Heatwave 22-27 June - effect on the UK Railway

rower40 · 26 Jun 2026

Polarbear said:
There’s currently a signalling issue on the East Coast Main line. I’m currently sat at York & many southbound LNER (and some Cross Country ones) are either cancelled outright, or delayed for well over an hour.

I think that was the incident I witnessed. I was on 1S11 (1003 kings cross to Aberdeen) through Peterborough. 9J25 Peterborough to Horsham had been routed into an Up Loop between Peterborough and Huntingdon, and was about to return northbound to Peterborough. Other southbound trains either cancelled at Peterborough, or resumed their journeys with a very slow bit just after the aforementioned loop.
Then 9J25 made it back to Peterborough, and has restarted to have another go!
Possibly a heat-related track defect on the up line on the 3-track section.

RailUK Forums

Northern158170 · 26 Jun 2026

A family member was held 20 minutes at Peterborough on a KGX service - and appears by the looks of things to be the lucky one

I’m due on the 12:00 EDB-KGX - already delayed 16 minutes and the train hasn’t even arrived yet

Edit: I’ve looked at the signal maps, there appears to be a queue of 8 trains outside Edinburgh headed by 9S09 NCL-EDB

LowLevel · 26 Jun 2026

Bletchleyite said:
I'll be honest, I've considered it - it's usually pretty good on the 350s and 730s. That or going to watch a film.

Not going to lie, I normally refuse to drive in rush hour if I can possibly avoid it going to get lengths to use the train instead - instead I sat in my air conditioned car in the traffic.

D1537 · 26 Jun 2026

Polarbear said:
There’s currently a signalling issue on the East Coast Main line. I’m currently sat at York & many southbound LNER (and some Cross Country ones) are either cancelled outright, or delayed for well over an hour.

Lightning strike in the Edinburgh area, apparently.

orestad · 26 Jun 2026

It’s interesting to hear passengers complain about how there’s delayed or cancelled trains when messages of ‘do not travel’ and ‘services may be delayed or cancelled at short notice’ have been put out this entire week. Genuinely bugs me as to what they thought would happen. You were warned and you’re still annoyed.

Gareth1990 · 26 Jun 2026

orestad said:
It’s interesting to hear passengers complain about how there’s delayed or cancelled trains when messages of ‘do not travel’ and ‘services may be delayed or cancelled at short notice’ have been put out this entire week. Genuinely bugs me as to what they thought would happen. You were warned and you’re still annoyed.

I’m annoyed because if the situation was so serious that a do not travel warning is issued all trains should be cancelled, you can’t have a glass half full situation, It’s a Friday when everyone is getting away…

orestad · 26 Jun 2026

Gareth1990 said:
I’m annoyed because if the situation was so serious that a do not travel warning is issued all trains should be cancelled, you can’t have a glass half full situation, It’s a Friday when everyone is getting away…

Everyone’s getting away and still ignoring the messages. With things like preplanned events such as weddings, hospital appointments I understand, but things like going out to sightsee on a whim is not necessary for today, or this week rather.

The exile · 26 Jun 2026

LowLevel said:
Not going to lie, I normally refuse to drive in rush hour if I can possibly avoid it going to get lengths to use the train instead - instead I sat in my air conditioned car in the traffic.

Likewise since Tuesday - not that there’s been much traffic to sit in!

bramling · 26 Jun 2026

orestad said:
Everyone’s getting away and still ignoring the messages. With things like preplanned events such as weddings, hospital appointments I understand, but things like going out to sightsee on a whim is not necessary for today, or this week rather. I don’t really understand your glass half full situation so you might need to explain it to me so I can get your point.

Certainly plenty of “yay we have an unexpected day off today let’s head to the beach”.

I’ve mixed views on this. On the one hand I’m not convinced that going out in this heat is the most sensible thing to do, especially given that things will very quickly become unbearable and probably dangerous if something happens and there’s a delay (applies equally to roads as it does to trains).

However the other side of this coin is that people are free to make their own choices, and should be able to do so, and if they do end up in an unpleasant situation then it’s largely their own making, albeit they are also increasing the chances of an unpleasant situation arising. I saw a disproportionate number of broken-down cars on the motorway yesterday, and in pretty much every case there was a whole family standing next to the car - which does suggest irregular road users deciding to go on a jolly quite probably in a poorly maintained or prepared car.

I find it more annoying when people insist on going out during high winds or when there’s ice/snow. This tends to impose a far greater burden on others.

The exile · 26 Jun 2026

Gareth1990 said:
I’m annoyed because if the situation was so serious that a do not travel warning is issued all trains should be cancelled, you can’t have a glass half full situation, It’s a Friday when everyone is getting away…

It’s avoid non-essential travel. Even during lockdown trains ran because some people have to travel. Something as “simple” as last day of holiday and vital medication at home…

bramling · 26 Jun 2026

The exile said:
It’s avoid non-essential travel. Even during lockdown trains ran because some people have to travel. Something as “simple” as last day of holiday and vital medication at home…

The difficulty with that message is that people don’t seem particularly good at making a judicious decision as to what merits “essential” travel.

It doesn’t help that this was used to excess during Covid, so people are less likely to take too much notice subsequently.

Obviously the industry doesn’t really want to be putting out a message saying “please don’t travel as there’s a high possibility you could end up stuck on a packed train with no air conditioning stranded directly in the sun for 3 hours” (as happened at Drayton Park the other day), but that’s essentially what they are trying to avoid.

Bletchleyite · 26 Jun 2026

LowLevel said:
Not going to lie, I normally refuse to drive in rush hour if I can possibly avoid it going to get lengths to use the train instead - instead I sat in my air conditioned car in the traffic.

If mine was working I'd go for a drive

speedy1 · 26 Jun 2026

orestad said:
It’s interesting to hear passengers complain about how there’s delayed or cancelled trains when messages of ‘do not travel’ and ‘services may be delayed or cancelled at short notice’ have been put out this entire week. Genuinely bugs me as to what they thought would happen. You were warned and you’re still annoyed.

Indeed. What with some of the lowest fares in Europe, and one of the lowest tax burdens in Europe, and a country with such a short history of railway, people should adjust their expectations

Gareth1990 · 26 Jun 2026

orestad said:
Everyone’s getting away and still ignoring the messages. With things like preplanned events such as weddings, hospital appointments I understand, but things like going out to sightsee on a whim is not necessary for today, or this week rather. I don’t really understand your glass half full situation so you might need to explain it to me so I can get your point.

You can’t tell people to not travel after midday and then cancel half your services in the morning, it’s expected everyone will try to travel in the morning causing overcrowding and possibly making the situation worse than if you just didn’t issue a warning at all

MikeWM · 26 Jun 2026

Gareth1990 said:
You can’t tell people to not travel after midday and then cancel half your services in the morning, it’s expected everyone will try to travel in the morning causing overcrowding and possibly making the situation worse than if you just didn’t issue a warning at all

Particularly after telling people all the way up to Wednesday afternoon that they should travel on Friday instead of Wednesday/Thursday, when it was clear by Monday evening that Friday was almost certainly going to be the hottest day in the east.

...which has turned out to be the case. At least the dewpoint is now dropping but there is widespread 35C+ heat today, the June record seems likely to fall for the third day running.

The exile · 26 Jun 2026

bramling said:
Obviously the industry doesn’t really want to be putting out a message saying “please don’t travel as there’s a high possibility you could end up stuck on a packed train with no air conditioning stranded directly in the sun for 3 hours” (as happened at Drayton Park the other day), but that’s essentially what they are trying to avoid.

Some TOCs are saying almost exactly that (couched in slightly different language of course). I think anyone who is travelling in the affected area and finds the experience suboptimal is in no position to say they weren’t warned. OK, that’s of little consolation if you genuinely had to travel, but the journey would probably have been more tolerable if people who didn’t have to had put the good of others before their own wants and dare I say “rights” for once.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Jun 2026 ==

MikeWM said:
after telling people all the way up to Wednesday afternoon that they should travel on Friday instead of Wednesday/Thursday, when it was clear by Monday evening that Friday was almost certainly going to be the hottest day in the east.

That is a fair comment - though here “out west” it’s a lot more bearable today.

sjm77 · 26 Jun 2026

I'm not sure if its heat related but there is an issue with the OHLE at Trafford Park. 1B73 (09:26 ex-Cleethorpes) which became 5B73 at Oxford Road has been sitting there for an hour. 1L11 (11:51 ex-Lime Street) EMR did get through on the Eastbound track.

Snow1964 · 26 Jun 2026

MikeWM said:
Particularly after telling people all the way up to Wednesday afternoon that they should travel on Friday instead of Wednesday/Thursday, when it was clear by Monday evening that Friday was almost certainly going to be the hottest day in the east.

And that's where joined up thinking hasn't taken place in earlier messaging

People will interpret defer until Friday, as by Friday things will be normal, and reschedule any travel for Friday.

Spartacus · 26 Jun 2026

bramling said:
The difficulty with that message is that people don’t seem particularly good at making a judicious decision as to what merits “essential” travel.

I mean, go far enough back and it needed hammering home like mad with 'Is Your Journey Really Necessary' messages, which are thought to have only had limited success, and that was when there was a war on!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Jun 2026 ==

sjm77 said:
I'm not sure if its heat related but there is an issue with the OHLE at Trafford Park. 1B73 (09:26 ex-Cleethorpes) which became 5B73 at Oxford Road has been sitting there for an hour. 1L11 (11:51 ex-Lime Street) EMR did get through on the Eastbound track.

Yeah, badly sagging overheads.

orestad · 26 Jun 2026

Gareth1990 said:
You can’t tell people to not travel after midday and then cancel half your services in the morning, it’s expected everyone will try to travel in the morning causing overcrowding and possibly making the situation worse than if you just didn’t issue a warning at all

Or you can travel later on in the evening. Or early next week. Ticket acceptance on LNER is up until Tuesday for tickets dated Wednesday 24th June onwards, for example.

It’s understandable that people would prefer to travel in the morning if they’re already here early and got the message, but again, it’s the option of having flexible choices of when to travel. I was thinking of going up to Newcastle this week but decided against it because I knew it was going to be busy, hot and miserable. A lot of people don’t have that way of thinking and go “but I must go and have a nice day off somewhere nice and I will complain about it too” and that’s what annoys me.

bramling said:
However the other side of this coin is that people are free to make their own choices, and should be able to do so, and if they do end up in an unpleasant situation then it’s largely their own making, albeit they are also increasing the chances of an unpleasant situation arising

I do share the same sentiment here though. You’ve got free will, do whatever you please. If you’d like to have an ice cream in a park on a day trip up to York for example, be my guest.

But those same people can’t then start complaining that everything’s delayed because of speed restrictions or equipment failing when time and time again every summer things like this happen. I’ve had passengers complain to me with the devious sentence that is “well if other countries can manage it, why can’t we” as if we’ve got the climate of Spain on the daily. Climate change is a scary thing and the rate of this change is getting faster and faster, changing of infrastructure I feel like cannot keep up with it.

Coleridge · 26 Jun 2026

orestad said:
I’ve had passengers complain to me with the devious sentence that is “well if other countries can manage it, why can’t we” as if we’ve got the climate of Spain on the daily. Climate change is a scary thing and the rate of this change is getting faster and faster, changing of infrastructure I feel like cannot keep up with it.

But we could do better, if we invested more in infrastructure and railway management and staff had a better attitude towards maintaining the service.

It was 37 degrees in Switzerland this week, an all-time record, and trains ran on time. I realise that Switzerland is an outlier when it comes to transport reliability, but it shows what can be done with enough money and a determination by staff to keep things running.

There are still only half the usual trains running from my local station today, even though the temperature is now back down in the mid-20s. That's poor.

speedy1 · 26 Jun 2026

I've been in cooler saunas than Leeds station is right now

Horizon22 · 26 Jun 2026

Coleridge said:
There are still only half the usual trains running from my local station today, even though the temperature is now back down in the mid-20s. That's poor.

Once you’ve implemented your timetable for the day it is much harder to then try and introduce things back again, considering the crew, stock and passenger information implications.

A classic “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.

Bletchleyite · 26 Jun 2026

Coleridge said:
It was 37 degrees in Switzerland this week, an all-time record, and trains ran on time. I realise that Switzerland is an outlier when it comes to transport reliability, but it shows what can be done with enough money and a determination by staff to keep things running.

Does Switzerland restress rails twice a year? I guess it probably must do - it in a normal year has much colder winters (-20 is not unusual) and yet slightly warmer summers than the UK. 37 is high but low 30s is not unusual at all. People think of it as a winter place but it is similar to northern Italy in climate all year round.

OuterDistant · 26 Jun 2026

Spartacus said:
I mean, go far enough back and it needed hammering home like mad with 'Is Your Journey Really Necessary' messages, which are thought to have only had limited success, and that was when there was a war on!

"When you go to the beach, you sunbathe with HITLER!"

s_null · 26 Jun 2026

East Midlands Railway have announced that the local / regional / stopper service between Nottingham and Leicester will be suspended tomorrow (Saturday) from 11:30 onwards. (source: https://www.eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk/travel-information/service-disruptions/24-26June)

Are we really saying that a service cannot be provided in temperatures which are forecast to reach a high of 29c at around 15:00? Are there any other factors at play here?

Coleridge · 26 Jun 2026

Horizon22 said:
Once you’ve implemented your timetable for the day it is much harder to then try and introduce things back again, considering the crew, stock and passenger information implications.

A classic “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.

I doubt that any passengers would be damning TfW for reinstating the normal timetable now that the weather is back to normal. It's what a passenger-focused company would do.

SECR 65 · 26 Jun 2026

Air-conditioning on a 377/3 this morning absolutely wonderful it was almost too cold!

The SN network seems to be doing alright after some struggles this morning.

The exile · 26 Jun 2026

s_null said:
East Midlands Railway have announced that the local / regional / stopper service between Nottingham and Leicester will be suspended tomorrow (Saturday) from 11:30 onwards. (source: https://www.eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk/travel-information/service-disruptions/24-26June)

Are we really saying that a service cannot be provided in temperatures which are forecast to reach a high of 29c at around 15:00? Are there any other factors at play here?

My guess would be anticipated shortage of serviceable trains after heat damage combined with expected high demand on more “touristy” routes, coupled with relative ease of providing an RRB service. Another “damned if you do (cancel something to give you wriggle room); damned if you don’t (and hope to run everything only to find train after train keeling over)”

Horizon22 · 26 Jun 2026

Coleridge said:
I doubt that any passengers would be damning TfW for reinstating the normal timetable now that the weather is back to normal. It's what a passenger-focused company would do.

They would if the weather had remained warm and there were stranded and failed trains.

Heatwave 22-27 June - effect on the UK Railway

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