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The Great Storm 1987
- Thread starter Andrew Tiffin
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Crompton Karl
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21 years ago today.
Actually hell yes i do remember - I was 9 years old and frightened as hell, 3 trees fell down my beside my house removing a chunk of our roof - My dad dissapeared for 48 hours with no contact as our phone lines were down (he was stranded on Hoo Marches with an 8 car EPB with a few trees wraped round the front of his cab). We had no electricity as we were overhead electric and the cables flapped round the road outside with sparks going everywhere. Me, my Brother and my mother all huddled up in bed untill the morning. And when we finally got electric back over 48 hours later i saw my favorite ferry - Sealinks Hengist - got Beached in Folkestone.
It was a werid night.
Karl
Actually hell yes i do remember - I was 9 years old and frightened as hell, 3 trees fell down my beside my house removing a chunk of our roof - My dad dissapeared for 48 hours with no contact as our phone lines were down (he was stranded on Hoo Marches with an 8 car EPB with a few trees wraped round the front of his cab). We had no electricity as we were overhead electric and the cables flapped round the road outside with sparks going everywhere. Me, my Brother and my mother all huddled up in bed untill the morning. And when we finally got electric back over 48 hours later i saw my favorite ferry - Sealinks Hengist - got Beached in Folkestone.
It was a werid night.
Karl
O L Leigh
Established Member
Yup. No school that day as I recall. Large areas of Thetford Forest flattened in an instant. Smashing. 
My rules instructor told us that the following morning they had to take a railcar down the Liv St line from Cambridge towards Audley End to help remove tree branches from the OLE because the electrification gangs were overstretched. It was a once in a career opportunity to climb up on the roof of a train and get hands-on with the knitting.
O L Leigh
My rules instructor told us that the following morning they had to take a railcar down the Liv St line from Cambridge towards Audley End to help remove tree branches from the OLE because the electrification gangs were overstretched. It was a once in a career opportunity to climb up on the roof of a train and get hands-on with the knitting.
O L Leigh
Oracle
Established Member
Regrettably yes! We lived near Southampton, and had been married a year with a baby (now 21). I could swear that the roof of our garage was lifting up and down! My parents-in-law lived north of Romsey. A massive great Chestnut tree was blown over from the smal coppice in their garden and just missed the house otherwise it would have crashed into my wife's dad's bedroom and wiped him out. The tree was cut up by the next door woodsman and then the stump, which had left a moon crater, just plopped back in! It then came to life and bore five or six trunks out of that stump and a massive tree again! There was of course no power in their house as it too was overhead cabling.
33056
Established Member
You lot are making me feel old!
I remember waking during the night and being aware that it was rather windy outside, but turned over and went back to sleep. Got woken again at stupid o'clock by the other half who was on early turn to say that he had been down the station and the wires were down so he was driving across to Rickmansworth and getting the "Met".
Eventually got up, turned the TV on to watch whilst eating breakfast and being shocked by the scale of the damage and wondering how on earth I was going to get to work with hardly any trains running. A bit earlier than usual, I toddled off to the station and did not have to wait long before one of Tyseley's finest DMUs turned up on an all stations to Euston (would have normally been a 310 unit). Fortunately I was at Upper Holloway which was normally reached via the Northern line which was running, so I got to work OK and proceeded to sit there with no trains running because the three DMUs that did the Gospel Oak to Barking service had been pinched to work vice EMUs elsewhere.
Some time after 1400, "Control" phoned and asked me to close the box and get to Willesden High Level as there was no signalman there, so I closed - walked down the track to Gospel Oak waited ages for a train on the North London Line and proceeded to Willesden. By the time I arrived there, the missing signalman had appeared, plus another one who had been summonsed from Harrow, so it was all the way back to Upper Holloway because they wanted to try and start the service up on that line :roll:
As it turned out, I never did signal any trains that shift and when I got back to Euston had the very rare experience of having a 304 unit to go home on (bounced like hell at 75mph).
I remember waking during the night and being aware that it was rather windy outside, but turned over and went back to sleep. Got woken again at stupid o'clock by the other half who was on early turn to say that he had been down the station and the wires were down so he was driving across to Rickmansworth and getting the "Met".
Eventually got up, turned the TV on to watch whilst eating breakfast and being shocked by the scale of the damage and wondering how on earth I was going to get to work with hardly any trains running. A bit earlier than usual, I toddled off to the station and did not have to wait long before one of Tyseley's finest DMUs turned up on an all stations to Euston (would have normally been a 310 unit). Fortunately I was at Upper Holloway which was normally reached via the Northern line which was running, so I got to work OK and proceeded to sit there with no trains running because the three DMUs that did the Gospel Oak to Barking service had been pinched to work vice EMUs elsewhere.
Some time after 1400, "Control" phoned and asked me to close the box and get to Willesden High Level as there was no signalman there, so I closed - walked down the track to Gospel Oak waited ages for a train on the North London Line and proceeded to Willesden. By the time I arrived there, the missing signalman had appeared, plus another one who had been summonsed from Harrow, so it was all the way back to Upper Holloway because they wanted to try and start the service up on that line :roll:
As it turned out, I never did signal any trains that shift and when I got back to Euston had the very rare experience of having a 304 unit to go home on (bounced like hell at 75mph).
heart-of-wessex
Established Member
I don't know if anything happened in Melksham, I was only 5 months old!
I was in the United States plane-spotting!
Saw it on one of the very comprehensive half-hour long weather programmes they have out there.
They even showed that now infamous clip of poor old Michael Fish's 'forecast' from the previous day.
Unlucky sod!
Saw it on one of the very comprehensive half-hour long weather programmes they have out there.
They even showed that now infamous clip of poor old Michael Fish's 'forecast' from the previous day.
Unlucky sod!
Doorslammer
Member
Michael Fish certainly had a lot to answer for that day... 
NSEFAN
Established Member
LOL. I don't think that he could have stopped it from ever happening, whether he got it right or wrong. What could we have done, tie the trees down or something?
It was probably best that he got it wrong, otherwise everybody would have gone out to see it, and there would have been people injured.
It was probably best that he got it wrong, otherwise everybody would have gone out to see it, and there would have been people injured.
Doorslammer
Member
LOL. I don't think that he could have stopped it from ever happening, whether he got it right or wrong. What could we have done, tie the trees down or something?
It was well known that the Met. Office were rather optimistic in the predictions that day. It was the lack of a decent warning system for high speed winds that was the blame of course.
But I wonder how famous he would have been if he had the day off...
theblackwatch
Established Member
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Being up north, we weren't greatly affected by the storm. I do remember wondering if we would be able to get to Ripple Lane Open day for the launch of the new Railfreight image the following day!
A lot of the weathermen were household names back then - the following year, there was even a song in the charts called "John Kettley is a weatherman"!
But I wonder how famous he would have been if he had the day off...
A lot of the weathermen were household names back then - the following year, there was even a song in the charts called "John Kettley is a weatherman"!
Thewanderer
Established Member
I was 6 at the the time of "The Great Storm". The most vivid memory I have of the storm is walking, with my father who's right arm was in a sling from my house in Twickenham to my school on Stanley Road via Crane Park and having to climb over and under trees that had fallen down during the storm.
I had complety slept through the storm (a child needs a good nights sleep!) but I remember my mother saying she had woken up during the night and looked out the front window and seen loads of debris flying though the sky.
The Wanderer.
I had complety slept through the storm (a child needs a good nights sleep!) but I remember my mother saying she had woken up during the night and looked out the front window and seen loads of debris flying though the sky.
The Wanderer.
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