Rain strands passengers and floods homes
HEAVY rain left hundreds of rail passengers stranded while a military helicopter was deployed when a river burst its bank after swathes of Britain were hit by floods. About 400 passengers were stranded for up to eight hours on Thursday after a landslip near Corby, Northants, stopped an East Midlands train from London to Nottingham.
The landslip caused a second train that had come to rescue the passengers to become stuck. One person was treated at the scene in an ambulance by paramedics. Some routes were still affected yesterday morning, with engineers on-site to clear the line.
In the nearby town of Wainfleet, where two months of rain fell in two days, an RAF Chinook dropped sand in a bid to stop the flow of water after the River Steeping experienced a breach. Seventy properties were hit by flooding, but the county council warned that up to 720 could be affected.
Some 15 flood warnings and 51 flood alerts were issued yesterday, mostly across the Midlands and North West.
It was no picnic for 500 railway passengers who were first evacuated from a train caught in a landslip on the way to Nottingham and then stranded for hours by floods in another train near Corby. The most cheering incident reported was the offer by the train manager: “I live in the Kettering area and I’m sure a few of you can stay at my place.” It is unlikely that the travellers counted themselves lucky in comparison with the passengers of the 6.34 from Princetown on March 9 1891, due in at Yelverton in time for dinner. Caught in a snowdrift, the shivering passengers were only rescued two days later. Trains, we know, are safe, companionable and quite often on time. But even in the modest climate of Britain, there are occasions that elevate delayed travellers’ dull experience to that of intrepid explorers.