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Heat related disruption 8 July 2026 onwards
- Thread starter Snow1964
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Well if you have people doing stupid or careless things randomly all the time, it will have more effect when it is super dry. Mind you I know nothing about any of these incidents specifically!
Driving home tonight, large fire on the Eston Hills near Wilton on Teesside, an area prone to arson attacks in the woodlands.
Also been a large wildfire near Durham.
Several other fires across the country, so these fires are not all on railways.
Did they all start accidentally or deliberately? Who knows
Statement from London Fire Brigade regarding the large Walthamstow fire. Confirms that the railway embankment is involved.
Source: https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/incidents/2026/july/fire-walthamstow/
Source: https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/incidents/2026/july/fire-walthamstow/
I've often wondered if disruptive events have a tendency to be all the more chaotic when they occur on Friday pm or anytime Saturday and Sunday in part due to potential difficulties in tracking down key people available and senior enough to authorise major things. However when I articulated this view on the forum a while back I was told that this was decidedly not the case as everywhere has an on-call Mobile Operations Manager (MOM) 24/7 with the necessary authority and competence to be proactive. I also wonder whether the effects of yesterday's (Saturday's) major incidents were at all impacted by poorer staffing availability for whatever reason e.g. the Norway v England World Cup match. None of this is posted with the intention of criticising anyone nor do I have any compelling evidence in support of my musings.
It’s not the case, I can assure you. For example a lot of people (at all levels of the organistsion) have lost a lot of sleep since Friday sorting out the effects of the Stratfrod fire, and the work is still going on.
Exactly - the number directly caused by the weather is probably quite low, but the effect of someone dropping a glowing cigarette end, or an electrical spark, or even light accidentally concentrated by a lens is going to be very different depending on whether the undergrowth is tinder dry or it has rained solidly for the last 4 weeks. Most of the time those minor incidents pass completely unnoticed because everything's too damp to catch light - therefore people (I don't mean professionals here) get blasé and think they don't have to be careful.
Mattplans
Member
Reading the Lewisham train strandings thread, this was brought up more than once as a potential reason it took some decision makers so long (or why they did not at all) make certain decisions. The idea about senior decision makers having clocked out at 5 etc. Many seem adamant that this is not the case.
cjw714
Member
Obviously can only comment on personal experience but I've only been back in the country since Wednesday evening and every single bus and train journey I've taken has been disrupted in some way. However, what I would say is that we've mostly been travelly around GWR territory and every single member of GWR staff we've interacted with has been absolutely fantastic, despite the chaos around them.
andyjhatton
Member
There is so, so much said here and elsewhere. Too much lineside vegitation unmanaged and allowed to become problematic.
londonmidland
Established Member
It’s worth noting that there has been an unusually strong easterly breeze today.
I can’t remember where I read this but vegetation and trees under drought stress are prone to sagging much more than they usually do, as well as toppling over if the wind is strong enough.
psmith2023
Member
And all Nottingham to services to worksop cancelled from lunchtime from today non heatwave but using the excuse if things carry on Stagecoach will need to make Worksop Nottingham hourly and send one through bullwell would make a killing
Falcon1200
Established Member
The senior decision makers during operational disruption are the Control staff, who most certainly do not clock off at 5, or at any other time, such staff being on duty 24/7/365 (or 366). In addition some staff who do clock off have on-call responsibilities.
Snow1964
Established Member
Lots of stressed trees in Wiltshire too, dropping leaves, and small branches since it has been windy. These tinder dry leaves are piling up in places where wind has blown it including close to line side where DMUs with hot diesel engines pass close.
Lack of vegetation management is certainly a factor (and as I write this a lineside fire near Kemble has damaged signalling cables), so there is direct consequence of lack of vegetation management during hot dry weather.
duffield
Established Member
It seems totally outrageous that EMR are cancelling and truncating a load of services today "due to forecast severe weather" when nowhere along any of the routes affected is forecast to exceed 27C, a perfectly "normal" July maximum. Is there something I'm missing which explains their actions? What exactly are they playing at? Is this just some sort of hangover from the actual severe heat which has put units out of action? If so shouldn't they be blaming the changes on "more trains requiring repairs than usual" or something?
Snow1964
Established Member
Not missing anything, there are no weather warnings, no expected severe weather.
There is health warning, but that is an advisory, and affects those in poor health and vulnerable, not infrastructure or majority of population
East Midlands heat alert is yellow (not amber or red), risk factor 10 (medium impact, risk 30-59%) far too low to be an excuse
Weather alert for east-midlands | UKHSA data dashboard
Weather alert for east-midlands
EMR are clearly taking Mick, using an excuse to cover own failings.
For record, the heat advisory's are 2 areas with none, 5 with the low yellow, and 2 amber (South West and West Midlands), and EMR is looking farcical as Operators in the higher alert areas are not using the excuse
Heat health alerts | UKHSA data dashboard
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It has been commented on elsewhere that three full trains with (assisted) steam traction operated on the same day without starting fires, while one steam loco with diesel assistance hauling only a single coach is suspected of starting that fire.
Are you saying that you saw the fire before the steam loco passed? If so, that info will be very important to some parties.
ChrisC
Established Member
I completely agree it’s totally outrageous. It’s currently cloudy and just 17C here in Nottinghamshire. It’s not expected to get above 24C this afternoon but EMR are cancelling all trains between Nottingham, Mansfield and Worksop from 12 noon due to “forecasted severe weather”.
The usual cancellations on TfW today, all due to "severe weather": Ebbw Vale to Newport, Llandudno Junction to Blaenau Ffestiniog, Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth, Wolverhampton to Birmingham International, Wrexham to Chester.
TfW provides the spectacularly unhelpful advice that "customers are advised to travel on the next available service where possible".
The UK's rail industry isn't fit for purpose. A combination of long-term lack of investment, ongoing lack of maintenance and the day-to-day preference of staff to just throw in the towel rather than at least try to provide a service for their customers has brought the network to its knees simply because it's summer.
TfW provides the spectacularly unhelpful advice that "customers are advised to travel on the next available service where possible".
The UK's rail industry isn't fit for purpose. A combination of long-term lack of investment, ongoing lack of maintenance and the day-to-day preference of staff to just throw in the towel rather than at least try to provide a service for their customers has brought the network to its knees simply because it's summer.
Ianmel1969
Member
- Joined
- 18 Jan 2011
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Yes, we were travelling between Shrewsbury and Mach on Friday and Saturday.
I have never seen so many empty units stacked up outside Mach, presumably waiting for their 'repairs'. What with the new trains coming soon, I wonder if these repairs aren't happening as quickly as usual to save money.
The two car 1806 from Mach to Wolverhampton (terminated at Shrewsbury) came down from Pwllheli so was rammed with holiday makers. I have never been hotter on a train. No air conditioning. The staff were great and handed out water. When we eventually got to Shrewsbury there were a few hundred students waiting to pile in to the train back to Aberystwyth. They looked so keen. Bet that didn't last long.
Shambles of a rail company, but not the traincrew.
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MattyN67856
Member
EMR running a reduced inter city service for the rest of the week still but everything else should be back to normal from tomorrow
Easier to say when the Thameslink core isn't in some kind of trouble...
Snow1964
Established Member
Thanks,
Although EMR normal isn't great :
6.6% cancelled
52.76% on time
5.5% 15+ minutes late
1.4% 30+ minutes late
Train performance figures | EMR
Find out how our actual service ran, compared with our published timetable of rail services over the past four weeks.
www.eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk
More to do with their ongoing problems with 222s and 810s than the forecasted weather?
1114 ex Brighton-Cambridge currently a mere 94L at East Croydon.
Edit: and was to have beeen terminated short at Finsbury Park but instead proceeding morth c.101L
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