Storm Agnes - Wednesday 27th September 2023

[Mcr Warrior]

What impact, if any, is 'Storm Agnes' having around the GB rail network this evening?

Must be quite a few trees down, blocking lines in various locations this evening.

 

[Bald Rick]

What impact, if any, is 'Storm Agnes' having around the GB rail network this evening?

Must be quite a few trees down, blocking lines in various locations this evening.

Lots of speed restrictions, but little in the way of damage so far.

The strongest winds seem to have, conveniently, headed neatly up the Irish Sea. Anglesey is bearing the brunt of it at present, and the Cumbrian Coast / Ayrshire will be next.

 

[75A]

Serious winds up the east coast of Ireland for the last 8 or 9 hours today, still very rough, it didn't affect any trains though as we haven't got any!

 

[josh-j]

Serious winds up the east coast of Ireland for the last 8 or 9 hours today, still very rough, it didn't affect any trains though as we haven't got any!

Maybe you'll get some from elsewhere if the winds really get up!

 

[75A]

Very good

 

[Millisle]

Carlisle to Edinburgh:
1616, 1818, 2218 TPE departures all cancelled; 2018 diverted to Glasgow, all 'forecast severe weather'.
Meanwhile the 1702, 1905 and 2105 Avanti departures all ran.
A typical lame TPE performance.

 

[Vespa]

Liverpool region none as far as I can see, some rain and mild wind, nothing else....

No operational or transport cancellations because of it.

 

[Furrball]

ScotRail have restrictions still in place today

https://twitter.com/ScotRail/status/170727432050908388

Speed restrictions are in place due to heavy rain, services will be subject to delays, alterations and cancellations.

Glasgow Central - Largs.
Girvan - Stranraer.
Glasgow Central/ Kilmarnock - Dumfries and Carlisle.
Glasgow Central - Wemyss Bay.
Edinburgh / Queen St - Inverness.
Queen St - Oban/ Fort William and Mallaig.
Edinburgh / Queen St - Aberdeen.
Inverurie/ Aberdeen - Montrose.

 

[Cross City]

We absolutely got away with this storm, the only major thing which went wrong was a tree falling onto the OHL between Audley end and Stansted.

 

[StoneRoad]

Officially, Northern "seem" to have got away with it. [looking at the national rail / service indicator pages - gawd that revamp is ugly

Hopefully, any trees that were going to fall had got blown down in previous storms ...

As far as I can tell, the Isle of Man systems are all OK - apart from maybe a couple of roads blocked. Snaefell didn't run last weekend [24th Sept due to expected high winds].

 

[glasgowniteowl]

Carlisle to Edinburgh:
1616, 1818, 2218 TPE departures all cancelled; 2018 diverted to Glasgow, all 'forecast severe weather'.
Meanwhile the 1702, 1905 and 2105 Avanti departures all ran.
A typical lame TPE performance.

As I understand it from a preston driver friend, the transpennine diagrams are scheduled within an inch of the maximums allowed, so already forecasted delays meant the services could not run without breaking drivers/guards hours, where as the avanti west coast diagrams have enough of an allowance that they could absorb the delay without driver/tm going over.

The groundwork for this issue particular was laid several months ago.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I slightly object to the use of the phrase "got away with it" in a couple of posts. This phrase to me suggests that risks were taken, that organisations in some way "gambled" that there would be minimal or no damage. Presumably a more likely situation is that the detailed forecasts indicated that damage was quite likely to be minimal, so decisions were made on that basis.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I slightly object to the use of the phrase "got away with it" in a couple of posts. This phrase to me suggests that risks were taken, that organisations in some way "gambled" that there would be minimal or no damage. Presumably a more likely situation is that the detailed forecasts indicated that damage was quite likely to be minimal, so decisions were made on that basis.

Calculated risks obviously are taken; the only zero risk (to the operator and staff) option is not to operate.

The risk is more likely to be to the operation than personal safety, though (there is a risk of a tree through the cab windscreen but it's unlikely) - if a tree brings the OHLE down and a train goes into it nobody will likely be hurt, but there will be a few days of disruption while it's fixed. The trade-off is whether certain disruption for one day is better than possible disruption for several.

 

[Cross City]

I slightly object to the use of the phrase "got away with it" in a couple of posts. This phrase to me suggests that risks were taken, that organisations in some way "gambled" that there would be minimal or no damage. Presumably a more likely situation is that the detailed forecasts indicated that damage was quite likely to be minimal, so decisions were made on that basis.

That is absolutely not what I implied at all.

 

[185143]

I was on the ferry back from Shetland last night. The weather in Shetland was fantastic, but the crossing... Good God that was rough! 15 hours of being thrown around in the North Sea isn't something I want to experience anytime soon again. Lots of people were throwing up this morning! Strangely it didn't really bother me whilst actually onboard, but I suddenly felt quite ill in the terminal at Aberdeen. I wasn't the only one either.

On an Azuma now down to London, everything's going fine, we don't seem to have any speed restrictions in force. I was intending to get the XC service at 08:20 but I wasn't even close to making it. There's a few people on here who should have been on the earlier Azuma too.

 

[Lurcheroo]

Th

What impact, if any, is 'Storm Agnes' having around the GB rail network this evening?

Must be quite a few trees down, blocking lines in various locations this evening.

The Cambrian line has a blanket speed restriction or 50MPH between Aberystwyth and Welshpool.
Also services between Machynlleth and Aberystwyth cancelled between about 7:30pm and 11:00pm being cancelled due to high tide and high winds causing flooding over some bridges.

 

[12LDA28C]

The Caledonian Sleeper was retimed much earlier out of Fort William last night in case of any weather-related issues encountered en route to Edinburgh. Rescheduled from 1950 departure to 1815. It then sat at Upper Tyndrum for 45 minutes and ran an hour early from there. Hopefully everyone booked on it was notified beforehand!

 

[InOban]

This may be slightly OT but on Tuesday the Met Office indicated that the incipient Agnes was developing slightly earlier than had been predicted, and it was therefore possible that if would begin to fill earlier also. I think that this happened, so although the rain was as heavy as expected, the winds were slightly less severe.

 

[AdamWW]

That is absolutely not what I implied at all.

It certainly wasn't my interpretation.

 

[75A]

nor mine.