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Flooding on many English railway lines 20 Oct

Friday 20 October

There have been posts today and yesterday about flooding (and the unfortunate loss of at least 2 lives) consequent to Storm Babet.

Rather than continuing to post about individual lines (West Midlands Trains and LNWR are two of the latest) I'd like to direct you to Network Rail and National Rail Enquiries, both of whom have now comprehensive pages of which lines are currently closed, amended or delayed.

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/ and their feed on what used to be called Twitter

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

Expect many issues carrying on into Saturday.

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Anyone who is stuck try to find a travelodge or a PI where you are for tonight, as the weather is not going to improve today. (or other hotel chain), or try National Express/Megabus or Flixbus ASAP who may have evening or overnight capacity.

Rail companies will struggle to find enough coach capacity at short notice.

I have already messaged Greg who we know is travelling today, both on the forum and privately.

What matters in this kind of situation is personal safety and preservation of life. The cost of additional hotels is inconsequential at this stage, that can be recovered later.

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It isn't only about trains. An aircraft (TUI from Corfu) has come off the runway a few minutes ago when attempting to land in heavy rain at Leeds Bradford airport. Passengers being removed at the moment.

Be careful out there people.

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Leeds Bradford Airport is also currently closed as a TUI Holiday flight from Corfu has skidded off the runway while landing in severe weather. There are mercifully no casualties.

EDIT- Cross posted with Nigel

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All Avanti services to and from Glasgow and Edinburgh are now suspended north of Preston, and are expected to be tomorrow, 21 October.
The final arrivals from the south into Carlisle were between 3 and 4 1/2 hours late.

No replacement road transport can be provided.

The Carlisle to Newcastle route is also suspended due to a fallen tree- no replacement transport.

All Northern Rail routes into and through South Yorkshire now have a do not travel notice on them due to a river breaking its banks. There are no trains from Leeds to Harrogate, Shipley, Ilkley and Skipton. In all cases use local buses at own cost.

The route from Stockport to Buxton is now closed.

All services on the East Coast Main Line are heavily disrupted due to flooding between Newark and Grantham, with cross industry inter-availability. Additionally few trains are now running between Newcastle and Edinburgh- those that are are running up to 4 hours late.

In Wales all routes except Cardiff and the Valleys and Cardiff to West Wales now have do not travel notices on them- some trains are running, but with great unpredictability.

On GWR the route through Swindon is now re-opened, but due to displacement of trains and crew no service is running to South Wales tonight and only a restricted service to Bristol. The disruption is expected to continue into the weekend.

On all affected operators tickets for today will be accepted until Monday 23 October inclusive (or refunded fee free). On LNER acceptance is up until Friday 27 October.

Many other operators also have serious problems.

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The story on the West Coast main line this morning is far more nuanced than on the National Rail website and network rail twitter. The line is fully open- as evidenced by the Lowland Sleepers running on time last night both ways (the Highland sleepers were cancelled due to the flooding emergencies in Scotland) and that a steam excursion train has been allowed to run this morning from Bristol to Carlisle- currently reported on time having passed through the lines that were flooded and closed yesterday between Bristol and Birmingham.

The much maligned Transpennine are running an almost normal service but Avanti are running very little north of Preston. Put simply the reason is that Transpennine have a traincrew depot at Carlisle, whereas Avanti haven't- their depots are at Preston then Glasgow. So they don't want either trains or crew to become stranded at Carlisle.

So Avanti are being very cautious, in case of problems developing

Check the train company websites for the latest information on individual trains. But you will reach your final destination today on the WCML. In fact in "Cumbria" it is truly the calm after the storm, a very nice calm day.

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Leeds Bradford airport has just re-opened after yesterday's landing incident.