Wife dropped me in Malton this morning as she was going to York, she said the storm in York was the worst she had seen for a while, with a lot of cloud ground lightning ('fork' lightning), which is what does the damage.
I planned on getting the train home from Malton at 13:08, and wasn't hopeful, fully expected to be on the Coastliner, however a train to Man Vic was in the platform, and eventually that was terminated in Malton as progress into and beyond York wasn't possible, and it became the 13:08 to Scarborough, which left on time for the first time since 20th May!. Got to Seamer and 13:30 down the coast was shown as cancelled, but I knew the service from Hull had arrived on time in Scarborough, so I waited, and sure enough it turned up on time and I was home as planned at 14:00. (Unlike yesterday where it was yet again it was a taxi at TPE expense home)
To be honest its nearly impossible to protect any system against a direct hit, the currents and voltages will overwhelm any protection, not totally impossible I suppose, but the engineering would be that complex that it wouldn't be worth it. The other problem with lightning strikes is that it stresses components, which then fail after the system is restored. I was called to a factory in South Yorkshire some years ago, which had suffered a direct hit. Two systems which controlled the production line were fried, I replaced these, and rebooted several other systems, and got everything backup and running. Over the next week I was called in five or six times as other components which were weakened then failed. I suspect railway systems are similar.
I think railway companies miss a trick by not publishing an emergency timetable which they will attempt to follow in the event of disruption. OK I know every set of circumstances are different, but for example running the east ends of the TPE North network as shuttles, and trying to run a core York - Manchester service would ease things. A lot of the problem today at Malton, Seamer and Scarborough was lack of information, or worse still wrong information. People at Seamer waiting for the 13:30 to Hull were upset thinking it was cancelled, I told a few families to just wait as I was fairly sure it would appear, and it did.