1A94 is stuck behind it and everything else is switching from UF to US before St. Neots and back to UF after Sandy after passing it. Obviously it's having an effect on the timetable
Certainly seems to have been grotty in Central Scotland today. Where were you viewing today's events from?
Good to see Lord of the Rings featured! Her brother, Éomer might get a chance next time round!
Of course they do, because it's like that every year for months and months. We could spend billions on snow shelters and wind breaks and far stronger OHLE and snow ploughs and all the rest. And it would only be any use three days each winter or whatever. Would that be sensible, or would we be better off just putting up with occasional disruption?
Seriously? Is this meant to be some sort of joke?
I agree. Severe weather has also become increasingly common with the changing global climate.
There is a severe weather warning for much of Northern England in force for rain still, until at least 0700.
Indeed - people of course couldn't follow the news in real time prior to the widespread adoption of the internet.
Currently on this railtour. No diversion has occured
www.scotsman.com
South Yorkshire. As it happens I was hoping to find a non league football match to go to today (as a neutral) and found a couple that were on but decided against it as I had no faith in the relevant TOCs to get me home. Yet according to Real Time Trains it seems I would have been fine.
Oh I so wish it was! Apparently the name Bert was chosen by Dutch met office, so not likely.
Railtour charter crewing is a totally different ball game from that of TOCs....for better or for worse. They have their own dedicated crews - or those hired from freight companies - with very wide-ranging route knowledge and - dare I say it - less stringent PN break requirements in many cases. Also, a steam locomotive can run through deeper flood water than diesel or electric traction - albeit under caution - because they don't have bogie-mounted traction motors. You just have to make sure that the water doesn't come up to firebox grate level!
Unfortunately Russia never had the money to spend such billions, and I have never seen a snow shelter there. They have handy low level ploughs on locos and electric units, which are just a piece of steel. The snowploughs appear to be fitted on the oldest retired equipment, as so often elsewhere. Britain used to do the same, snowploughs were commonly built on old steam loco tenders ballasted up.
To my understanding it wasn't without reason that the bus network was temporarily suspended. A large amount of the bus services run to places quite distant from the city where snowfall is usually significantly worse. On top of that, even in the city centre there were numerous roads clogged up with stranded vehicles or simply impassable for buses as well as the snow continuing to fall and worsen the situation until almost midday. At shortly before 11:00 when they suspended all bus services it wasn't really safe or sensible to do much else considering the increasing risk and increasing amount of the network not able to be served, including some important central corridors.
The particular railtour that got through to Edinburgh today and is approaching Crewe on the way back is not steam hauled.
Interesting. I thought it was the aforementioned one hauled by 61306 "Mayflower". Can only assume that the floodwaters have subsided to below railhead level then.
Exactly!
The Mayflower one was just to York. The one to Edinburgh via the west coast was a 86 and 47.
I have a recollection that about 15 years ago, a snowstorm closed Heathrow Airport for an extended period. There was a huge media fuss, politicians got involved, Heathrow management had to grovel, and as a result, the airport invested in a new, larger fleet of snow-clearing equipment.
