Snow!

[Kevo00]

Anyone that has to take a train to London in the morning, expect problems.

Here in London it has been snowing non-stop since about 6pm and its forecast to continue until the morning. I would imagine there will be problems elsewhere in the UK, but here in London they almost never get snow, so I'd expect things to go to pot more than usual. In 4 winters down here I've never seen snow looking this bad - its actually lying and covering the roads outside. This is probably as bad as the winter of 1991, the year when BR complained of 'the wrong kind of snow'.

So expect big fun on the transport network in the morning with tubes severely delayed, trains racking up plenty of delay minutes and the buses being full as well as slow. Me, I'll be walking to work and enjoying the rare sight of the city in snow.

[Ameecher]

You're lined up for 15cm tonight/tomorrow morning. As for us in flat land, we don't get it until tomorrow afternoon.

[andel]

I've got 7 Inches here... well, 6 1/2 if I'm totally honest....

and we have snow, too!

[Kevo00]

Whayhey! Its pretty bad here, though these London people are wusses if you ask me.

[Xander]

I dunno... They do normally get very upset at the slightest dusting but this is pretty bad, even by normal people standards

[Kevo00]

Yep it is quite bad, but its not that bad - the buses could definitely be running a reduced service at least, as most of the main roads in central London are more than passable. We're hardly talking A66 stuff here.

[JamieLei]

My roads to and from school were surprisingly good (no more congested than usual, in fact, less) and the buses were running fine. Thenagain we did finish 1 hour earlier (in contrast to the rest of the West Midlands which seemed to go home at Lunchtime )

[Badger]

Considering my job I've had a pretty easy day. All my trains ran on time really despite lots and lots of snow.

[JamieLei]

How much snow do you need to disrupt the trains? Normally they seem to do better than the roads

[Badger]

Well it seems to cripple the southern region easily enough! Tends to be frozen points and staff shortages, not the actual trains themselves.

[LordAzamath]

If only we had a snowfall here too... Just ice everywhere (and -22 C nightly)

[Ameecher]

The main problem with snow and railways is snow getting compacted in point blades which prevents them from closing properly. Some countries have point heaters but we tend to do without them as snow is such a rare occurence.
Snow buggers up the 3rd rail system quite nicely though.

[andel]

Well it seems to cripple the southern region easily enough! Tends to be frozen points and staff shortages, not the actual trains themselves.

Southern issues are down to the third rail freezing over.

[JamieLei]

ALL Southeastern trains were cancelled today. Coincidentally Southeastern are the only big* TOC to operate electric-only stock.

*Yes, Merseyrail too before Ammecher interjects, but it's not big as in SR big

[Ameecher]

ALL Southeastern trains were cancelled today

Not true. Later on stuff around Ashford and Dover began to move. The departure boards for London Bridge must have been interesting though.

[andel]

FCC had a few problems too... don't they run only selectric stock also...?

[JamieLei]

FCC had a few problems too... don't they run only selectric stock also...?

Bugger - completely forgot about them

There's a lovely picture of a Thameslink train sitting on the ground, with snow covering the rails such that they're not visible at all. How trains move off or the driver knows where he's heading is a mystery to me, when they eventually do get moving.

[Ameecher]

How the driver knows where he's heading is a mystery to me, when they eventually do get moving.

Those lights on a pole. Signals I think they call them.

[andel]

How the driver knows where he's heading is a mystery to me, when they eventually do get moving.

Those lights on a pole. Signals I think they call them.

That and route diagrams. I don't have to tell you how much goes into route learning...

[DJC]

I was going to go down to London to see Arsenal play tomorrow, but the game's off...not because of any problems with the pitch but because of people not being able to get to the Emirates. Ah well, looks like I'll have to re-book my train tickets then.