Quick question...
Are there local procedures on the railway in northern Scotland to deal with situations in winter where daylight hours are short enough that waiting for daylight inspection could seriously disrupt services, or indeed the speed of assessment and repairs?
For example, are there extra lighting resources available, different training, etc?
It strikes me that although safety is obviously paramount (especially with something potentially very hazardous like a landslide), regional travel might be quite badly impacted if you were to rely on daylight inspections of incidents in the winter months.
Where I'm based in southern England, various storms have resulted in inspections needing to take place before lines have reopened, and there have been times when trains may have only started inspecting the line a little while after dawn. In turn, this has resulted in basically a catastrophic blow to any hope of running a morning peak service.
Now, reduce the daylight availability by another chunk, and you're surely into the territory of not being able to do a whole lot once you've inspected and assessed in daylight.
Far north line closed again tonight last north bound service cancelled at helmsdale due to flood damage to track at forsinard.
