Scotland still is catching the brunt of storm force winds and heavy rain as I write this. Bridges are shut (Tay, Erskine and Forth) and public transport services heavily affected. West Coast Motors are not running buses in Oban and Bute; the latter being due to a power failure. Sticking with the west of Scotland, the last Scottish Citylink departure for Fort William has been cancelled and that tells its own story. Glasgow and Edinburgh too have seen service changes as operators struggle with the weather. Even with that, most services seem to be running and keeping an eye on announcements from the likes of First Glasgow or Lothian Buses would be no bad idea.
Trains do not seem to have got too badly though there were some line closures around Glasgow earlier. Nevertheless, tomorrow will see the aftermath of what is battering Scotland so things may not be operating as smoothly as usually is the case. After all, there has been some structural damage done to buildings and infrastructure with a wall falling on a car in Aberdeen. At times like these, the only hope that can be expressed is that everyone is safe.
Update: National Rail Enquiries have on their website a page describing train running in the current adverse weather conditions. It looks as if there is more disruption than what I suggested above, such as between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. There’s quite a list of cancellations there with services such as the Caledonian Sleeper from Fort William and local ones around Glasgow being examples.
Update 2012-01-03: Yet another storm has hit Scotland again and with much the same effects too.
Tags: Aberdeen, Argyll, Bute, CrossCountry, Edinburgh, First, Fort William, Glasgow, Lothian Buses, Oban, Rain, Road Conditions, Scotland, Scotrail, Scottish Citylink, Scottish Highlands, Storm, Trains, Weather, West Coast Motors, Wind
The current round of snow is having quite an effect on the transport network in some places. Thankfully, Macclesfield doesn’t seem to be the worst hit though there must be a considerable snow covering on the hills not far from the town and Buxton cannot escape either. The A537/A54 are closed to traffic so things cannot be good up on the heights. If it’s like what we got at the start of the year, they’ll need snowblowers to clear roads.
Bowers are unable to offer the full service that they usually do and the 27 Macclesfield-Knutsford route was only operated for part of the afternoon and it looked as if the same applied to the 19 Macclesfield-Whirley-Prestbury service. They are based in Chapel-en-le-Frith so that cannot help them. It’s one thing to struggle to get buses out from a depot but it’s another if drivers cannot get there in the first place.
From the bus tracker, Arriva seems to be able to keep the 130 Macclesfield-Manchester service going though there are delays and thoughts of them persuaded me to work from home today. A look at their latest update conveys to me the impression that we are getting off more lightly than some other places. They have created a summary in PDF so as to stop people hammering the website like they did at the start of the year.
One look at an update for the north of England confirms that a number of places cannot be served by rail, even, and Northern Rail has details on its website too. Sheffield is but one badly hit area and a work colleague of mine has a foot of snow covering his garden! No wonder First cannot run buses around the city. Northumberland and parts of east Yorkshire are taking the brunt of the weather and the disruption by the appearances of things. All in all, it seems that the weather is getting the better of the railways in places.
Ireland may have a maritime climate but it too is feeling the effects of the cold spell. Though most trains are running (only Docklands station in Dublin is not getting a service this evening), if subject to delays, the Irish Rail website is getting hammered. That may be due in part to the problems that Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann are having. The former’s services stopped around 20:00 this evening and the latter has been struggling to run services up and down the east coast of the country, to point that 19:30 was the end of operations for the day on many of them. The severe weather pages of the Irish Department of Transport are another calling point for general information, particularly about road conditions and any gritting.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given its reputation, Scotland has got a right blast of the arctic conditions with even Edinburgh’s Lothian Buses being unable to offer a full service. The mixture of hilly terrain and hefty snowfalls must be at the heart of the problem but one only can imagine how much more challenging it is in the Highlands though train running problems are happening throughout Scotland.
Though numerous, what I have collected here is only a sample of what is happening out there. Maybe, it is too hard to keep on top of it all when you have a day job in another profession but I’ll see if I can share what I can on here.
Tags: 130, 19, 19X, 27, Arriva, Bowers, Bus Éireann, Buses, Buxton, Cheshire, Connect 19, Derbyshire, Dublin, Dublin Bus, Edinburgh, Ireland, Irish Rail, Knutsford, Lothian Buses, Macclesfield, Manchester, Northern Rail, Northumberland, Road Conditions, Scotland, Scotrail, Trains, Weather, Yorkshire
When snow came down on us, the frailities of the U.K.’s transport information provision systems was apparent for all to see. It was that which showed the best side of microblogging services like Twitter. In that vein, here are the Twitter areas occupied by the train companies forming part of the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC) that itself runs National Rail Enquiries. It we get more snow during this big freeze, then these would be the places to turn for train running information.
Tags: Arriva Trains Wales, c2c, Chitern Railways, CrossCountry, East Coast, East Midlands Trains, First Capital Connect, First Great Western, Gatwick Express, Grand Central, Heathrow Express, Hull Trains, Island Line, London Midland, London Overground, MerseyRail, National Express East Anglia, National Rail, Northern Rail, Scotrail, South West Trains, Southeastern, Southern, Stansted Express, Timetables, Trains, Transpennine Express, Virgin, Weather, Wrexham and Shropshire
Last weekend saw me take the Caledonian Sleeper from Crewe to Fort William. After a none too restful return from Aviemore in August, I booked a berth to make sure of a better night’s rest (being able to turn off the lights helps). It wasn’t the first time that I travelled by Sleeper to Fort William and a January 2006 escapade saw me arriving in Fort William feeling reasonably refreshed so I knew that my plans had some form, to use an expression from horse racing. Since that 2006 journey, memories have faded a little and I had forgotten how little floor space there is to be found even in a first class berth and the corridor wasn’t very wide either. Yes, I did travel first class on both occasions with the second outing costing less than the first with my getting an advance purchase fare the second time around. That’s never to say that it was cheap at £136 so it has to be a once in while extravagance and the standard single ticket is around £184, which is even more forestalling. Even the standard class fare isn’t cheap either and having two in a berth sounds restrictive.
The reason for the title of this piece is that there was more audible noise than I’d expected though it was nothing like the brake roar of a Mark II carriage like the one(s) on which I was travelling when going to and from Aviemore. The carriage in which I was travelling was immediately behind the locomotive on the way to Edinburgh so that may have been part of the reason for this along with the general turning of wheels that is unavoidable. Even so, I did manage to drop off to sleep even if it was to be interrupted from time to time. In keeping with the general lack of space, the bed wasn’t the widest but I discovered a duvet that either remained unfound or was absent on my 2006 trip. That was a bonus on the cold night and put a stop to any recourse to coverage with an outer jacket.
It was beyond Bridge of Orchy that I arose and opened the window blind to be greeted by the sight of snow-topped summits with the sun struggling from its slumber. That awakening was later than in 2006 when I looked out at Tyndrum Upper station and the tops were devoid of the white stuff too so that was one previsualisation put out of its misery. Breakfast duly arrived within a few minutes of the agreed time (included in the fare for first class and costing extra for standard class), the pull down tray shelf allowed me to down the alloted portions while gawping at what lay outside my window. In fact, I was left wondering when the glorious sights were to ease off to allow for ablutions (you get a covered sink in the berth) and collection of belongings but there was to be time for those necessities too.
All in all, it was a good journey and I went out into the frosty Fort William air not feeling the worst for wear after the night’s travelling. If I ever get to doing it again, I’d bring earplugs to make getting to sleep easier but you cannot do anything about awakenings caused by jolts as the train changes tracks at a junction. Even so, you do arrive feeling far better than you would after travelling overnight on a coach. On the surface, there are issues with value for money but a look at daytime fares helps to put that in perspective. Travelling mid-week helps too and there are bargain berths if you book ahead, especially if you are starting from London. Even with the cost issue and the fact that there are no Saturday night services, it probably is the best way to travel overnight to Scotland. While you could always fly and avoid overnight travel altogether, you’d miss out on those early sights of the hills and lochs and that has to be better than worrying about environmental consequences and luggage considerations. That the airborne option is not always cheaper either makes it less sensible to miss out on those visual delights.
Tags: Caledonian Sleeper, Cheshire, Crewe, Fort William, Lochaber, Scotland, Scotrail, Trains
Last week saw me travel to Aviemore for a few day’s stay by way of the Caledonian Sleeper and I perhaps foolishly stuck with seated accommodation in the spirit of thrift. Scotrail seem to use Mk 2 carriages for that role and the roar when the brakes are applies cannot be missed. Might I suggest earplugs for a more peaceful night’s rest? The same din was to be heard from Mk 1 Craven carriages used by Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) until not so long ago but I reckon that they have been banished by newer coaching stock. In the days before the introduction of the Voyagers, the same metallic sound pervaded a cold December nighttime journey from Birmingham to Edinburgh after a job interview. In this day and age, it just makes me wonder why no one ever thought to change the bogies on the Mk 2 coaches to quieter ones like what are common on their Mk 3 and Mk 4 successors. However, that may have had something to do with the money available for such work when they were more commonly used. Replacing them with Mk 3 rolling stock is probably more sensible now that there has been an influx of new trains over the last decade and that the SuperExpress is in the offing. That leaves me to wonder when Scotrail might get to releasing the Mk 2′s from overnight duties. With the economic environment right now, that well may be a matter of money, a scarcer commodity in these troubled times.
Tags: Aviemore, Birmingham, Caledonian Sleeper, Cheshire, Crewe, CrossCountry, Edinburgh, Ireland, Irish Rail, Rolling Stock, Scotland, Scotrail, Trains
