Storm Goretti disruption - 8/9 January 2026

[KNN]

Anyone is welcome to create a new thread, where appropriate

I was being facetious, about how much of this thread is people having firm opinions about the impact of weather hundreds of miles from where they are.

 

[nilvaj395]

Perhaps some evidence will help

Yesterday, 96.2% of scheduled services ran in full, calling at all their scheduled stops. 84.4% of the station calls made by these services were no more than 2 minutes late.

Today, the numbers so far are 95.3% and 87.2%.

Clearly the railway has thrown in the towel and is not attempting to run a service.


That’s me out.

Again general points about looking at the network as a whole are unhelpful and dismissive of local communities affected by their rail service (often the only direct service to work/etc) being entirely cut apply here.

It's still not an excuse that someone from Manchester couldn't get home to Hadfield / Glossop / Buxton easily or vice versa especially this morning. Less focus needs to be placed on the Network as a whole but the public ethos of the railway that should be to get everyone to their destination. It's little use to say to someone "well the trains are running in Y, so I dont know why you are complaining about the fully cancelled trains in X".

Northern have at least had the sense seeing that the snow isn't that bad to put the trains back on (Hadfield). But it's conveniently just after the morning peak so it's no doubt let people down.

 

[Liam L]

Also yes to this, it's definitely not Birmingham in any sense other than the rail network. You can't even get a bus across the border very easily.

Technically not true, in normal conditions there are 3 services a hour into Longbridge (one of which continues into Birmingham city centre)

 

[S101]

Again general points about looking at the network as a whole are unhelpful and dismissive of local communities affected by their rail service (often the only direct service to work/etc) being entirely cut apply here.

It's still not an excuse that someone from Manchester couldn't get home to Hadfield / Glossop / Buxton or vice versa easily. Less focus needs to be placed on the Network as a whole but the public ethos of the railway that should be to get everyone to their destination. It's little use to say to someone "well the trains are running in Y, so I dont know why you are complaining about the fully cancelled trains in X".

Northern have at least had the sense seeing that the snow isn't that bad to put the trains back on (Hadfield). But it's conveniently just after the morning peak so it's no doubt let people down.

Well said. It doesn't help Doreen, living in hope, at Hope, looking out of her living-room window at 2cm of snow, trying to understand why the railway is defunct. Once upon a time, the railway was a lifeline in the Hope Valley. Yes, a few staff might not get in, but is that really an excuse to just give up. We should always try. Always. (but then, I'm old fashioned railway, I would always try to get to work). I remember railway 4x4s ferrying people to remote boxes in snow, if signallers had issues. I wonder if any Hospitals and Fire Stations shut down, and chucked everyone out because of a forecast....

 

[Paul AC]

Adding to the above:

Looks like Man Picc <-> Hadfield has restarted from the 11:33 from MAN (trains at Hadfield https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...26-01-09/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt)

Also Buxton <-> Hazel Grove starting at 13:46 from Buxton (trains at Buxton https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/se...26-01-09/0000-2359?stp=WVS&show=all&order=wtt)

Northern's disruptions page https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/service-updates shows the Buxtons restarting but not the Hadfields (yet) (if you read through all the cancellations that are now not)

These also showing on the Northern journey planner.

 

[Royston Vasey]

My mum is currently at Manchester Piccadilly and is meant to travel on the 12:25 train to Reading with an advanced ticket. However, with no CrossCountry trains serving Manchester at the moment, does anyone know if there is a is a ticket acceptance in place? As in could she get Avanti to Stafford then London North Western to Birmingham?

I'm at Piccadilly now. There's a Pendo in P5 ready to go on time at 12:54. Lots of Avanti cancellations in the next hour or two. I'd have her get a ticket for that and get on it and deal with the compensation and refunds later.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Not at Wilmslow. Northern local trains are running through there and terminating at Alderley Edge. So incident is further south west of Alderley en route to Crewe.

"Manchester Evening News" reporting that the incident is at Sandbach. If so, that's some fourteen miles beyond Wilmslow.

All rail lines shut from Stockport after tragic discovery of body - updates

A number of services are being delayed or cancelled

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Extract...

The rail line between Stockport and Crewe has been shut this morning due to an incident. National Rail said emergency services were currently responding to the incident, the nature of which has not yet been confirmed.

According to the travel service Inrix, it has occurred in Sandbach in Cheshire. British Transport Police (BTP) have been approached for further information.

 

[Joey Beauchamp]

2202 does show for Bletchley-Northampton, have you left a via point in or something? If you can get this one it would be the best bet - it's down as a 10 car, the one after is a 4 which is ludicrous with such a reduced service.

As you point out, the 22.02 is now coming up in journey planners - it genuinely wasn't showing before (honest guv) so maybe there was a glitch in the system?


However, the 23.12 from Northampton to Long Buckby is still showing cancelled in journey planners. I'm concerned that I'll get to Northampton and find it's not running, although I think it's more likely the journey planners are wrong.

 

[Russel]

National Rail is saying 1600 earliest reopening for Cornwall, does anyone in the know, know how things are looking on the ground?

Booked on the sleeper tonight and GWR say it's running, but it is concerning...

 

[CHAPS2034]

"Manchester Evening News" reporting that the incident is at Sandbach. If so, that's some fourteen miles beyond Wilmslow.

All rail lines shut from Stockport after tragic discovery of body - updates

A number of services are being delayed or cancelled

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk

Extract...

Nice click bait headline there

All rail lines shut from Stockport after tragic discovery of body - latest updates​

All lines through Stockport are open...

 

[nilvaj395]

Well said. It doesn't help Doreen, living in hope, at Hope, looking out of her living-room window at 2cm of snow, trying to understand why the railway is defunct. Once upon a time, the railway was a lifeline in the Hope Valley. Yes, a few staff might not get in, but is that really an excuse to just give up. We should always try. Always. (but then, I'm old fashioned railway, I would always try to get to work). I remember railway 4x4s ferrying people to remote boxes in snow, if signallers had issues. I wonder if Hospitals and Fire Stations shut down, and chucked everyone out because of a forecast....

If this were London , with many ways to get to the same place, we could look at things more from the perspective of a network. There would be more options to get somewhere by rail or otherwise when things go wrong. But in the areas affected the one train line is sometimes all people have or the only real alternative to driving, as no one is seriously going to spend 3x longer on a bus(es) to get into town (provided they even have a bus).

My two main annoyances is that Northern did not and were not required to issue any form of RRB at all, a convenient use of do not travel notices usually meant for extreme cases, and that to begin with we should really ought to be more prepared for and resilient to these in the modern age and the changing climate.

For all I am concerned you could run an extremely limited frequency at 20mph speed restrictions, or use RRBs for the impassible sections, aslong as it's kept moving. Unless it's deemed absolutely impossible after every option is impossible or has been exhausted (or something like a red warning) of course.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

All lines through Stockport are open...

No passenger trains, just now, from Stockport to Sheffield and beyond, though, albeit that's not due to the Sandbach incident.

 

[S101]

My two main annoyances is that Northern did not and were not required to issue any form of RRB at all

Especially given that public service buses are running, in many cases.

 

[CHAPS2034]

No passenger trains, just now, from Stockport to Sheffield and beyond, though, albeit that's not due to the Sandbach incident.

Hazel Grove has an hourly service at present

Anyone reading the headline would think that nothing is moving through Stockport.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Anyone reading the headline would think that nothing is moving through Stockport.

Agreed. The headline itself is decidedly misleading!

 

[CHAPS2034]

Looks like the Sandbach incident has now been cleared and trains are running through again which may help with getting to Brum.

 

[Bletchleyite]

However, the 23.12 from Northampton to Long Buckby is still showing cancelled in journey planners. I'm concerned that I'll get to Northampton and find it's not running, although I think it's more likely the journey planners are wrong.

More likely it is cancelled I'd say (though you never know, it might be reinstated later on), but presumably you'd rather take a taxi from Northampton to Long Buckby than miss the match?

 

[Joey Beauchamp]

More likely it is cancelled I'd say (though you never know, it might be reinstated later on), but presumably you'd rather take a taxi from Northampton to Long Buckby than miss the match?

Of course, but we are skint and I promised my wife I wouldn't spend anything tonight - even foregoing the beer - so would rather not have to get a taxi. What I'm trying to work out is whether I should head to Rugby or Northampton.

23.12 isn't showing cancelled in realtimetrains which makes me wonder if they've set it up wrong - it's a new service but in the exact path of the usual Euston - Birmingham service.

I might ring LNR customer service to see if they can confirm whether it's running or not.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I might ring LNR customer service to see if they can confirm whether it's running or not.

If it's that important that, or a quick X message if you use that, may not be a bad bet, particularly if it looks like a duplicate is in. Though it's worth noting that trains often don't show as cancelled on Realtime Trains when they are cancelled, because it doesn't take a Darwin feed. (I seem to recall the reason for this is that one of the requirements of taking that feed is that if it tells you to suppress a platform number you must do that, and by far the biggest use-case for RTT is finding out platform numbers where they have been suppressed...)

 

[SteveElbows]

I can't find it right now, but there are photos of 50049 sitting proudly at New Street, so it did make it onto NR metals at least and was hopefully of some use!

Unless I botched my diagram viewing overnight, it was very busy on all sorts of lines throughout much of the night. Went as far as Leamington Spa at one point. It detected some issues on the Sutton Park Line too and both lines were marked TREE for a time after it had been there.

 

[Joey Beauchamp]

If it's that important that, or a quick X message if you use that, may not be a bad bet, particularly if it looks like a duplicate is in. Though it's worth noting that trains often don't show as cancelled on Realtime Trains when they are cancelled, because it doesn't take a Darwin feed. (I seem to recall the reason for this is that one of the requirements of taking that feed is that if it tells you to suppress a platform number you must do that, and by far the biggest use-case for RTT is finding out platform numbers where they have been suppressed...)

That makes sense. I've been caught out before by trusting realtimetrains and not double checking the live times on National Rail. Usually when I've checked a service has left Euston and is running on time and happily walked to the station, then found out it's been curtailed at Northampton!

In this case, I do think it will run because it's the last train and LNR (for all their faults) do usually run those. It's also been put on as a one day only special, would be a bit odd to do that and then cancel it.

 

[mmh]

Perhaps some evidence will help

Yesterday, 96.2% of scheduled services ran in full, calling at all their scheduled stops. 84.4% of the station calls made by these services were no more than 2 minutes late.

Today, the numbers so far are 95.3% and 87.2%.

Clearly the railway has thrown in the towel and is not attempting to run a service.


That’s me out.

Personally I'm more interested in my own experience than national statistics.

Mine today is that all Llandudno to Manchester services are cancelled (and were from yesterday). The line isn't and wasn't closed, just no services.

That's an impressive 0% of scheduled services running at both Llandudno and Deganwy stations. Statistics are great.

 

[cats_five]

Rainviewer is showing heavy rain over London and snow now falling in a triangular area between Milton Keynes, Leeds and South Wales.

Weather Radar Map | RainViewer

Stay ahead with our global live weather radar. Track rain, sleet, or snow in real time, updated every 10 minutes. Accurate forecasts for any location worldwide.

www.rainviewer.com

EDIT:
And I see the Met Office radar map has a layer that distinguishes between rain and snow with quite fine detail

UK rainfall radar map - Met Office

Our rainfall radar map shows precipitation and rainfall rates across the UK. Includes forecasts up to 5 days and observations from the last 48 hours.

weather.metoffice.gov.uk

If you look at the precipitation type layer you will see if's all forecast, unlike the rain layer when if you go back a notch or two it's observations not forecast.

UK precipitation map - Met Office

Precipitation map showing the type of precipitation falling across the UK. Includes rainfall, hail and snowfall rates, with forecasts up to 5 days.

weather.metoffice.gov.uk

 

[Dr Hoo]

If this were London , with many ways to get to the same place, we could look at things more from the perspective of a network. There would be more options to get somewhere by rail or otherwise when things go wrong. But in the areas affected the one train line is sometimes all people have or the only real alternative to driving, as no one is seriously going to spend 3x longer on a bus(es) to get into town (provided they even have a bus).

My two main annoyances is that Northern did not and were not required to issue any form of RRB at all, a convenient use of do not travel notices usually meant for extreme cases, and that to begin with we should really ought to be more prepared for and resilient to these in the modern age and the changing climate.

For all I am concerned you could run an extremely limited frequency at 20mph speed restrictions, or use RRBs for the impassible sections, aslong as it's kept moving. Unless it's deemed absolutely impossible after every option is impossible or has been exhausted (or something like a red warning) of course.

As far as the Manchester-Sheffield axis was concerned all realistic roads were closed yesterday evening, most obviously the Snake Pass and Woodhead.

Buses have run in the Hope Valley today, either almost empty or completely empty from my sightings.

 

[irish_rail]

National Rail is saying 1600 earliest reopening for Cornwall, does anyone in the know, know how things are looking on the ground?

Booked on the sleeper tonight and GWR say it's running, but it is concerning...

One issue is running a route proving train once darkness falls. I suspect all will become clear in next hour or so.

 

[driverd]

With respect you can't just "Put a crew of workmen on the train with chainsaws", if a large tree is on the line like the one I'm sending a team out to today then other equipment is needed. It also needs a specialist team rather than simply giving the regular maintenance teams some chainsaws and telling them to get on with it.
How many roving chainsaw teams would also be needed to cover all the lines potentially affected?

As with many things on this forum, this is a topic that comes up again and again and I'm sorry to be the one who drags it up but...

The problem isn't the response to the tree on the tracks, its that we've allowed vegetation to be that badly mismanaged over a good few years, such that our critical national infrastructure and frontline staff safety is put at risk.

Simply, if theres a tree that needs a whole team with specialist, large equipment laid across a railway, we should be asking why this risk hadn't been identified and managed at some point in the many years it will have taken that tree to grow.

 

[S101]

As far as the Manchester-Sheffield axis was concerned all realistic roads were closed yesterday evening, most obviously the Snake Pass and Woodhead.

Buses have run in the Hope Valley today, either almost empty or completely empty from my sightings.

But have still ran. Puts the railway to shame. And still, as we argue on, not one service train across the Hope Valley, while the little snow gets wetter and wetter, less and less.

 

[Teapot42]

Can anyone in the Hope Valley tell us how much snow there is?

Bit late to the party, but our neighbours had the grandchildren for the night as they were unable to get back to Bradwell to drop them off. However, when they were picked up today apparently there is less snow there than we had in Chesterfield, and we don't exactly have a great deal.

Hasn't stopped Stagecoach not even attempting many routes - somehow Andrews are fine on most of the 257, yet Stagecoach can't do urban routes in Chesterfield with clear roads...

 

[Killingworth]

I'm as critical as the next potential user of services through the Hope Valley. I've seen the Class 37 glide through Dore & Totley into Sheffield and met a chap who'd missed announcements about cancelled trains. I was able to tell him that all buses were running into Sheffield (97, 98 and 218 from Bakewell) and that he could get to Manchester from Sheffield via Leeds without a new ticket. I think he called an Uber.

The snowfall last night was sustained and came down in very small light flakes with temperatures either side of zero, just enough for it to lie very heavily as it started melting. Tonight and tomorrow will be treacherous when it freezes, as it's forecast to do. Half way down my road has been ploughed leaving a small wall for residents to dig through to get to it.

Dore station is at a lower level so the snow is not quite as deep. I noted someone had driven out of the car park across the concealed grass (20 or so snow covered cars were still parked - gone away from Manchester Airport and taking advantage of free park and ride?)



I have considerable sympathy with planners. It's all but impossible to tell exactly how far and how much precipitation will reach precise localities. The quantity that will fall as rain or snow depends very much on temperatures which have been fluctuating around zero for days.

In almost 50 years living in my present location I very rarely missed getting to work in Sheffield by car. One day in February 1979 I used the train. Gritters had gone on strike and bus drivers declined to work too. Good old British Railways stopped MML express trains in closed platforms at Dronfield and Dore. I recall a real struggle to get into a corner of a guards van. No train back so had to walk. The old footbridge to Platform 4 had been demolished. Dronfield station got reopened after that, Platforms 2-4 were demolished at Dore ensuring it would take over 30 years to get one back. Those were the days!



.

 

[rower40]

Between 9pm last night, and 9am this morning, there were 12 separate instances of description "TREE" being interposed in a TD berth. Many of these came in pairs - one berth on the up line, and one on the down line; and I can imagine that not every tree across the track causes the signaller to use the Train Describer in this way. (e.g. if the line is already blocked and protected with reminder appliances.)

10 of these 12 "TREE"s were in the West Midlands (Willenhall, Oakengates, Sutton Park freight line, Bordesley, Camp Hill line). The other two were near Dean/Mottisfont&Dunbridge.

Only one instance of "SNOW" - in a berth near Barnetby on the line towards Lincoln.