Why is it that each year around this time we get a bit of bad weather and suddenly it is chaos on the roads at airports and on railway tracks? All we need now is a flake of snow to fall and we can all take to our beds until the festive period is over and normal service has been resumed.
^ population density = ^ traffic density. Temperate climate means that rather than crisp frozen environments we get slushy, muddy wet environments, often with snow and ice melting then refreezing which is far more bother than a consistent surface. Differs every year too. Add to that a corporate culture that is risk averse and delays are inevitable. UK is just a really good place to live and no-one wants to die but everyone wants to party = traffic chaos. Cheer up you miserable bugger
I sometimes like to remind people is that the many causes for travel delays may not be entirely apparent in our current location. I've seen people get visibly upset when a flight is delayed due to bad weather even though the sky is fairly clear when they look up. It doesn't occur to them that the weather at their destination - or anywhere in between - might be terrible. The modern air traffic system is a complicated map of airplanes flying all over the place. Consider what a single volcano in Iceland did to air traffic just because it happened to sit right in a most efficient intercontinental flight path. It's just coincidence that a lot of people travel during the holiday season, and in the northern hemisphere (where the majority of people live) the holiday season occurs during winter when there is an increased likelihood for poor weather. Once you take the environmental factors, add holiday stress, sprinkle in ridiculous airport security procedures, stir in normal human emotional responses, and bake for the week of Christmas, you get a recipe for chaos.
Tree's tend to fall on the tracks in bad weather = resulting in either very slow trains 50mph max or stopping the trains completely. I wouldn't really call it chaos
Indeed, SWT also operate 2 of the busiest stations in the country, and serve some of the most densely packed areas too. Sam
They could be forced into ensuring that all trees within falling distance are dealt with, just like we are in the Electrical sector (ESQC(A)R 2006 Regs). We're well behind with ensuring that no tree can cause a power failure, but then there's significantly more overhead power lines than rail.
It's not just tree's though, This was taken yesterday i believe: That's the Island Line on the Isle of Wight. Sam
A number of people got killed in the latest storms. I think this qualifies as more than just "a little bad weather".
I think its unfair to judge the transport system so harshly the railway is always going to be susceptible to problems with wind and rain let alone trees falling on the line or even as I heard there were 'garden sheds and a trampoline' on the rails in the midlands. the speed restrictions apply as trains take a good long while to stop ( some almost a mile ) and running around a bend and being the first to see a tree down, you might not have time to stop before a crash the airports are again very susceptible to the weather as high winds are difficult for planes to land safely in Footage from Brum on the 5th similar results were had Yday and a 'go around' where the plane decides not to land and go round and try again causes delays as he misses his landing 'slot' so lands late, unloads, refuels and embarks passengers late, and is likely to miss its takeoff slot ( more for the cheap short haul fast turnarounds that companies like Ryanair / BMI / Easyjet do ) snow causes even more issues as it forms ice on planes that reduce lift / increase drag and have caused large numbers of crashes in the past ( also planes have to be DE-ICED where they are sprayed with special fluid, again taking a fair chunk of time ( takes about 10 mins ) where the turnaround time is only about 30 mins. also larger numbers of users at the airport meaning that more passengers SOMEHOW miss the calls for their flight. and then their baggage has to be found on the aircraft, and unloaded ( again ruining takeoff slots ) also snow causes poor braking action on runways so airports have some snow clearing vehicles the must deploy to the runway to clear snow / rain but they have to shut the runway first. Also Gatwick had a power failure yesterday causing huge delays as all the luggage has to be sorted by hand as for the roads more people traveling over Xmas means more crashes. and with the weather this year, there are more crashes than normal due to aquaplaning cars, high winds buffeting larger /lighter vehicles and people chancing if they can drive through the floodwaters. once snow starts to fall everything gets worse as VERY few people have snow tires ( in some countries this is illegal ) so people go sliding. I live almost at the top of a fairly steep hill and on a junction, and every time there is snow, we have someone miss the turning, and slide into my garden, sometimes even crashing into my house. people simply cannot understand how to drive In the snow, the worst culprits are the people that think 'MOAR POWER GET YOU FURTHER' but once the wheels start slipping they in effect start buffing the ice to a mirror shine making it harder for anyone else to pass. some laws from other counties would seriously help 'clearing the snow / ice outside your property' for instance' or deploying those on community service to help shovel the snow / spread grit from the grit bins.
I was at my girlfriends in Cambridge over the weekend, went to leave yesterday morning and everything into London was cancelled... We ended up driving but even then every river we went past was almost fit to burst.
Pretty sure there's some reports (see Stern) published outlining unprecedented global economic impacts due to rapidly changing climate and rising sea levels etc. - this stuff shouldn't be coming as a surprise to people, get used to disruption, it's here for a while...
South West Trains released this photo today of the damage along the line between Petersfield and Haslemere. Repairs to be complete by the 6th Jan, but until then, an amended time table exists. Sam
That's hardly a realistic thing to attempt to force when railways literally run through peoples back gardens. Electricity pylons; much less so. Ouch. SWT get a massively hard time - big network as you say, and they carry a massive amount of responsibility as they're used by a rather large percentage of london rail commuters (read: angry *******s) and also run to the very south west, which means lots of reliance there too especially on longer distance services. They get my sympathy in that regard but having used them for ~7 years now, their communication when things are going to pot is dreadful at best.
