I've just looked out of the window, and from here the Conwy river is actually the lowest I remember seeing it in a long time!
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Weather disruption Friday 26 November onwards - Storm Arwen
- Thread starter londonmidland
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I've just looked out of the window, and from here the Conwy river is actually the lowest I remember seeing it in a long time!
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RailUK Forums
I’ve separated the tree discussion into a separate thread now so that we can keep this one free for discussing the disruption.
The new thread is here:
The new thread is here:
The major issue of trees falling onto the railway during storms. What can be done about it?
It's a bit of an old chestnut but why are all trees not routinely cutback / chopped down within say 6 ft of the cess?
www.railforums.co.uk
It’s still there as of this morning:
(The screenshot below is of the signalling diagram at Pegswood on the ECML, showing a unit in the signal berth that has been stranded since last night):
175001
Established Member
The whole North Wales coast service suspended.
There is engineering work between the Junction and Holyhead anyway
There is engineering work between the Junction and Holyhead anyway
nlogax
Established Member
Hearing of knitting issues in Carlisle area, all s/b Avanti services from Scotland currently b0rked.
I’d never in my life, heard wind as bad as last night in the Merseyside area, it was actually frightening at one point!
Multiple trees down across the whole West Kirby line, Kirkby line, Ormskirk line and Southport line as well as a roof collapse at a station on the Southport line last night, made conditions atrocious, with serious concerns about running a train service, with the likelihood of trains getting trapped or stranded by fallen trees. There was already 1 train trapped last night near Southport from about 2200 that didn’t get into Southport until well after midnight.
Multiple trees down across the whole West Kirby line, Kirkby line, Ormskirk line and Southport line as well as a roof collapse at a station on the Southport line last night, made conditions atrocious, with serious concerns about running a train service, with the likelihood of trains getting trapped or stranded by fallen trees. There was already 1 train trapped last night near Southport from about 2200 that didn’t get into Southport until well after midnight.
I think this was more because, having been reversed in very adverse weather with landslips blocking the line ahead and behind, it was then expected to be driven back northwards to the previous station at full linespeed, 75mph, whereupon it hit a further landslip at this speed.
Scotrail314209
Established Member
Avanti have just put out a message saying that nothing is running north of Carlisle for the remainder of today.
Falcon1200
Established Member
Possibly not, so a fair point, but there were certainly weather warnings issued for North West England, as indeed there still are now, albeit 'only' Yellow rather than Amber or Red.
Putting people at risk is liable to cause hardship, surely ? And if done deliberately and knowingly can lead to serious consequences for those making that decision.
Why was the train stranded for 18 hours ? I don't know, do you ? Was it just one tree, or, as would seem far more likely, multiple incidents at multiple locations ? Was it safe to send staff out in what were still horrendous conditions to clear fallen trees, in fact given the lack of trains how would anyone even know where all the fallen trees were, short of sending the train forward and hoping for the best ? Not to mention all the non-tree debris also likely to be on the line, and road blockages preventing staff getting to incidents; This would also of course affect any plans to evacuate passengers by road.
Indeed, these are the shifts that will be remembered and talked about for years to come ! Which reminds me of Boxing Day 1998 (so more than 20 years ago). I was booked off but Scotland was hit by high winds, and I recall sitting in the house listening to slates sliding off the roof and disintegrating on the drive, and my garden gates getting smashed to smithereens. Late at night I got a phone call to come into work, because even though the only passenger trains running in Scotland were in the Strathclyde PTE area, there were multiple instances of wires down and stranded trains, including one location where wooden garages had been blown onto the track. I turned out the next day (Sunday) to assist with the recovery, which became one of those 12 hour Control shifts where staff are lucky to get away from their desk for a pee, never mind get something to eat. I have no doubt it will have been the same in NR and TOC Controls yesterday and today. And of course all staff outside worked extremely hard in unpleasant and sometimes hazardous conditions too.
miklcct
On Moderation
The South West Main Line is not operating at the moment with all trains from Bournemouth to London delayed without a set time.
I planned to take the 12:22 but, anticipating a delay, I got to the train station earlier to see if there are any earlier trains I can squeeze on and excess my tickets for that, but nothing could run before 12:00. Therefore I abandoned my journey and headed for the coach departing at 12:00 instead.
I planned to take the 12:22 but, anticipating a delay, I got to the train station earlier to see if there are any earlier trains I can squeeze on and excess my tickets for that, but nothing could run before 12:00. Therefore I abandoned my journey and headed for the coach departing at 12:00 instead.
Problem is these days that people expect *someone else* to 100% look after them and save them from their own bad decisions. The likelihood of bad weather was highlighted since early this week and the forecast as it got closer was more and more accurate. Maybe a little bit more thinking and a little less reacting is required...... we cannot all do everything all the time, nature still wins (weather wise especially).
(Admittedly if the MSM was less focused on COVID variants and channel migrants then maybe there would have been more awareness)
It's really not that simple, there comes a point where it's not about running slower- it's about whether you can make the trip at all. When overhead lines and trees come down not much is moving, and this was not just rather more than "a bit" of wind- it was serious wind- and from an unusual direction.
And what can you do if no buses available? Nor is a comparison with years gone by helpful as in years gone by (a) a lot fewer people traveled in the evenings and (b) there was less travel overall and people would tend to heed the "only necessary" journey message
Again there are limits, unless you massively resource the railway with people who mostly do nothing then this will happen. There are times when just so much happens at once you cannot hope to deal with it all at the same time. Services were halted to reduce the number of these instances.
Agreed, this was a particularly bad event.
Yup, definitely. Both road and rail services are badly effected, and the wind is not only strong but also from a direction it doesn't usually blow strongly from (north-east vs south west) so that will tend to increase the amount of damage as things like trees are "used" to winds blowing the other way.
In reality, there's very little travel that is strictly speaking "necessary" where there's a real risk to life and limb.
Aye, the only reason we tend to notice more now is the wider publicity. We also of course have the benefit of much better forecasting. But the ability of the railway to predict/respond has been in place for a long time.
All depends on where the train was and how bad the roads were. There has been snow as well as wind and you'd be surprised at how remote some parts of the network are from an access point (or how challenging some access points can be). And how many trees will the chainsaw team need to remove for the train to get to the destination? One? 10? 20? Do they also have kit for winching big lumps of cut-up tree out of the way? How much chainsaw fuel/oil do they have?
Neither is it very clever to be using a chainsaw in the dark when it's very windy and there's only limited lighting (the sort of lighting you need to chainsaw in the dark needs it's own rail trolley and gennie).
Multiple trees making clearance very challenging.............
Indeed, the weather forecasting is much better these days and Network Rail plus the Train Operators have a well-practised system for dealing with "weather emergencies" including a cessation of services to reduce the number of stranded passengers/traincrew.
The logistics will always be challenging, and it would appear from the footage of the storm that the railway mame generally good calls yesterday e.g. shutting down the ECML before the wires and trees came down (as no doubt was expected they would).
TPO
I noted yesterday that my LNER train to Aberdeen - 0847(Newcastle) was the only one that managed to get to Aberdeen (I believe and I could be wrong and don't know how the train sets are worked but the same train was cancelled for Leeds last night). In saying that I did note on the way up outside Cupar (or between Inverkeithing/Kirkcaldy) that the wind was picking up as leafs from trees were flying past the train (I initially took it as normal as for it passing at train speed).
ChiefPlanner
Established Member
A solitary example - part of the roof of Berwick on Tweed station on the tracks - response teams unable to reach the location as the A1 was blocked for the same reasons as the ECML was blocked.
Sort of reminds me of the Great Storm of 1988 , except this time the Met Office did rather better than Michael Fish.....
Sort of reminds me of the Great Storm of 1988 , except this time the Met Office did rather better than Michael Fish.....
Y Ddraig Coch
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Mcr Warrior
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Technically, Michael Fish was correct, it wasn't a hurricane, instead it was an "extratropical cyclone' (or 'mid-latitude cyclone', if you prefer) which usually has cold air at its core. Also, the 'Great Storm' was in (mid October) 1987, not 1988.
Ah, but was last night a "hurricane" !
ChiefPlanner
Established Member
Apologies (age you know !) - pretty awful night though and the only good thing about it was , that it occurred overnight when there were few people around and a reduced number of passenger trains. The damage in suburban London let alone rural areas was spectacular.
There was another smaller event in the London area a few years later - maybe 1989 which was late afternoon. Must google it.
I think there was a bad New Year's Day storm around that time. Gorden Kaye from Allo Allo was injured in it.
mike57
Established Member
Hurricanes are tropical storms and are completely different from a mid latitude depression, which is what we get in the UK, BUT wind can be described as Hurricane force, and in fact in yesterdays shipping forecast Hurricane Force 12 winds were forecast for the sea areas bordering E Scotland, technically sustained wind speeds in excess of 72mph
So Michael Fish is exonerated !
bramling
Veteran Member
I remember the later one, travelling down the A1(M) in the aftermath and seeing lorry after lorry on their side. Quite surreal. The “Burns Day Storm”?
Strangely I have little memory of October 87, must have been a little too young then perhaps.
In Horsham (W Sussex) no noteworthy weather at all. Occasional rain, cold with sunny intervals. The storm has definitely missed this part of the country, as was forecast. The SE has been dumped on with poor weather from May through August, so in a sense it makes a change for somewhere else to be on the receiving end, of course I wouldn't wish 90-100 mph winds on anyone.
He always was. That infamous quote was massively taken out of context. He was responding to an enquiry about hurricane Floyd which was threatening Miami, not the developing Bay of Biscay storm. As usual the media got hold of it and made a load of nonsense out of it and the rest is history. Media exaggeration was a thing in the past as well as today.
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