Half an Inch of Snow - Transport Chaos

Nuggs

After maybe as much as half an inch of snow, I have trudged to the station only to be told that the entire Brighton mainline has been closed. The tannoy gave "extreme weather conditions" as the reason - IT'S HALF AN INCH OF SNOW IN WINTER!

Batten down the hatches, women and children first. Stock up on tinned food and bottled water. Consider hibernation for the next three months, it may be the only way. My goodness, there may even be some rain later; then we'd all be done for.

We must be the laughing stock of the rest of the world. Does Switzerland close for winter, how about Scandinavia?

More snow forecast for lunchtime. SAVE YOURSELVES!!

nwallace

Funniest thing I've seen on GMTV ever.
A Bendy Bus crashed by the driver on a few cm of snow.

All buses off in London, clear roads.

Cyclists making easy going of the quiet, cleared roads.

singlespeedexplosif

tannoy

[Alan Partridge mode on]
It's like people who say Tannoy when they mean public-address system. Tannoy is a brand name. Why are you all staring at me? I'm not having a go at anyone, I'm having a pop at the undead. Do you see any upset zombies around?

[Alan Partridge mode off]

Nuggs

singlespeedexplosif wrote:

tannoy

[Alan Partridge mode on]
It's like people who say Tannoy when they mean public-address system. Tannoy is a brand name. Why are you all staring at me? I'm not having a go at anyone, I'm having a pop at the undead. Do you see any upset zombies around?

[Alan Partridge mode off]

I guess the same goes for hoovers...

RockyHopperShow

Gotta say Nuggs, as a fellow Albion fan (and train driver on the Brighton mainline) that the snow was pretty deep north of Gatwick. You couldn't see the live rail it was that deep. With these super new trains all that happens is that you continually lose "traction packages" to the point where if you lose three out of five (quite easy in these conditions) the on-board computer thinks there is a major fault and begins to loadshed to protect batteries etc. It's a poor design in my opinion but it's something we have to live with. There is nothing worse than that feeling that you have to go back into a train packed with irate passengers to sort out a fault. We left Victoria at 0600 this morning and everything would have been okay if we could have gone direct to Gatwick as usual but as we were the first train down we stopped to serve East Croydon. Pulling up the incline to Coulsdon was painfully slow withiut the benefit of a run-up but once at the tunel it was all downhill. On arrival at Gatwick, Southern Control and Network Rail had suspended services as there were trains failing all over the place. I am sure this wouldn't have happened with the old slam-door stock but that's "progress " for you.
That said, I do understand your frustration, and please be aware that we rail staff get inconvenienced too.

Nuggs

RockyHopperShow wrote:

Stuff

Don't worry mate, I'm not cross at the drivers etc. It's just that we seem so underprepared for anything but temperate conditions.

I had heard that the snow is much deeper either side of Haywards Heath (my parents have over 6" in Burgess Hill, just a few miles south). I guess there's an argument that you can't legislate for that level of snow. However, even the slightest dusting seems to spin things out into chaos!

Mike Healey

What fascinates me is the closure of schools.
Warning - age give-away

Went through the infamous winter of 46/7 with snow drifts everywhere (4' deep passage from front door to road), power cuts nearly every day, no central heating at school that I can recall and not once did the bstrds shut them down.

At age 6, either went on bus on own or walked nearly two miles - no, not in bare feet or clogs, this isn't Monty Python - and no-one thought it anything unusual.

Unfortunately, we had to eat the sled dogs because of rationing, tha' knows, otherwise it would have been easier

Nuggs

Mike Healey wrote:

What fascinates me is the closure of schools.
Warning - age give-away

Went through the infamous winter of 46/7 with snow drifts everywhere (4' deep passage from front door to road), power cuts nearly every day, no central heating at school that I can recall and not once did the bstrds shut them down.

At age 6, either went on bus on own or walked nearly two miles - no, not in bare feet or clogs, this isn't Monty Python - and no-one thought it anything unusual.

Unfortunately, we had to eat the sled dogs because of rationing, tha' knows, otherwise it would have been easier

I suspect that the rise in private car ownership has led to an increase in commuting teachers. In turn this would lead to critical staff shortages in (to coin Network Rail) "extreme weather conditions".

iain_j

My school (in the 80's) closed odd days every winter cos the heating wasn't working. It never works in our office - sitting here today slowly freezing - but we don't get the luxury of being sent home. The engineer runs about all day with a jacket on so he sets the temperature to what's comfortable for him.

Simonb256

I honestly think that there is no blame.

We are all just pointing fingers at anyone at the moment.

We seldom get this amount of snow anymore. 2 decades nearly is being quoted as how long ago it was this bad, but 20 years is a long time ago.

So first there is the drivers 20 years worth on new drivers who have never really have to deal with proper snow/ice. How can you prepare for something that you never really going to see for many years?

The councils are gritting, but fresh snow covers the grit. They cant grit everywhere all the time.

We may of managed before, ( a long while ago) but people just arent used to it anymore. Thats the top and bottom of it basically.

singlespeedexplosif

Not everybody is blameless.

Many councils didn't grit before this snowfall, despite it having been predicted for a while.
Many people found they couldn't (/didn't want to) drive their cars, and didn't even consider public transport as a way to getting to work.

Simonb256

singlespeedexplosif wrote:

Not everybody is blameless.

Many councils didn't grit before this snowfall, despite it having been predicted for a while.
Many people found they couldn't (/didn't want to) drive their cars, and didn't even consider public transport as a way to getting to work.

As mentioned earlier grit doesnt work whilst snow fall will cover it, so gritting wont be that effective until snow stops, which is likely to have been what happened, it may of een the wrong descision but whats to stop people driving as normal to the conditions? As other countries do...

Also on your other point, its an excuse therefore it will be used.

We are a nation of complainers, of opportunists and of blame culture.

I still feel that there is no blame, we just werent used to it.

Nuggs

Stop confusing us with the facts and a rational point-of-view. These things do not belong in Soapbox.

singlespeedexplosif

Also on your other point, its an excuse therefore it will be used.
my point entirely. Work-shy fops.

Cressers

How did it ever come to this? A once proud nation crippled by fear of snow. Don't go out because Nanny has warned you not to, don't bring out the busses because the road is too slippery, have breathless news reports on gridlocked 'Blizzard Britain' from overbridges while below the traffic flows smoothly. And the icing on the cake was Gordon Brown apologising to the Chinese about the state of the nation, well who's been in charge for the last twelve years?

downfader

It all comes down to how everyone wanted their kids to go to the best schools, miles away. Or that promotion at HQ, so some 40% of car commuters travel longer distances. Councils making cut backs on road prep like gritting/salting..

..infact all the pavements that were cleared yesterday and today have been done by residents. I got into work yesterday, only to hear that one of the busses had turned over when it slipped and two were stuck at the bottom of a hill. I saw a few people cycle but they seemed to struggle and I would hope they didnt have far to go.

I just wasnt going to chance either a 5 mile walk or the hills on the bike today. Managed to get a late bus only for all morning services to be cancelled (they've just put them back on now). Phoned work to let them know I wasnt going to get in and walked a mile home (slipping and sliding all over the place)

Dog Breath

While speaking with our company’s Montreal office yesterday, I commented on how the country was at a standstill due to and inch of snow and a temperature of 0C

He commented that they had 10 inches of snow last Thursday and it was -25C, and everything was running fine.

Put’s things into perspective really just how cr*p this country is.

nasahapley

Dog Breath wrote:

While speaking with our company’s Montreal office yesterday, I commented on how the country was at a standstill due to and inch of snow and a temperature of 0C

He commented that they had 10 inches of snow last Thursday and it was -25C, and everything was running fine.

Put’s things into perspective really just how cr*p this country is.

No, it just goes to show that 10 inches of snow and seriously low temperatures are nothing out of the ordinary in Montreal, whereas ten inches of snow in London (which is about how much they got, not one inch), happens about once every two decades. If the necessary millions were spent by English local authorities on the type of infrastructure needed to deal with Canadian winters there would be howls of outrage at how it was a waste of taxpayers' money. And what's more, I'd bet a pound to a penny that it would be the same people moaning about that that are moaning now.

I for one am glad that Britain's infrastructure can't cope very well with unusual weather, because it consistently gives me an extra fews days off each year.

phearnde

I had to laugh yesterday - drove from Horsham to Ipswich, through what I thought was just at max an inch of snow - listening to the radio telling me first of all that all the buses in London were suspended, then there were no trains at all on South-East, then Brighton-London was off, then the inevitable lists of Schools closed. Biggest problem I had was on the A12 near the M25, but I got through. Lorries on the other carriageway couldn't get up a little hill - road closed. On this 150 mile journey I saw just two gritters, and they were both in traffic queues - surely it can't be beyond the highways agency to escort or whatever these gritters to where thay are required.

Most amused when I got to work to read on the news that I had apparently driven through 12 inches of snow - possibly reports were exagerated to justify the mess!

It saddens me to live in a country, or perhaps just this corner of the UK, where 'severe' weather brings things to a standstill. I lived for a couple of years in Switzerland and on the first day of winter trains are delayed (delayed not cancelled) by perhaps 5 mins max, the airport suffers a couple of hours of chaos while the snow ploughs are bolted onto the front of the service vehicles, then it's back to normal service. This in a country where only the highways (motorways to us Brits) are gritted, all other roads display permanent signage warning this road will not be gritted! Everybody has a second set of winter tyres which they fit to their car in October and remove in May - by the way if you are involved in an accident between these dates you will be assumed to be at fault if you haven't got your winter tyres fitted. Because everybody has a set of winter tyres, a second of wheels with winter tyres is pretty cheap - my manager's winter tyres with alloy wheels cost him about 400 quid....

I guess we suffer here, because we don't have enough snow - so let's have more snow!

I'm currently working for BT, who today are patting themselves on the back because so much of the workforce, either permanently work at home or have the flexibility to do so.

Just warming up to my subject,, but I'll stop ranting 'cause it's nearly time to go home and the meeting I'm in is hopefully nearly over

El Gordo

As much as it seems daft that schools close at the first snowflake (which they also did 20 years ago when I was at school so it's hardly a recent phenomemen) it was nice to see LOADS of kids out on a local cricket ground having snowball fights, building snowmen and sledging. If they'd been trapped in school they'd have missed out on all the fun.

Stewie Griffin

I cant remember any of my Schools ever closing because of snow :x . The London Borough of Harrow used 75% of its annual grit budget in one night (cant find where I read that now). Finland spends approaching £500m annually keeping roads clear. Britain spends less than £170m. If you want your Council Tax to be spent on preparing for something that happens for 2 days every 10 years then great, just dont moan when everyday services suffer or your Ctax goes through the roof.

My rant about it all, my Sister is a School Teacher in London and she sent me a text telling me that during Assembly the kids were instructed that snowballs are NOT to be thrown at other kids, its too dangerous*. Rant part II is that Islington had closed its parks as they were covered in snow and therefore far too dangerous to allow the Public access to :shock:

*Im glad I grew up in the 70's "what are you doing inside when the Sun is out, go on get out or what are you doing inside when everything is covered in snow, go on get out".

teagar

Isn't it more that since it's an unlikely enough event, preparing fully for that kind of snow is more expensive than dealing with the disruption? S'what newsnight was saying.
8)

Nuggs

El Gordo wrote:

As much as it seems daft that schools close at the first snowflake (which they also did 20 years ago when I was at school so it's hardly a recent phenomemen) it was nice to see LOADS of kids out on a local cricket ground having snowball fights, building snowmen and sledging. If they'd been trapped in school they'd have missed out on all the fun.

Yes. On my local TV news, they were assessing the impact of missing two days school. For crying out loud, I hardly think it's going to deprive them of a place at Oxbridge!