Storm Goretti 'weather bomb' to hit South West England

[whole diary]

[grahame]

BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) (Live) reports:

An estimated 57,000 properties across the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) are without power after Storm Goretti brings 99mph (159km/h) winds and heavy snowfall.

The region experiencing the most outages (43,400) is the south-west of England, where a rare red "danger to life" wind warning was issued on Thursday

Happy to (personally) be tucked up in a warm home and not anywhere near the worst of the storm.  Stay safe, everyone - and best wishes and thoughts with those who are out there helping get things cleared and running again.

JourneyCheck says

Due to severe weather:
Train services running across the whole Great Western Railway network will be revised. Disruption is expected until 12:00 09/01.
Customer Advice
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Storm Goretti hit the UK yesterday, bringing strong winds and heavy rain/snow. This brought disruption to the GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) network.
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For Friday 09 January:
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With the storm now passed, the railway will have to be inspected in daylight for any damage.
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> There will be no services between Plymouth and Penzance, in either direction, until 12:00 at the earliest.
> There will be no services between Exeter and Okehampton and between Exeter and Barnstaple, until 12:00 at the earliest.
> There will be no services between Par and Newquay, between Truro and Falmouth and between Plymouth and Gunnislake, until 15:00 at the earliest.
Do not attempt to travel on the routes listed above. Replacement road transport is not available.

[grahame]

Update from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) - they ask me to share

Dear Graham

We promised to keep you updated on the impact of Storm Goretti. Network Rail teams were on location at key sites across the network throughout the night, dealing where possible with issues as they arose.

Much of our network is operating as normal. However, there remains some lines that are closed due to storm damage and fallen trees.

All lines in Cornwall remain closed following storm damage to the signalling system and fallen debris/trees, as well as issues on the local road network and power grid issues. We do not expect to run services in Cornwall for the rest of the day, apart from the Gunnislake branch which should reopen for passenger service shortly. We’re continuing to work across the rail industry and with national infrastructure partners to improve this situation and have services running safely again as soon as possible. 

The Looe branch line also remains closed due to flooding. We will provide a separate update on the Looe branch once we have a greater understanding of when the line will reopen.

In Devon, both the Barnstaple and Okehampton lines should reopen for passenger service imminently. This follows a train with specialist colleagues for tree removal having run on both lines to clear debris.

There is also currently no service between Worcester Shrub Hill and Hereford and again, we anticipate this will remain the case for much of the day.

Due to the widespread impact on both the road and rail network, there is no road replacement transport running. The times provided above are indicative, and this is a rapidly moving situation. For the very latest customer information we ask passengers to visit www.gwr.com/check.

Any help you can give to share this latest travel update would be much appreciated – and if there’s anything else we can do to help, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Best wishes

Tom & Heledd

[bobm]

If your travelling to Cornwall from London today the latest you can depart is at 1303. Sleeper's cancelled and all other services will terminate at Plymouth.

The preceding 12:05 to Penzance appears to be soldiering on.   It left Truro over two hours late just after 18:30 but looks not to have moved past Penwithers Junction on the way to Redruth since 18:42.

The 13:03 relies on a connection at Plymouth to reach Cornwall and that is just ahead of the 12:05 but again seems not to be moving, having overtaken it at Truro.

To complete the story, the 12:05 finally reached Penzance at 21:01 - nearly four hours late.   The connection off the 13:03 arrived half an hour earlier - delayed by an hour and 45 minutes.

[bobm]

There are times the automated emails from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) make no friends.

Disruption has been reported between Teignmouth and Exeter St Davids.

Services are no longer being affected by severe weather.

The 22:15 will be cancelled due to severe weather.

[Trowres]

Hello Bob; yes that message makes me smile. 

Journeycheck sometimes has similar oddities; it isn't perfect.

But, having looked at what other TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) have been offering in the way of misinformation, I would have to say that I'm quite happy with GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and its use of Journeycheck; also its provision of live departure info using TIGER. The information given out in the last day or so seems to have been a fair representation of reality. (As I write, Journeycheck is somewhat behind on the reopening between Plymouth and Par).

In contrast, TfW^▸ (Transport for Wales) have abandoned Journeycheck and replaced it with something inferior.
West Midlands Railway's info last night was a mess (as much as the railway service itself) and major disruption at Snow Hill (which there was) expanded to escalators being out of order...nothing about the trains.

Cross Country don't get much praise on this forum, but the information they published this morning was a succinct and readable summary of what they planned to run, and much easier than trying to work out from 100 cancellation notices whether or not any services would be left.

I cannot help commenting, though, that with certain notable exceptions, severe weather has been over-used as a reason for not running trains.

[TonyK]

We had no snow in Devon. I was woken by wind last night, and it sounded bad outside as well.

To make up for it, I watched this programme on BBC4, which has a long section from way back when with lots of footage of Devon railways during the 1962-63 winter. Worth a watch.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01q9d86/winterwatch-1963-the-big-freeze

[Pb_devon]

The Cornwall duty NR^» (Network Rail - home page) MOM^▸ (Mobile Operations Manager), the well known Craig Munday, has described his shift for the night on the CRS daily news here https://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/latest-input--news--old-pictures-etc
It’s currently (0845 10/1/25) at the top but later readers may have to scroll down to the 10 Jan section.

[a-driver]

If your travelling to Cornwall from London today the latest you can depart is at 1303. Sleeper's cancelled and all other services will terminate at Plymouth.

The preceding 12:05 to Penzance appears to be soldiering on.   It left Truro over two hours late just after 18:30 but looks not to have moved past Penwithers Junction on the way to Redruth since 18:42.

The 13:03 relies on a connection at Plymouth to reach Cornwall and that is just ahead of the 12:05 but again seems not to be moving, having overtaken it at Truro.

To complete the story, the 12:05 finally reached Penzance at 21:01 - nearly four hours late.   The connection off the 13:03 arrived half an hour earlier - delayed by an hour and 45 minutes.

The 12:05 did sit at Saltash for close to 90 minutes waiting on an ambulance for an ill passenger - that didn't help with the storm incoming.

Some GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) staff got stranded and were forced to sleep the night in the depot.  Early in the morning there was a belief the storm would be worse then expected so GWR did, some would say for a change, a top job in keeping everyone safe, 

[Red Squirrel]

The Squirrel family's centre of gravity has shifted a bit towards Cornwall since one of our kits moved to Penryn. They had an exam on Saturday, and had booked their train on Friday. Best laid plans etc!

There was an option to retake the exam later, but a decision was made to drive instead. They certainly found things pretty messy down there, although it looks like the locals won't be short of fuel for their woodburners for a while! Much of the traffic west of Truro seemed to be people taking their chainsaws for some exercise.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Stop Press: my Penryn correspondent tells me they've just spotted a train!

[ChrisB]

I saw a tweet that said the Falmouth line was open, though with cancellations

[RailCornwall]

Have Network Rail managed despite the events of last weekend to complete all the work planned on the St Ives branch? If so they must have been heroic.