Road and rail services braced for more bad weather

Travel

Heavy rain could disrupt train services again today and travellers should avoid the rail system this Sunday as Railtrack resumes its work to repair lines throughout the network.

Heavy rain could disrupt train services again today and travellers should avoid the rail system this Sunday as Railtrack resumes its work to repair lines throughout the network.

On the roads hundreds of routes remained closed in Wales and southern England, and the AA predicted that some areas would not have time to recover before the predicted return of bad weather late tonight or tomorrow. Yesterday, most motorways were clear of flooding and debris.

A spokesman for the train operators said the industry has recovered "very well" from Monday's storm, with the vast majority of scheduled services running without major delay.

"However, the forecast for tomorrow is more heavy rain, so we will watch the situation very closely and will keep passengers up-to-date if this causes delays and service alterations," said the spokesman for the Association of Train Operating Companies.

After Monday's storm, disruptions continued for trains in south Wales, the West Country and north-west England yesterday, although there were replacement bus services.

Many commuter trains into London were delayed because of speed restrictions imposed in the wake of the Hatfielddisaster.

The association reported that Connex, Chiltern, c2c and South West Trains ran full timetables, but many services ran late. Other operators into London - Thameslink, Thames Trains, Silverlink, Great Eastern and West Anglia Great Northern - operated emergency timetables.

Some additional delays were caused by more "normal" problems, such as points failure and leaves on the line.

On the main rail network both Midland Mainline and Great Western ran to emergency timetables, while Virgin services from Birmingham to London were hit when overnight work on the line was completed late. Great North Eastern was experiencing delays because of speed restrictions and repair work.

In the north, Northern Spirit, Merseyrail and First North Western were not affected and stuck to normal timetables.

In Scotland the shuttle service between Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh was still reduced from every 15 minutes to once an hour, after a landslip on the line between Polmont and Linlithgow on Sunday.

A spokesman for Railtrack said it expected services nationally to "get significantly better" within the next two weeks.