Imagine you are a coach driver, imagine that you are happily at home with your family, your wife is cooking the sunday lunch, if you can honestly tell me that if your boss cally you to go out in this horrible weather to drive a rrb you are going to jump up, say yes sir, and get in your car and drive, possibly on flooded roads with low flying branches, to drive a rrb.
Every man has his price. If nobody will go out,
up the pay and eventually someone will.
If you could honestly say yes, I would do that then I have some respect for your views, if no then you need to wonder why you expect from others what you would not do yourself.
Well, I was in the hills (ish) on Saturday in pretty awful weather, so I think it's fair to say that if the money was right yes, I would.
You also have to wonder why an operator would put out a £300.000+ coach in that weather in order to make a few extra quid?
Because they need to make money to keep their business going! But as I said, you keep referring to awful weather, in Lancaster, Preston and between the two it really wasn't, it was a bit windy, that's all. The actual full-on storm had long died down by Sunday afternoon/evening in those parts. By then the weather was not a lot nastier than it is in Bletchley at this very second (not nice to walk your dog in, but not dangerous), and so far as I'm aware all public transport is operating.
There were issues in the Lakes, so they may have been unable to serve Oxenholme and possibly Penrith, but they could certainly have safely operated Preston-Lancaster shuttles, and probably served Carlisle too. The M6 was open and as I said NatEx and Megabus were so far as I am aware operating.
But the way things seem to have gone over the last 5 years or so (and it does seem to be that recent - this was the first time I have ever, in my entire life, been totally stranded by the railway in that manner) is that if train services are disrupted because of poor weather, RRBs are optional, regardless of the actual risk posed. And I call that out as unacceptable.
FWIW, the Avanti station staff at Lancaster were very clearly saying that "the decision has been made not to operate buses". Not "we can't get any", but "it has been decided not to". I suspect they might not have agreed with the decision hence framing it in that manner. The best customer service was to be found in the Costa whose staff were (after I pointed it out to them) advising use of the 40 to Preston.
Probably far more often than on rail, though I can again cite my example of my journey on a LNR train which called at Harrow and Wealdstone 3 times 
