Weather updates, from across our area - merged posts

[whole diary]

[Timmer]

Update from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) at 19.35

  Westbury station has been closed as a safety precaution, and trains are unable to call there. The ticket office is closed.

This will not be fixed until Tuesday 10th December at the earliest, therefore no trains will operate to or from Westbury on Monday 9th December 2024.

The question is where does this leave commuters from the likes of Warminster, Frome, Trowbridge, Melksham and Bradford on Avon to Swindon, Bath and Bristol?

[grahame]

Update from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) at 19.35

  Westbury station has been closed as a safety precaution, and trains are unable to call there. The ticket office is closed.

This will not be fixed until Tuesday 10th December at the earliest, therefore no trains will operate to or from Westbury on Monday 9th December 2024.

The question is where does this leave commuters from the likes of Warminster, Frome, Trowbridge, Melksham and Bradford on Avon to Swindon, Bath and Bristol?

It leaves them working from home, or loosing a day's pay, or catching the bus, driving or getting a lift. Sad thing is that if that works well for them, they'll do it more often or perhaps always.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Fair question, Timmer.

How about a fleet of coaches being provided, as road replacement transport?

After all, they've had 24 hours to get it organised.  

[AMLAG]

On the face of it, it’s rather surprising that an emergency hourly TT for the many hundreds of commuters etc to Bath and Bristol has not been planned to run between Trowbridge and Bristol TM^▸ (Train Manager, or Ticket Machine, or Temple Meads (Bristol), depending on context) and VV serving all stations, with trains running empty between Trowbridge and Westbury North to cross over.

[ChrisB]

Fair question, Timmer.

How about a fleet of coaches being provided, as road replacement transport?

After all, they've had 24 hours to get it organised.  

And where do you suppose they find a fleet of coaches on a school day, at school time?

[Timmer]

Fair question, Timmer.

How about a fleet of coaches being provided, as road replacement transport?

After all, they've had 24 hours to get it organised.  

As you asked so nicely…

VERY limited road transport is operating between Bristol Temple Meads and Salisbury, via stations on route.

What that looks like is anybody’s guess but I highly doubt it’s going to be a usable replacement for commuter train services.

[GBM]

Bus and coach companies everywhere are struggling to find and keep drivers as it is.
There's been a steady drip of drivers leaving First Kernow and moving across to Transport for Cornwall services and operators.
First have just enough vehicles to cover school/college duties and service runs.
However, with an elderly fleet, breakdowns are also increasing, so service runs are cut to keep education services going!
No spare coaches/drivers this end of the world!

[grahame]

Looks like someone (THANK YOU) has been working very hard fixing / checking overnight and both Chippenham and Westbury are re-opened this morning ... breaking news ...

We are going to agree to disagree about the reasonableness of having three old stations all fail in the exceptional wind.   And rather like boxing day trains, we will generate a lot of heat in discussion but in the end it's just an occasional incident ... in my view what is much more important is the safety of people at these time and secondly the ongoing "lack of crew" and "your line needed for engineering works [elsewhere]" that we're back to at my home station tomorrow!

[TaplowGreen]

Looks like someone (THANK YOU) has been working very hard fixing / checking overnight and both Chippenham and Westbury are re-opened this morning ... breaking news ...

We are going to agree to disagree about the reasonableness of having three old stations all fail in the exceptional wind.   And rather like boxing day trains, we will generate a lot of heat in discussion but in the end it's just an occasional incident ... in my view what is much more important is the safety of people at these time and secondly the ongoing "lack of crew" and "your line needed for engineering works [elsewhere]" that we're back to at my home station tomorrow!

A remarkable recovery - it's fortunate that roofers have Sundays in the working week! 

[a-driver]

A remarkable recovery - it's fortunate that roofers have Sundays in the working week! 

Maybe not so much in the working week, more ££££ in their pocket!

Anything can be fixed when the offer is right.

[broadgage]

Sunday is also in the working week for power company fault finding and repair teams. Some of whom actually ENJOY storms, and the consequent overtime.
I know of one who intends to buy a house "a couple more decent storms should pay the deposit"

[grahame]

Perhaps out of context for this thread ... but has me wondering about water on an IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train - replacement for HSTs (manufactured by Hitachi in Kobe, Japan))?

07:00 Gloucester to Plymouth due 10:31

07:00 Gloucester to Plymouth due 10:31 will no longer call at Dawlish and Teignmouth.
This is due to forecasted severe weather.

Understand the potential problem at Dawlish, but didn't think that Teignmouth would be a risk?

[Bob_Blakey]

The easterly wind was very strong in the Exeter area yesterday so the sea would have been surging directly towards the railway line. As a result of this I suspect NR^» (Network Rail - home page) would have implemented Single Line Working (SLW) between DWW and TGM^▸ (Teignmouth station) (West) and would have cancelled these station calls to avoid making the resulting capacity issue even worse.

[grahame]

The easterly wind was very strong in the Exeter area yesterday so the sea would have been surging directly towards the railway line. As a result of this I suspect NR^» (Network Rail - home page) would have implemented Single Line Working (SLW) between DWW and TGM^▸ (Teignmouth station) (West) and would have cancelled these station calls to avoid making the resulting capacity issue even worse.

Ah yes - that makes some sense.  Not that an IET^▸ (Intercity Express Train - replacement for HSTs (manufactured by Hitachi in Kobe, Japan)) would get drowned at Teignmouth as it might have at Dawlish, but rather these stops were left out because they had become stations on a highly limiting (capacity wise) single line section for the duration of the storm.

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

The UK^▸ (United Kingdom) saw its warmest day of the year on Tuesday with a peak of 24.9C (76.8F) recorded - and forecasters predicting that later this week could see the hottest start to May on record.

The highest temperatures were seen in Ross-on-Wye in the West Midlands and Trawscoed in the west of Wales - surpassing 2025's previous high of 24.5C recorded at St James's Park in London on Monday.

Forecasters say the current warm spell could see temperatures peak at 29C on the first day of the new month on Thursday, as many voters head to the polls for local elections in England.

High UV and pollen levels also likely. The weather will gradually cool over the bank holiday weekend, although it will stay dry and sunny for most.

Peak temperatures in Scotland on Tuesday varied between 17C in the Northern Isles and 22.4C at Aboyne, while 22.2C was recorded at Derrylin in Northern Ireland.

They will widely be in the low to mid-twenties on Wednesday, with the hottest weather likely in the London area at 27C.

The last time this temperature was recorded in April was in 2018 in Cambridge.

(Article continues)