Disruption on railways as UK feels second round of “beast from the east”
The “mini beast from the east” is expected to cause further travel disruption in London and beyond today, with three major railways reporting that the snow had caused significant disruption.
Passengers have been advised not to travel on Great Western Railway (GWR) service as the snow and cold weather interferes with services.
The London Thames Valley is running on a limited services on all routes, with there being the possibility of cancellations at short notice. High speed services are operating on diverted routes and will also be subject to cancellations, GWR said.
For those travelling outside of London to destinations such as Reading, Didcot, Swindon, Gloucester and Bath Spa, no rail replacement services are in operation as planned engineering works take place.
Services to Bristol are limited and those to Devon and Cornwall will be subject to cancellations.
⚠ Travel UpdateCheck your journey before travelling: https://t.co/kSQp5pCyxo pic.twitter.com/jATzwvv6R6— GWR Help (@GWRHelp) March 18, 2018
Meanwhile, London’s airports – Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton – have urged passengers to check flight information before travelling due to possible disruption.
Weather update: Our teams have been working throughout the night and as a result Heathrow’s runways remain open and fully operational. While wintry weather may result in minor delays and some airlines consolidating flights, we don’t currently expect significant disruption today.— Heathrow Airport (@HeathrowAirport) March 18, 2018
pic.twitter.com/4PdFAEgRYf— Stansted Airport (@STN_Airport) March 16, 2018
A Heathrow spokesperson said: “Our teams have been working throughout the night and as a result Heathrow’s runways remain open and fully operational. We’ve worked with our airlines to consolidate today’s flight schedule, moving passengers on to fewer flights. This decision enables us to provide more certainty to passengers around departing flights, whilst ensuring safety and service standards. As always, we advise passengers to take care when travelling to the airport and ensure they check their flight status with their airline before coming to Heathrow.”
The airport added that it was expecting weather to have either little or no effect on tomorrow’s flight schedule.
Luton Airport said it had only seen one cancelled flight today and that there had been no pre-emptive cancellations from airlines for the forthcoming week.
The cold weather is expected to last until Tuesday.