operating companies have issued advance warning of possible service changes, or disruption to your journey:

c2c

Based on advice received by Network Rail regarding severe weather conditions expected from Monday, the last c2c trains will run significantly earlier than normal on Monday 26 February.

If you are planning to travel on Monday night please check for details before making your journey.

A normal timetable is planned until 21.00, after which some services will be altered or cancelled.

Greater Anglia

No service: Norwich to Sheringham, Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft; Ipswich to Felixstowe and Lowestoft; Colchester to Colchester Town; Stratford to Tottenham Hale.

Shuttle service only: Braintree to Witham; Harwich to Manningtree; Thorpe-le- Soken to Walton-on-the-Naze and Clacton; Hertford East to Broxbourne; Colchester to Clacton; Southminster to Wickford; Marks Tey to Sudbury;

Running but less frequent/slower service: Norwich to London, Norwich to Cambridge, Ipswich to Cambridge, Ipswich to Peterborough, Ipswich and Colchester to London, Southend to London, Cambridge to London, Stansted Airport to London, will run a reduced service from 06.00 to 22.00 on Tuesday and Wednesday, with all services finishing by 22.00 on Monday.

Southeastern are working closely with Network Rail to keep the rail network open, and will be running a full service on Monday morning.

With heavier snow expected from 18:00 on Monday, services may be disrupted.

Southeastern advise you to check before you travel and allow additional time for your journey. Southeastern recommend that where you can, you should complete your evening journey before 18:00 to avoid possible disruption.

GTR are saying that, due to predicted snow and icy conditions, they may be running a reduced or altered service from Tuesday morning. If this is implemented they aim to advertise this from Monday.

South Western Railway advise that ice can cause problems for trains as it can prevent them from drawing power from the electrified third rail. Please check your journey before you travel.

 

[infobleep]

Interestingly when I looked up the weather forecast for Guildford on the BBC Web Site, it had a dark black cloud and a single snow symbol for Wednesday. It's for each hour on Wednesday not a single symbol was a dark cloud and nor was their any snow symbols. Either light cloud; gray cloud or gray cloud and sun symbols.

I think this points to the weather forecasters not being sure, unless most hours will see snow but not on the hour!

If there is the possibility of snow but the forecasters are not certain, how do train companies decide which kind of service to run? Is it simply based on the overall probably on a certain day? You could have a clear day with just one bad hour but the bad hour could be very disruptive.

 

[DarloRich]

A yellow warning of snow ( not a yellow snow warning) has been issued. If you live in the south PREPARE TO PANIC.

I checked the various forecasting tools i have access to and the consensus seems to be ( for MK) cold overnight down to -3 or-4 with snow showers later in the week. I can live with that. I think i will be able to make it to work. Chug likes the snow

 

[cambsy]

I drive for my living, and enjoy driving in the snow, when had last bad snow in the south West, , I made it into work very day was booked to work, I had to drive 30 minutes on A roads and minor roads, when people 5 mins away didn’t make it, to me It’s the bad conditions which make a good driver and teaches the skills and experience for good driving, so not worried about this weather, could be some fun and games

 

[Peter Mugridge]

A yellow warning of snow ( not a yellow snow warning) has been issued.

The BBC local news forecast this evening gave us an amber warning for Tuesday and Wednesday.

I'm not panicking though.

 

[cuccir]

This may be a stupid question, but am I right in thinking that the main issue with the snow is in third rail areas?

 

[MikeWM]

GN now stating they will be shutting down early on Monday too.

I understand completely the need to amend/slow/reroute/cancel services in the conditions it looks like we’re about to get. I don’t however see what a blanket early shutdown like this achieves (other than leaving the tracks emptier for longer, presumably making it even more difficult to start up again the next day...) It also seems rather unfortunate for GA to already have decided to abandon services on the Norfolk/Suffolk branches entirely on Tuesday and Wednesday.

 

[MikeWM]

Interestingly when I looked up the weather forecast for Guildford on the BBC Web Site, it had a dark black cloud and a single snow symbol for Wednesday. It's for each hour on Wednesday not a single symbol was a dark cloud and nor was their any snow symbols. Either light cloud; gray cloud or gray cloud and sun symbols.

The BBC have changed their forecast provider recently. In my experience so far while it was fairly unreliable before the change, it is almost completely random now

 

[the sniper]

I drive for my living, and enjoy driving in the snow, when had last bad snow in the south West, , I made it into work very day was booked to work, I had to drive 30 minutes on A roads and minor roads, when people 5 mins away didn’t make it, to me It’s the bad conditions which make a good driver and teaches the skills and experience for good driving, so not worried about this weather, could be some fun and games

All good fun until you or somebody around you runs out of talent or makes a misjudgement. Particularly easy with so many people, not unreasonably really, driving around on wholly unsuitable summer tyres in those conditions.

 

[robbeech]

All good fun until you or somebody around you runs out of talent or makes a misjudgement. Particularly easy with so many people, not unreasonably really, driving around on wholly unsuitable summer tyres in those conditions.

Many are bad enough without the added snow. None of us are perfect of course.
The village where I live is quite high (relative to its immediate surroundings) and Derbyshire gritting teams can often miss the route through, though they have been much better this winter. You can often get blocked in or out quite easily if for only a short amount of time. A 30 minute journey to the office took me 7 hours one day, the roads were passable but the driving ability was mediocre at best.
One would hope there is better consistency from drivers with driving in poor weather conditions on the railway.

 

[Wivenswold]

Interestingly when I looked up the weather forecast for Guildford on the BBC Web Site, it had a dark black cloud and a single snow symbol for Wednesday. It's for each hour on Wednesday not a single symbol was a dark cloud and nor was their any snow symbols. Either light cloud; gray cloud or gray cloud and sun symbols.

I think this points to the weather forecasters not being sure, unless most hours will see snow but not on the hour!

If there is the possibility of snow but the forecasters are not certain, how do train companies decide which kind of service to run? Is it simply based on the overall probably on a certain day? You could have a clear day with just one bad hour but the bad hour could be very disruptive.

BBC no longer have anything but warnings from the Met Office and there's been a noticeable drop in quality since then.

I don't hold a lot of faith in those hourly symbol maps anyway, they are lifted from data from computer weather models and have no human input (unlike the Met Office forecasts). Those models will display random "blobs" of precipitation within an area that's due to have showers, which the app takes a bit too literally.

 

[eastdyke]

National Rail Enquiries seems to be struggling to reflect GA intentions. Last night it was implying that no service would run on the rural branches today (Monday). That has now been sorted but in a place it still mentions the limited service for Tuesday and Thursday (we all know that they mean Wednesday - for the time being at least!).
I can understand why rural branches in Norfolk may be suspended. As little as 2 inches of snow can cause Norwich to become gridlocked when motorists discover that relatively small ramps become impassable with jack-knifed lorries, sideways buses and general mayhem.
Staff may have travel to work issues so GA concentrating on the main rail routes seems to be sensible.

 

[DelayRepay]

I understand completely the need to amend/slow/reroute/cancel services in the conditions it looks like we’re about to get. I don’t however see what a blanket early shutdown like this achieves (other than leaving the tracks emptier for longer, presumably making it even more difficult to start up again the next day...)

I guess it encourages people to change their plans, to make sure they're home early. So that if it's as bad as predicted, there are fewer people stuck at stations waiting for trains that are never going to be able to run.

 

[theageofthetra]

The BBC have changed their forecast provider recently. In my experience so far while it was fairly unreliable before the change, it is almost completely random now

That is correct.

 

[LAX54]

At 0515 BBC Sufffolk were saying Felixstowe, Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Cromer trains were cancelled today, rest assured I can confirm they are not ! (Normal service currently) well I say normal...there could be the normal AGA daily jigging about !

 

[eastdyke]

At 0515 BBC Sufffolk were saying Felixstowe, Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Cromer trains were cancelled today, rest assured I can confirm they are not ! (Normal service currently)

National Rail Enquiries were originally saying that they were cancelled (see the quote in post 7 up-thread)

 

[LAX54]

National Rail Enquiries were originally saying that they were cancelled (see the quote in post 7 up-thread)

Called Control when I got to work, they were going to call them to ensure the 'correct' info was going out on the Travel News'

 

[eastdyke]

Called Control when I got to work, they were going to call them to ensure the 'correct' info was going out on the Travel News'

The Heart (Radio) website shows cancellations, no idea what they are giving out though.
http://www.heart.co.uk/norfolk/news/traffic-travel/

Greater Anglia
Cancellations on Greater Anglia between Norwich and Sheringham
Adverse weather conditions
Greater Anglia
Cancellations on Greater Anglia between Norwich and Lowestoft
Adverse weather conditions
Greater Anglia
Cancellations on Greater Anglia between Norwich and Great Yarmouth
Adverse weather conditions
Greater Anglia
Cancellations on Greater Anglia between Felixstowe and Ipswich
Adverse weather conditions
Greater Anglia
Cancellations on Greater Anglia between Ipswich and Lowestoft
Adverse weather conditions

 

[dk1]

At 0515 BBC Sufffolk were saying Felixstowe, Yarmouth, Lowestoft and Cromer trains were cancelled today, rest assured I can confirm they are not ! (Normal service currently) well I say normal...there could be the normal AGA daily jigging about !

Norfolk was the same. The travel reporters there often seem to have trouble grasping the situation on the rails. Their geographical knowledge can be shocking too.

 

[LAX54]

Norfolk was the same. The travel reporters there often seem to have trouble grasping the situation on the rails. Their geographical knowledge can be shocking too.

Of course from 0400 to 0600 there are a number of Eastern County local radio stations all together, Suffolk/Norfolk/Cambridgeshire, Essex left a year or more ago, it all comes from Radio Norfolk in Norwich

Once upon a time, Colchester PSB used to get a call from Suffolk, and sometimes Norfolk to get the updates, but they stopped years ago when it went to the Control Offices.

 

[eastdyke]

The Heart (Radio) website now has 'no rail incidents to report'.

 

[fairysdad]

Looks like a wk majority working from home which is a bonus!

Not for those of us whose job is to make sure that those who do work from home can!

 

[LAX54]

G.A overall currently 94% right time

 

[al78]

All good fun until you or somebody around you runs out of talent or makes a misjudgement. Particularly easy with so many people, not unreasonably really, driving around on wholly unsuitable summer tyres in those conditions.

I have managed to drive (and cycle) to work in the snow and my route is on unclassified roads and single track lanes, but there are some conditions I found virtually impossible, such as when the thaw arrives and the road is covered with slush on top of wet ice. Couldn't even get traction and get going when starting off in third gear.

Also it is not just about you, it is about the other drivers out there. There was an incident many years ago in Wales where some cyclists were out on a ride, and a driver lost control on an icy patch and crashed into them, killing some of them.

http://www.cyclingnorthwales.co.uk/pages/cyclng_crash.htm