Severe Weather Edinburgh - Inverness, WCML and elsewhere (22nd, 23rd May)

[popeter45]

traveling avanti to glasgow tomorow
lets see if the preston curse strikes again

 

[randyrippley]

I don't think those two coaches are going anywhere in a hurry..........I wonder if Bakers Dolphin have a spare on the way from Somerset?

 

[chiltern trev]

According to local news, the river Caldew, which flows next to the WCML at the car park ( next to Carlisle Castle) immediately north of Carlisle station, was 1m above storm Desmond levels at places higher up the river (flooding at Stockdalewath).


EDITED 25 MAy 2024

Local news = one or more of BBC Radio Cumbria, BBC TV local tv news at 18.30 and ITV Border local news at 18.00. One relevant link here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjkkm6x0v5po
The above BBC news report contains a photo of the flooded rail line north of Carlisle station, as per post #19 and also the following sections of text:

The West Coast Main Line was blocked between the city and Lockerbie on Thursday morning, while Northern said services to Barrow-in-Furness were unable to run.
Carlisle recorded 65.6mm (2.5in) of rain over the previous 24 hours, according to the Met Office.
River levels in the village of Stockdalewath went above those seen during 2015's Storm Desmond, the Environment Agency said, adding it was the "first time" an emergency alert was issued in the county.

The average rainfall for May in Carlisle is about 55mm (2.1in), the Met Office confirmed.


Pete Miles, from the Environment Agency, told BBC Radio Cumbria the severe flood warning at Stockdalewath had been lifted as river levels had fallen.
Flood warnings for the Rivers Eden and Caldew in Carlisle were also in place.

 

[dosbod stuey]

According to local news, the river Caldew, which flows next to the WCML at the car park ( next to Carlisle Castle) immediately north of Carlisle station, was 1m above storm Desmond levels at places higher up the river (flooding at Stockdalewath).

No two heavy rainfall events are the same.

I also wonder if some flood prevention works just shift the problem to the next village...

 

[Stathern Jc]

I hear that the proliferation of solar panels on agricultural land aggravates / creates flooding problems, as they shed water which the ground underneath would have absorbed.
Possibly not contributing to the current problems at Carlisle, but there is also a disturbing amount of land no longer being used to grow food. A personal view, but you can produce food under wind turbines and I do like to eat.

 

[Deafdoggie]

I hear that the proliferation of solar panels on agricultural land aggravates / creates flooding problems, as they shed water which the ground underneath would have absorbed.
Possibly not contributing to the current problems at Carlisle, but there is also a disturbing amount of land no longer being used to grow food. A personal view, but you can produce food under wind turbines and I do like to eat.

Solar panels don't produce rain, there's still the same rainfall and the same amount of water. There's still soil underneath them, they aren't tarmacing underneath, that would be unnecessary and expensive.

They have to be a distance apart from each other to prevent shadows, whilst some farmers do grow crops in these gaps, most graze sheep, thus the land is dual purpose.

I hear that the proliferation of solar panels on agricultural land aggravates / creates flooding problems, as they shed water which the ground underneath would have absorbed.
Possibly not contributing to the current problems at Carlisle, but there is also a disturbing amount of land no longer being used to grow food. A personal view, but you can produce food under wind turbines and I do like to eat.

Solar panels don't produce rain, there's still the same rainfall and the same amount of water. There's still soil underneath them, they aren't tarmacing underneath, that would be unnecessary and expensive.

They have to be a distance apart from each other to prevent shadows, whilst some farmers do grow crops in these gaps, most graze sheep, thus the land is dual purpose.

 

[al78]

Just when May was turning out to be a fairly reasonable Spring month, another slow moving low pressure system comes along to generate some utter garbage weather. I understand some places had quite a lot of rain recently. I am in the highlands of Scotland and whilst the weather has flipped from spectacular to sunless and damp, the rainfall so far has been very modest.

 

[Carlisle]

According to local news, the river Caldew, which flows next to the WCML at the car park ( next to Carlisle Castle) immediately north of Carlisle station, was 1m above storm Desmond levels at places higher up the river (flooding at Stockdalewath).

So essentially they did reasonably well to reopen the line about 4 pm the same day given the last 2 occasions Caldew Junction’s been similarly flooded I seem to recall it’s been closed for at least 24 hours

 

[railfan99]

WCML re opened, first southbound service through is 15.38 Glasgow Central-Euston with 390156.

How did the water manage to recede so quickly?

Wouldn't there have been significant ballast scouring needing attention?

And what about signal cables and other electricals, protected as they might be in theory? There's often small holes that allow water ingress.

 

[driver9000]

And what about signal cables and other electricals, protected as they might be in theory? There's often small holes that allow water ingress.

Caldew Junction is prone to flooding and several years ago Network Rail raised the relay and electrical cabinets up onto platforms to stop them getting water logged. This will certainly have helped in getting the line open again once the water has redceeded and any inspections made.

 

[Porty]

I hear that the proliferation of solar panels on agricultural land aggravates / creates flooding problems, as they shed water which the ground underneath would have absorbed.
Possibly not contributing to the current problems at Carlisle, but there is also a disturbing amount of land no longer being used to grow food. A personal view, but you can produce food under wind turbines and I do like to eat.

I think this is highly unlikely as all the solar farms I have seen on agricultural land have grass between the panels and which is very good at retaining and slowing down water flow. The biggest problems are often on arable land over the winter with autumn grown crops (bare soil) or moorlands where there has been vegetation loss and again bare peat.

 

[AndrewE]

Caldew Junction is prone to flooding and several years ago Network Rail raised the relay and electrical cabinets up onto platforms to stop them getting water logged. This will certainly have helped in getting the line open again once the water has redceeded and any inspections made.

ringed in red behind the coaches in post #19

 

[paul1609]

File under the "too much like putting the passenger first" pile into why they can't run even a hourly shuttle between Preston & Carlisle.
Assuming there are no issues between Oxenholme & Carlisle

More likely given the ORR passenger figures for the intermediate stations once you no longer have the North of Carlisle passengers on board the intermediate stations are adequately served by the TPE service and the trainsets and crews are more productively used south of Preston.