How should the railway handle storms?

[fishwomp]

Moderator note - split from:

Storm Goretti disruption - 8/9 January 2026

It looks like storm Goretti may cause some disruption tomorrow and Friday. I'm hearing Northern have already cancelled some services to Hadfield, Buxton and along the Hope Valley from 18.00 tomorrow. https://www.journeycheck.com/northernrail/

www.railforums.co.uk

Indeed, mostly trees from what I can see.

For today they’ve looked out the window and decided accordingly. They didn’t decide two days ago to bin everything off just in case.

These webcams from the Edale valley show nothing more than moderate snow, if that.

What surprised me about the Hope Valley decision was the timing and specific (very localized) scope of the decision (eg. the precise and extended action assigned to an imprecise forecast).

At 24 hours out, the weather forecast has such uncertainty that something likely to make the Hope Valley impassable is also potentially able to make Standedge (15 miles away) impassable. There could be a 90% possibility of things dumping on Edale but a 9% chance it dumps on Uppermill _instead_. Looks like it decided to use the 1% option and dump on Wolverhampton.

I'm wondering why Hope Valley is seen as either less supportable (more mechanical boxes) or more vulnerable (more trees?) - or was the forecast genuinely super-localized (and in which case what uncertainty). Uppermill and Edale seem quite similar (light snow vs sleet, -1 vs 0) at the moment in Met Office forecast for the morning.

We must do everything to avoid another Glanrhyd or Carmont - but if the wrong line turns out to have been closed - for an extended period ahead of time, then wouldn't it be better to have a "will review at 9am" type of approach in the event that it's not even a flesh wound.

 

[Tetchytyke]

We must do everything to avoid another Glanrhyd or Carmont - but if the wrong line turns out to have been closed - for an extended period ahead of time, then wouldn't it be better to have a "will review at 9am" type of approach in the event that it's not even a flesh wound.

I think that's pretty much how I see it.

Glossop is closed all day despite the snow there being a mere dusting. That should be the easiest of all the lines to get open again, being a relatively short and local self-contained branch line, but it appears that Northern and/or Network Rail are simply going to leave it shut because that's what they decided two days ago. It's not good enough.

We had a similar situation here a couple of years ago where the government on the island decided at 4pm the day before to close all the schools due to forecasts of heavy snow. The heavy snow didn't materialise at all- it remained sunny but cold all day. They were roundly (and rightly) criticised for it. So now they telegraph in advance that there is likely to be disruption but don't make a final decision until 7am (ish) on the morning.

"It's likely to be closed but we'll decide at 7am/8am/9am" is all they need to do. There's no need to commit so far in advance especially, as you say, the forecasted heavy snow appears to have been deposited much further south.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jan 2026 ==

Has Network Rail reopened either east of Guide Bridge or the Hope Valley yet? If not when do they currently plan to do so? Northern are of course constrained by that.

@Bletchleyite I think the attitude seems to be that they decided the line will be closed today and so the line will remain closed today irrespective of conditions. They won't make any effort whatsoever to react to the conditions and get the line open, even though the buses in and around Glossop and High Peak are (at least according to Bustimes.org) running without issue.

I'm not quite sure where this culture has come from, but it needs to change.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

I'm not quite sure where this culture has come from, but it needs to change.

Interestingly, my wife (not a railway enthusiast) felt it was a sensible decision to make 36(?) hours in advance in that it allowed people to get home or make other arrangements, rather than seeing Mancunians stuck in Sheffield, or Yorkshiremen stuck in Manchester.

And given that the (North West) regional news this morning was telling us that the usual passes over the Pennines were closed and that the M62 was struggling, I'm not sure that it was a wrong decision.

 

[muz379]

Risk of trees on the line? Put a crew of workman on the train with chainsaws.

I dont think this pie in the sky stuff is ever going to happen . Thinking about it seriously for a minute.

So you need someone with a chainsaw ticket probably from off track , someone to coss , then if it is an OLE area an OLE team to isolate the OLE and put earth straps up. Then if the OLE has come down probably S&T because fallen OLE has a tendance to interfere with track circuits. Probably best having someone from P Way there instead as well just for good measure.

We have in some areas response staff struggling to maintain chainsaw competencies because they seldom use it these days. A chainsaw afterall is quite a dangerous bit of kit in the wrong hands so it is only right that staff are properly trained and maintain their competence.

People suggesting this kinda stuff must have missed the memo about modernised maintenance , although tbh even before this you wouldn't have had the staff to do this anyway.

I think the attitude seems to be that they decided the line will be closed today and so the line will remain closed today irrespective of conditions. They won't make any effort whatsoever to react to the conditions and get the line open, even though the buses in and around Glossop and High Peak are (at least according to Bustimes.org) running without issue.

I disagree with you about timing of announcements and how much notice to give people , but fully agree that once route provers can be run they should be and train services reintroduced as soon as possible after that.

interestingly It actually looks like Hadfields have been reintroduced 2G12 just left picadilly. Journey planner now showing the next 3 or 4 running as well.

 

[Bletchleyite]

@Bletchleyite I think the attitude seems to be that they decided the line will be closed today and so the line will remain closed today irrespective of conditions. They won't make any effort whatsoever to react to the conditions and get the line open, even though the buses in and around Glossop and High Peak are (at least according to Bustimes.org) running without issue.

I'm not quite sure where this culture has come from, but it needs to change.

Yes, this attitude is thoroughly unacceptable. The line needs to be reopened as soon as it is safe to do so regardless of the "do not travel"'s original parameters. If it is safe to reopen it today it needs to reopen today. If it's not, fair enough, reopen it tomorrow, but it strikes me that it's low-hanging fruit to get it back open again from what people are saying about its condition.

One can't help but wonder if Northern do take advantage of these situations to help them with their present poor staffing situation.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jan 2026 ==

interestingly It actually looks like Hadfields have been reintroduced 2G12 just left picadilly. Journey planner now showing the next 3 or 4 running as well.

Fair play, then. That does give just a bit of credence to the idea that the Barrows not being reintroduced on the Sunday after the last disruption had more to do with staffing challenges...

Overall it probably makes sense to be pessimistic in publicity, but to leave it open to do better. That is both best for peoples' planning and makes them look good.

Thus you probably want to have gone with:

- As soon as it looked vaguely likely there was going to be an issue: weather waiver (specific thread on these: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/could-great-british-railways-introduce-weather-waivers.297012/) for the day before, the expected days of disruption, and say two days afterwards, so people can refund their tickets regardless of type and replan.

- Once things got more concrete, "do not travel" for the days of disruption, worded as "we are unlikely to be able to operate" rather than "there will be no trains".

- Don't send staff off duty - keep them available on call so if things are better than expected service can be reintroduced and this communicated accordingly.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

One can't help but wonder if Northern do take advantage of these situations to help them with their present poor staffing situation.

Not just staffing, I'm noticing a slight decrease in the number of short forms today, likely thanks to less 15x on Buxton services.

 

[muz379]

Fair play, then. That does give just a bit of credence to the idea that the Barrows not being reintroduced on the Sunday after the last disruption had more to do with staffing challenges...

Perhaps , worth noting of course the Hadfields are pretty self contained in the sense that all the traincrew come from one depot ,and the trains for the route also stable in an area that seems to have largely escaped any adverse weather. Perhaps the only two areas of vulnerability would be the ability of the signaller to get to dinting box, and the overheads.

 

[30907]

Some pointers for Amber warnings:
1. Giving 24h notice of an intended closure is correct, as it saves passengers getting to work and then being stranded (or having to leave early, as was standard practice in London back in the day (at least one firm would regularly ring Waterloo TEB to check around 1500....).
2. The closure should be planned for the minimum practical time, allowing for successful route proving after the end of the warning; the advice to passengers needs to be more cautious - "services will resume as soon as possible after xx.xx but cannot be guaranteed."

Applying this to last night's incident, the planned closure would have been 2000-1200, which seems to have been achieved in some areas with services beginning to resume. (Edit: and looks to be happening across Northern land.)
The caveat I mentioned is practicality: I suspect one issue is signalling, where if 12 hour shifts are worked there is no leeway for (planned) overtime, and this is probably affecting the Hope Valley (where nothing seems to be moving, not even route proving - can they not open the line under an engineering possession for this? NB I have no idea of the storm damage on that route.).
EDIT: from the main thread, all boxes are back open and route proving taking place.)

 

[Adam Williams]

I dont think this pie in the sky stuff is ever going to happen

Every driver to be equipped with a personal chainsaw, to be safely stowed in a designated part of the cab.

All mainline* drivers to be sent on an intensive 4 week Tree Surgery training programme, with the Rule Book amended to introduce new requirements to "confidently use the chainsaw" to clear encountered obstructions.

* Except in parts of the country known for not having lineside trees, such as London.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Interestingly, my wife (not a railway enthusiast) felt it was a sensible decision to make 36(?) hours in advance in that it allowed people to get home or make other arrangements, rather than seeing Mancunians stuck in Sheffield, or Yorkshiremen stuck in Manchester.

For last night, definitely.

For today, not so much.

nterestingly It actually looks like Hadfields have been reintroduced 2G12 just left picadilly. Journey planner now showing the next 3 or 4 running as well.

Good, fair play to Northern and Network Rail for that. At the time of posting the message was still that the line would be shut all day.

ETA: JourneyCheck still says the line will be shut all day and JourneyCheck still shows all the journeys to/from Hadfield as cancelled. So who knows what is happening. RTT shows the 1214 from Hadfield running, JourneyCheck says it is cancelled!


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jan 2026 ==

The caveat I mentioned is practicality: I suspect one issue is signalling, where if 12 hour shifts are worked there is no leeway for (planned) overtime

I think this is where the operational convenience kicks in. Nobody needs to do overtime, someone will have been rostered in advance for for 12 hours so it makes no odds if they come in late and only do 7 hours, for example.

 

[Magdalia]

What surprised me about the Hope Valley decision was the timing and specific (very localized) scope of the decision (eg. the precise and extended action assigned to an imprecise forecast).

At 24 hours out, the weather forecast has such uncertainty that something likely to make the Hope Valley impassable is also potentially able to make Standedge (15 miles away) impassable. There could be a 90% possibility of things dumping on Edale but a 9% chance it dumps on Uppermill _instead_. Looks like it decided to use the 1% option and dump on Wolverhampton.

I'm wondering why Hope Valley is seen as either less supportable (more mechanical boxes) or more vulnerable (more trees?) - or was the forecast genuinely super-localized (and in which case what uncertainty). Uppermill and Edale seem quite similar (light snow vs sleet, -1 vs 0) at the moment in Met Office forecast for the morning.

I looked at the weather forecast and wasn't surprised at all. The power of big data means that the forecast track of the storm is now very good. The Hope Valley was in the track of the storm whereas Standedge wasn't.

What was difficult to forecast was whether and where the precipitation would thaw from snow to rain before it hit ground level: small changes in temperature lead to a discontinuous result.

Here altitude matters hugely. Edale is more than 250m above sea level. Other things being equal air is roughly 1C cooler for every 100 metres of altitude. When the temperature is close to 0C it is very difficult to forecast exactly where the snowline will be. For example, I can remember many instances from my commuting days when the train to London would come through Royston in the rain but the car park would have cars covered in snow belonging to people who had driven in from villages like Reed and Therfield.

The West Midlands also suffered significant disruption and a lot of people fail to appreciate the altitude there. West Bromwich's Hawthorns stadium is famous to sports quiz fans as the highest altitude ground in the English Football League at 168 metres above sea level.

Edale is in Derbyshire and the county council are well used to closing roads when there is risk of heavy snowfall. Here is what was closed yesterday:

Storm Goretti: County's highest roads closing amid 'significant snowfall' warning

Roads through Derbyshire's Peak District are being shut, with heavy snow and strong winds expected.

www.bbc.co.uk

A number of major roads in the Peak District are being shut by ahead of Storm Goretti's forecast high winds and heavy snow.

With a Met Office amber warning in force in Derbyshire, the county council said some of the county's highest roads would be closed to traffic from 18:00 GMT on Thursday.

These include the A57 Snake Pass, from the junction with the A6013 to Glossop, the A54/A537 Cat and Fiddle - from the junction with Leek Road, Buxton to the county boundary - and the A6024 Holme Moss, from the junction with the A628 to the county boundary.

In addition, the A628 Woodhead Pass is being closed by from 20:00

More than 30 years ago the Cat and Fiddle had snow gates to enable the council to close the road. I expect that the other orad in the list have them too.

Another factor to bear in mind is that Storm Goretti was accompanied by very high winds which increases the risk of drifting: small amounts of snow can produce deep drifts in some places and railway cuttings are particularly vulnerable.

 

[brad465]

All renewals/upgrades should be built to a stronger storm resilience, especially OHLE, and removal of all trees within a set distance of the track (grass/shrubs are allowed to remain to reduce landslip risk). On coastal routes all rolling stock that uses them has to be clear to run during large waves, ideally by providing appropriate shielding.

These moves won't completely stop disruption, but hopefully would raise the threshold for certain practices to be introduced and reduce incidents like trees blocking the line and OHLE damage.

 

[Lewisham2221]

I think this is where the operational convenience kicks in. Nobody needs to do overtime, someone will have been rostered in advance for for 12 hours so it makes no odds if they come in late and only do 7 hours, for example.

Who mans the signal box for the 5 hours between the first signaller ending their 12 hour shift and the second signaller arriving (very) late?

 

[Topological]

From a completely outside perspective.

The Hope Valley goes through essentially rural communities used to dealing with extreme weather. The section from Grindleford to Edale inclusive in particular.

Therefore of all the cross pennine routes, the Hope Valley is the obvious one to put bottom of the recovery pile.

It would have been better if there could have been a plan to get trains to Chinley from Manchester quicker since Chinley is a larger place and not so isolated.

Meanwhile, through passengers should be easily routed via Leeds and/or Stoke through obvious ticket acceptance on both routes. Yes it is slower, but it works and the passengers all get delay repay anyway.

I think if you have that in place, it is only right to get the resources focused on keeping the other routes open first.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Some pointers for Amber warnings:
1. Giving 24h notice of an intended closure is correct, as it saves passengers getting to work and then being stranded (or having to leave early, as was standard practice in London back in the day (at least one firm would regularly ring Waterloo TEB to check around 1500....).
2. The closure should be planned for the minimum practical time, allowing for successful route proving after the end of the warning; the advice to passengers needs to be more cautious - "services will resume as soon as possible after xx.xx but cannot be guaranteed."

I'd add that if you have to withdraw part of a service but it's not physically impossible to provide the other part e.g. due to there being no option for reversing a train short, then the partial service should still be provided. For instance, there being an Amber warning affecting the line north of Lancaster does not excuse withdrawal of the entire Manchester Airport-Barrow/Windermere service throughout; the service can still be operated and turned at Lancaster, even if its timings have to be tweaked a bit to fit around other use of platform 5, or at worst an ad-hoc Lancaster-Preston DMU or EMU shuttle can be provided.

WMT appear to have done this by splitting the service at Northampton, for instance, rather than simply dropping the Birmingham semifasts entirely, though they have been thinned and there are (unacceptably) some 4 car sets out on the thinned service.

 

[Angmering1974]

We should definitely have punch bags in the ops rooms so the guys don't need to invite forum members for an actual punch up during times of stressful weather.

 

[muz379]

All renewals/upgrades should be built to a stronger storm resilience, especially OHLE, and removal of all trees within a set distance of the track (grass/shrubs are allowed to remain to reduce landslip risk). On coastal routes all rolling stock that uses them has to be clear to run during large waves, ideally by providing appropriate shielding.

These moves won't completely stop disruption, but hopefully would raise the threshold for certain practices to be introduced and reduce incidents like trees blocking the line and OHLE damage.

That is done to death everytime there is a dewirement incident, there is only so much strengthening you can do to OHLE, it still has to have movement etc to cope with changing air temperatures. And the vast majority of trees are on land owned by neighbours of the railway not the railway itself.

I'd add that if you have to withdraw part of a service but it's not physically impossible to provide the other part e.g. due to there being no option for reversing a train short, then the partial service should still be provided. For instance, there being an Amber warning affecting the line north of Lancaster does not excuse withdrawal of the entire Manchester Airport-Barrow/Windermere service throughout; the service can still be operated and turned at Lancaster, even if its timings have to be tweaked a bit to fit around other use of platform 5, or at worst an ad-hoc Lancaster-Preston DMU or EMU shuttle can be provided.

I agree to a degree although of course how feasible this is to provide in some circumstances remains to be seen , more complex diagramming and the workloads on staff dealing with diruption to enable them to accomodate short notice ad hoc timing changes would obviously limit the capability to do this in every situation.

It all depends on what the infastructure is set up for as well , for instance last night it was totally feasible to run trains to guide bridge and beyond towards hadfield but because there is nowhere before dinting that trains can turn the whole route just had to be abandoned. If there had been a turnback capability at say newton for hyde or godley then some service could still have run.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I agree to a degree although of course how feasible this is to provide in some circumstances remains to be seen , more complex diagramming and the workloads on staff dealing with diruption to enable them to accomodate short notice ad hoc timing changes would obviously limit the capability to do this in every situation.

It all depends on what the infastructure is set up for as well , for instance last night it was totally feasible to run trains to guide bridge and beyond towards hadfield but because there is nowhere before dinting that trains can turn the whole route just had to be abandoned. If there had been a turnback capability at say newton for hyde or godley then some service could still have run.

Yes, that one was difficult, it's one where I would have considered seeking some replacement buses as far as Guide Bridge only or looking into if it would be possible to add an additional 2300ish to Rose Hill Marple.

However, running a single unit Preston-Lancaster shuttle if Avanti aren't running north of Preston shouldn't be impossible, which is why I was quite critical of Northern in that case. And similarly it's a bit inexcusable that WMT have 4 car sets out on a halved Euston-Northampton semifast service unless a load got damaged last night, but I doubt that very much. There seems to be one 4-car diagram out at present (350126), surely there's another unit out there somewhere to make it an 8? (The other one in the very late evening comes off the St Albans so might be harder to strengthen unless someone's spare to run another 4 down to Euston for it to pick up later).

 

[35B]

Moderator note - split from:

Storm Goretti disruption - 8/9 January 2026

It looks like storm Goretti may cause some disruption tomorrow and Friday. I'm hearing Northern have already cancelled some services to Hadfield, Buxton and along the Hope Valley from 18.00 tomorrow. https://www.journeycheck.com/northernrail/

www.railforums.co.uk

What surprised me about the Hope Valley decision was the timing and specific (very localized) scope of the decision (eg. the precise and extended action assigned to an imprecise forecast).

At 24 hours out, the weather forecast has such uncertainty that something likely to make the Hope Valley impassable is also potentially able to make Standedge (15 miles away) impassable. There could be a 90% possibility of things dumping on Edale but a 9% chance it dumps on Uppermill _instead_. Looks like it decided to use the 1% option and dump on Wolverhampton.

I'm wondering why Hope Valley is seen as either less supportable (more mechanical boxes) or more vulnerable (more trees?) - or was the forecast genuinely super-localized (and in which case what uncertainty). Uppermill and Edale seem quite similar (light snow vs sleet, -1 vs 0) at the moment in Met Office forecast for the morning.

As Peterborough - Leicester was shut this morning, I suspect the concern is the availability of signallers on these long sections of semaphore signalling.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

* Except in parts of the country known for not having lineside trees, such as London.

Quite a high proportion of the lines within the zones are surrounded by trees, however - and while the central London areas have fewer trees the same drivers operate the trains out to beyond the zones.

 

[30907]

...tbu because there is nowhere before dinting that trains can turn the whole route just had to be abandoned. If there had been a turnback capability at say newton for hyde or godley then some service could still have run.

The Rose Hill service covered as far as Guide Bridge. It finishes a bit early.

It would have been better if there could have been a plan to get trains to Chinley from Manchester quicker since Chinley is a larger place and not so isolated.

I partly agree but it's a bit marginal (doesn't Chinley pick up traffic from Chapel which is some way away?). Would it have been possible to staff New Mills S Jn, which is isolated?

 

[Bletchleyite]

The Rose Hill service covered as far as Guide Bridge. It finishes a bit early.

I don't know how feasible it would have been, but an extra Rose Hill at about 2200 and 2300 in a Hadfield path would probably have been a reasonable fill-in to avoid the very early finish.

 

[158756]

I looked at the weather forecast and wasn't surprised at all. The power of big data means that the forecast track of the storm is now very good. The Hope Valley was in the track of the storm whereas Standedge wasn't.

What was difficult to forecast was whether and where the precipitation would thaw from snow to rain before it hit ground level: small changes in temperature lead to a discontinuous result.

This is the big problem with closing in advance for snow. Not an expert on weather modelling but it does seem like in recent years forecasts of severe rain and wind and their positioning have improved, but forecasting snow when the temperature is close to or above freezing still seems very unreliable.

Given the difficulty of forecasting snow, announcing mass line closures days in advance is always likely to result in some of those closures being unnecessary. It is a good idea to advise long distance passengers not to travel on these days, but particularly for relatively self contained branches like Buxton and Glossop, why is it necessary to remove the option to run the service if the snow does not materialise?

 

[dk1]

Every driver to be equipped with a personal chainsaw, to be safely stowed in a designated part of the cab.

All mainline* drivers to be sent on an intensive 4 week Tree Surgery training programme, with the Rule Book amended to introduce new requirements to "confidently use the chainsaw" to clear encountered obstructions.

* Except in parts of the country known for not having lineside trees, such as London.

Ha ha yeah Good luck with ASLEF accepting these ideas.

 

[Harpo]

Every driver to be equipped with a personal chainsaw, to be safely stowed in a designated part of the cab.

All mainline* drivers to be sent on an intensive 4 week Tree Surgery training programme, with the Rule Book amended to introduce new requirements to "confidently use the chainsaw" to clear encountered obstructions.

* Except in parts of the country known for not having lineside trees, such as London.

Most drivers encountering a tree will probably find it’s immobilised their train so will need to be trained in repairing the unit and supplied with all tools and parts to do that too.

 

[Wolfie]

For last night, definitely.

For today, not so much.


Good, fair play to Northern and Network Rail for that. At the time of posting the message was still that the line would be shut all day.

ETA: JourneyCheck still says the line will be shut all day and JourneyCheck still shows all the journeys to/from Hadfield as cancelled. So who knows what is happening. RTT shows the 1214 from Hadfield running, JourneyCheck says it is cancelled!


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jan 2026 ==


I think this is where the operational convenience kicks in. Nobody needs to do overtime, someone will have been rostered in advance for for 12 hours so it makes no odds if they come in late and only do 7 hours, for example.

Your last para does of course assume that staff's own personal commitments haven't raised issues e.g. their children's schools being closed at short notice leading to childcare problems.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Jan 2026 ==

All renewals/upgrades should be built to a stronger storm resilience, especially OHLE, and removal of all trees within a set distance of the track (grass/shrubs are allowed to remain to reduce landslip risk). On coastal routes all rolling stock that uses them has to be clear to run during large waves, ideally by providing appropriate shielding.

These moves won't completely stop disruption, but hopefully would raise the threshold for certain practices to be introduced and reduce incidents like trees blocking the line and OHLE damage.

Good luck with getting HMT to fund significantly higher expenditure to address relatively rare situations.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Jan 2026 ==

I'd add that if you have to withdraw part of a service but it's not physically impossible to provide the other part e.g. due to there being no option for reversing a train short, then the partial service should still be provided. For instance, there being an Amber warning affecting the line north of Lancaster does not excuse withdrawal of the entire Manchester Airport-Barrow/Windermere service throughout; the service can still be operated and turned at Lancaster, even if its timings have to be tweaked a bit to fit around other use of platform 5, or at worst an ad-hoc Lancaster-Preston DMU or EMU shuttle can be provided.

WMT appear to have done this by splitting the service at Northampton, for instance, rather than simply dropping the Birmingham semifasts entirely, though they have been thinned and there are (unacceptably) some 4 car sets out on the thinned service.

It's relatively easy for WMT to do that though given that they have a major depot at Northampton and routinely do staff changes there on though services.