Southern Warning of Weather-Related Service Disruption

[Deepgreen]

Southern are warning that trains may be disrupted because of the weather on 8 and 9 February. They cite strong winds and heavy rain as the issues. However, with about 10mm of rain and generally relatively light winds (here in Surrey it has been calm and the coast is breezy), there is absolutely nothing exceptional or severe about this normal winter weather. Are we steadily declining into a situation where any adverse weather triggers this sort of OTT response? The railway's delicacy seems to be increasing year-on-year and it seems to be likely that financial risk-aversion will only continue to cause TOCs to be ready to shut down/cancel at the drop of a hat.

https://www.southernrailway.com/service-updates/service-updates?uq=638429849413130000#INCFF07CC48EAF14B3BB0786E7DA6BBFF02

"Forecasted high winds are expected to disrupt the Southern network. Trains may be delayed, cancelled or revised.
Disruption is expected from today, Thursday 8 February until the end of the day on Friday 9 February.

Customer advice:
High winds and heavy rain are expected across some coastal routes from today, Thursday 8 February until late tomorrow evening, Friday 9 February.
Some areas along the coast will see wind speeds of up to 50-55 mph.
Please allow plenty of extra time to reach your destination and check live journey planners before you depart.
You can check your journey by visiting nationalrail.co.uk or by using a live map here.
You can also view the latest Met Office weather warnings here."

 

[Jan Mayen]

To be fair, there was a tree down between Fareham and St Denys earlier. I believe this meant that the Southampton - Horsham/London Victoria was delayed (and possibly diverted via Eastleigh?)

 

[Deepgreen]

To be fair, there was a tree down between Fareham and St Denys earlier. I believe this meant that the Southampton - Horsham/London Victoria was delayed (and possibly diverted via Eastleigh?)

This is part of the fragility to which I alluded. I have been unable to find a wind speed above 21mph on the south coast today from weather sites, so if a tree has come down in mid-winter (i.e. with no leaves to increase wind resistance) there must be questions about resilience, no matter who 'owns' the tree in question.

 

[JamesT]

This is part of the fragility to which I alluded. I have been unable to find a wind speed above 21mph on the south coast today from weather sites, so if a tree has come down in mid-winter (i.e. with no leaves to increase wind resistance) there must be questions about resilience, no matter who 'owns' the tree in question.

Switching the Met Office map to gust rather than average wind speed is currently showing me speeds up to 38mph along the South coast - https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weathe...0004],[51.65722279808633,2.5653076171875004]]

 

[DarloRich]

"Forecasted high winds are expected to disrupt the Southern network. Trains may be delayed, cancelled or revised.
Disruption is expected from today, Thursday 8 February until the end of the day on Friday 9 February.

What is wrong with that statement? It prepares your customers for potential distribution and asks them to do likewise. It does not say trains will be stopped. It does not say "do not travel". It says: the weather is a bit bad and so your journey might be disrupted. Prepare accordingly.

Could you, perhaps, have created a storm in a tea cup?

PS on the northern edge of that yellow zone it is absolutely hoying it down but not vastly windy

The railway's delicacy seems to be increasing year-on-year and it seems to be likely that financial risk-aversion will only continue to cause TOCs to be ready to shut down/cancel at the drop of a hat.

it is not FINACNIAL risk aversion. It is risk aversion brought about by Caumont.

 

[Silenos]

Are there available statistics for weather-related shutdowns/restrictions? There is certainly a perception that these have become more common, and that therefore the railway is not a good bet if it is important for you to arrive at your destination at a particular time (or even on a particular day). It would be interesting to know if this can be borne out.

 

[Viper]

This is part of the fragility to which I alluded. I have been unable to find a wind speed above 21mph on the south coast today from weather sites, so if a tree has come down in mid-winter (i.e. with no leaves to increase wind resistance) there must be questions about resilience, no matter who 'owns' the tree in question.

I'm not sure the risk of weak trees can be attributed to the railway. Would you expect that every lineside tree is surveyed to ensure it won't fall over to alleviate the risk, or maybe just warn customers that it's windy and something could happen.

Are there available statistics for weather-related shutdowns/restrictions? There is certainly a perception that these have become more common, and that therefore the railway is not a good bet if it is important for you to arrive at your destination at a particular time (or even on a particular day). It would be interesting to know if this can be borne out

Looks like it: https://safety.networkrail.co.uk/home-2/environment-and-sustainable-development/wrcca/

 

[Mag_seven]

Whatever next - people getting angry about an advisory that there may be disruption.

There has been some very heavy rain in the south this morning - for example there is some flooding between Swindon and Chippenham.

 

[hermit]

What is wrong with that statement? It prepares your customers for potential distribution and asks them to do likewise. It does not say trains will be stopped. It does not say "do not travel". It says: the weather is a bit bad and so your journey might be disrupted. Prepare accordingly.

Could you, perhaps, have created a storm in a tea cup?

PS on the northern edge of that yellow zone it is absolutely hoying it down but not vastly windy

it is not FINACNIAL risk aversion. It is risk aversion brought about by Caumont.

I live in a particularly exposed location on the South Coast. The weather today and forecast for tomorrow is windy but wholly unexceptional for this time of year. There is no reason to think that it will cause problems for train operators or indeed for members of the public going about their business. Southern’s warning is in my view alarmist and unjustified.

As has been noted, it is part of a trend towards increased risk-aversion by operators. In the case of railways, Carmont is obviously a factor, leading rightly to a reconsideration of the risks presented by the weather. But Southern’s blanket warning in this case seems to me to be OTT.

The trend is not confined to railways - experience of the IW ferries, particularly Red Funnel, suggests that the bad-weather threshold for cancellation has been lowered considerably in the last few years.

 

[MikeWM]

I don't see any wind gusts forecast for today or tomorrow above 40mph anywhere on the south coast, on either the BBC or Met Office websites. I'm not sure where they're getting 50-55mph from. 40mph really shouldn't present any problems, that happens all the time.

Either way, the railway is setting itself up with a very problematic reputation for not being able to be relied upon, between the never-ending strikes and the constant warnings of disruption due to weather. Serious long-term problems are being created for the railway if people are continually given the impression that it isn't going to work in conditions like today, which is a bit wet and a bit windy but nothing remotely remarkable.

 

[43066]

Are we steadily declining into a situation where any adverse weather triggers this sort of OTT response? The railway's delicacy seems to be increasing year-on-year and it seems to be likely that financial risk-aversion will only continue to cause TOCs to be ready to shut down/cancel at the drop of a hat.

I’m really struggling to understand the complaint here. Nobody has suggested they’re going to “shut down/cancel at the drop of a hat”, they’ve merely advised that there may be some weather related disruption. They haven’t even advised against travel, yet some are reacting as if they’d announced a network wide closure!

Whatever next - people getting angry about an advisory that there may be disruption.

Well, quite.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

I’m really struggling to understand the complaint here. Nobody has suggested they’re going to “shut down/cancel at the drop of a hat”, they’ve merely advised that there may be some weather related disruption. They haven’t even advised against travel, yet some are reacting as if they’d announced a network wide closure!



Well, quite.

The problem is that, if you issue a warning about potential disruption every time it's a bit wet or windy, people get used to them and won't tend to take notice of any warnings on the rare occasions that there is genuinely extreme weather that might disrupt the railway.

We all remember the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", don't we?

 

[Deepgreen]

Whatever next - people getting angry about an advisory that there may be disruption.

There has been some very heavy rain in the south this morning - for example there is some flooding between Swindon and Chippenham.

That's nowhere near Southern's area, and their claims of 50-55mph winds are not borne out by reality - again (and those sort of winds are not exceptional on the coast in winter in any case).

My concern is not so much anger but worry that the system is steadily declining such that any adverse weather sees the railway either shut or warn of problems, effectively forcing people onto far less safe modes, driven largely by financial (penalty) issues. Perhaps society will just accept a railway that is so delicate that it can't (or won't) function while the roads seemingly can (or are expected to), despite being far more dangerous - I really don't know.

I’m really struggling to understand the complaint here. Nobody has suggested they’re going to “shut down/cancel at the drop of a hat”, they’ve merely advised that there may be some weather related disruption. They haven’t even advised against travel, yet some are reacting as if they’d announced a network wide closure!



Well, quite.

That will be enough to put off many people I imagine, putting them on the roads - that famously so much safer mode of transport.

Whatever next - people getting angry about an advisory that there may be disruption.

There has been some very heavy rain in the south this morning - for example there is some flooding between Swindon and Chippenham.

The point is that there shouldn't be disruption, or the real threat of it, every time it rains or is windy in winter!

 

[Viper]

So how do you expect the infrastructure to be sufficiently protected so that it isn't affected by winter? We could maybe cover the whole railway so it's effectively one huge interconnecting tunnel. That would stop loads of problems; no more trees on the line, no more stray tarps blowing into the OLE, no flooding, no rail adhesion issues. I wonder why it hasn't been done yet.

 

[pitdiver]

I'm in North Nottinghamshire and its been snowing most of the morning. My wife's been out to see the daughter and has reported the roads around our area are pretty bad.

 

[cygnus44]

We now live in a nanny state dominated by numptys who do not have a clue, bit of wind or 1cm of snow everything goes bits up, I had to go to school in the winter of 63, snow was measured in feet then not CM and we had to stay outside in the cold minus quiet a lot until the teachers decided to let us in.

 

[Facing Back]

So how do you expect the infrastructure to be sufficiently protected so that it isn't affected by winter? We could maybe cover the whole railway so it's effectively one huge interconnecting tunnel. That would stop loads of problems; no more trees on the line, no more stray tarps blowing into the OLE, no flooding, no rail adhesion issues. I wonder why it hasn't been done yet.

Wasn't that pretty much the plan for HS2?

 

[Viper]

I think that was before any of them had a quick Google for "How much does a tunnel cost?"

 

[Mcr Warrior]

We could maybe cover the whole railway so it's effectively one huge interconnecting tunnel.

I wonder why it hasn't been done yet.

Ruinously expensive, perhaps?

 

[Facing Back]

Do we have more weather related outages now than we used to?

 

[Islineclear3_1]

I think that was before any of them had a quick Google for "How much does a tunnel cost?"

But there will still be the risk of flooding/burst water pipes as happened on HS1 recently....

 

[al78]

The problem is that, if you issue a warning about potential disruption every time it's a bit wet or windy, people get used to them and won't tend to take notice of any warnings on the rare occasions that there is genuinely extreme weather that might disrupt the railway.

You mean like excessive announcements leading to people filtering them out and then missing information that would be useful?

I've manged to get to London without issue, things seem to be running normally in Sussex. I don't know where they are getting the wind warning from, there isn't much wind at all forecast in the south. I would expect any disruption to be due to localised flooding due to several hours of widespread steady rainfall with river levels elevated above normal locally (and those are mostly in central England and Wales). It makes a change from "unavailability of train crew" and "fault with the signalling system".

We now live in a nanny state dominated by numptys who do not have a clue, bit of wind or 1cm of snow everything goes bits up, I had to go to school in the winter of 63, snow was measured in feet then not CM and we had to stay outside in the cold minus quiet a lot until the teachers decided to let us in.

Massive exaggeration, I've never seen significant transport disruption from 1cm of snow. The issue these days is people live much further from their place of work than they did in the 1960's, because the UK population has chosen to live like Americans and become totally dependent on their cars. This makes them more vulnerable to severe weather such as heavy snow, flooding and high winds, and school closures are a safety issue to prevent staff and parents unnecessarily risking their lives to go out in dangerous driving conditions, which is not so different from cancellations on the railways because train drivers don't want to accidentally crash into fallen trees. The fact that we are more concerned with safety now than 60 years ago is a good thing in general.

 

[Taunton]

there is absolutely nothing exceptional or severe about this normal winter weather. Are we steadily declining into a situation where any adverse weather triggers this sort of OTT response?

Well I arrived at Stockport this morning to find at the station two coupled Class 37 thrumming away bracketed by two independent snowploughs. It was raining. Now I know there were a few flakes during the day in north Manchester, but for the forecast weather and temperatures it did seem a considerable over-reaction, albeit impressive. That's a blizzard response, which in all honestly was not forecast.

 

[800001]

Well I arrived at Stockport this morning to find at the station two coupled Class 37 thrumming away bracketing two independent snowploughs. It was raining. Now I know there were a few flakes during the day in north Manchester, but for the forecast weather and temperatures it did seem a considerable over-reaction, albeit impressive. That's a blizzard response, which in all honestly was not forecast.

Snow ploughs most likely for lines in the Buxton area

 

[Snow1964]

There has been some very heavy rain in the south this morning - for example there is some flooding between Swindon and Chippenham.

Yes has been raining, the Great Somerford rain gauge is showing 47mm of rain in last 24 hours (on link change from river levels to rainfall by clicking blue headers)

Find river, sea, groundwater and rainfall levels - GOV.UK

Find river, sea, groundwater and rainfall levels in England. Check the last updated height, trend and state recorded by the measuring station.

check-for-flooding.service.gov.uk

 

[paul1609]

I'm in North Nottinghamshire and its been snowing most of the morning. My wife's been out to see the daughter and has reported the roads around our area are pretty bad.

I drove from Kent to Cumbria today, ran in to a sprinkling of snow just after Newark on the A1 and ran out of it again after Wetherby. Theres as you expect some on the pennines on stainmoor on the A66 but none by the time I reached Appleby. Here in the Lake District theres some on the hills but nothing in the towns. The roads were clear all the way up.

 

[30907]

I drove from Kent to Cumbria today, ran in to a sprinkling of snow just after Newark on the A1 and ran out of it again after Wetherby. Theres as you expect some on the pennines on stainmoor on the A66 but none by the time I reached Appleby. Here in the Lake District theres some on the hills but nothing in the towns. The roads were clear all the way up.

Which is consistent with a route avoiding the amber warning area where matters were different.

 

[Bald Rick]

Well I arrived at Stockport this morning to find at the station two coupled Class 37 thrumming away bracketed by two independent snowploughs. It was raining. Now I know there were a few flakes during the day in north Manchester, but for the forecast weather and temperatures it did seem a considerable over-reaction, albeit impressive. That's a blizzard response, which in all honestly was not forecast.

err, yes it was.

I‘d rather have a snow plough ready and no snow than the other way round, wouldn’t you?

Snow ploughs most likely for lines in the Buxton area

And Hope valley, correct.

 

[cygnus44]

It’s rain a bit breezy a couple of cm,s of snow up north over the pennies, it’s normal winter weather all the disruption can be seen on the local news. In the past the trains ran the schools stayed open and there were no mass deaths or destruction as a result. Maybe we should shut down everything in winter and stay home for 3 months in order to save ourselves from the terrible weather.

 

[paul1609]

View attachment 151917

err, yes it was.

Id rather have a snow plough ready and no snow than the other way round, wouldnt you?




And Hope valley, correct.

Had the 2 x 37s plus snow ploughs been converted to Rail/Road vehicles? If so its likely they could have been used to clear Snake Pass and the Monsall Trail. Otherwise its just the rail industry playing with their boys toys at taxpayers expense. We know theyd have issued do not travel warnings and shut the whole network down on safety grounds long before a snowplough could be needed