Moment Beast from the East roared in

Blame Met Office for making us cancel trains, say rail companies

A MASSIVE snow-laden cloud seems to swallow up the clear blue sky as the Beast from the East bears down on London yesterday.

It had already covered eastern counties of England, dumping up to 11in of snow, leading to school closures and paralysing transport systems.

The picture, taken from a police helicopter, shows the extent of the misery that much of Britain can expect as a blast of Siberian air brings the coldest week of the winter so far – because as soon as this has passed over, Storm Emma is expected to bring even more disruption tomorrow and on Friday.

Yesterday roads across the country were gridlocked by numerous breakdowns and crashes, including a 17-vehicle pile-up in Essex.

Three women in a Renault Clio died when it collided with a lorry on the A15 near Baston, Lincolnshire, yesterday. A fourth occupant sustained serious injuries. The lorry driver was not hurt.

Officers in the county dealt with more than 20 crashes in the morning rush-hour, including rescuing 45 schoolchildren from their bus after it collided with a car.

A man was killed in a three-car collision on the A47 in Cambridgeshire. And another man suffered ‘ possibly lifethreatening’ injuries after a van crashed into a tractor carrying a livestock trailer on the A30 near Bodmin in Cornwall.

Up to 800 schools across Britain were closed yesterday, including 339 in Kent, 223 in Wales and 62 in East Sussex.

British Airways cancelled dozens of flights from Heathrow, while easyJet said it was expecting some disruption.

Eastern parts of the country bore the brunt of yesterday’s blast, with 11in of snow falling in parts of Norfolk and 8in in parts of Kent. A lowest temperature of -8.9C was recorded overnight in Farnborough, Hampshire.

With high winds and blizzards expected today and tomorrow, the Met Office issued severe weather warnings for most of the country.

Spokesman Grahame Madge said the arrival of Storm Emma from Europe will bring a ‘cocktail of weather events’ which are likely to create hazardous conditions across large parts of Britain.

‘There are widespread weather warnings across the country, particularly from 2pm on Thursday until 8am on Friday,’ he said. ‘This will affect the London rush hour on Thursday evening.

‘Freezing rain will start to fall on Thursday afternoon, which will create black ice, which drivers will find hard to spot,’ he said.

Up to 16in of snow could fall in north-east England and Scotland between this morning and tomorrow lunchtime, forecasters say.

RAIL bosses yesterday blamed weather forecasters for their decision to cancel hundreds of services even though little snow fell in some areas.

The Met Office was forced to defend its forecasts after Network Rail claimed the snow had ‘not been as anticipated’ when bemused passengers in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex lashed out at rail companies for leaving them stranded unnecessarily.

Shortly after lunch the public sector body, which looks after the railways, announced that services across Anglia would be restored as snow had fallen further southeast than expected. But it warned passengers would face more disruption throughout the day as the wave of cancellations meant drivers and trains were out of place.

As the rail industry was accused of overreacting to the cold weather, rail bodies were quick to pass the buck.

Network Rail said it instructed rail companies to cancel services in advance only after receiving ‘detailed weather forecasts’ from the Met Office, which predicted ‘heavy snow over the Anglia route’.

Greater Anglia cancelled about 400 trains from Monday evening through to Wednesday evening. C2C, which operates services between London and Essex, cancelled more than 200 trains between Monday evening and last night.

Meliha Duymaz, route managing director for Network Rail, said: ‘The forecasts all predicted heavy snow in our region, but for us, it has not been as bad as anticipated.

‘I’d like to apologise to passengers who have had difficult journeys.’

Yesterday the Met Office hit back. Spokesman Grahame Madge said: ‘The snow that we have seen so far has been well forecasted. We always says with snow showers that they won’t fall everywhere. It is the hardest thing to be accurate about. Being totally accurate about where showers will land is at the cutting edge of our technology.’

The decision by Network Rail to reinstate services was too late for hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded waiting for trains or bus replacement services in freezing temperatures.

Many of them posted pictures on social media of stations with a light dusting of snow, or no snow at all. Puzzled passengers also questioned why freight trains were speeding past when almost every service listed at their station was cancelled. Nick Pearman wrote on Twitter: ‘Must have had about 1mm of snow and they’ve cancelled most of the trains... @greateranglia.’ John Corney wrote: ‘@greateranglia cancelling trains because it’s forecast for snow – before a single snowflake has fallen. Cos if there’s no trains running, there’s no risk of paying out refunds for delayed/cancelled services.’

Will Quince, Tory MP for Colchester, tweeted: ‘@greateranglia I appreciate that you anticipated the forecasted heavy snow and managed expectations accordingly by cancelling services but given how light the snow actually was overnight, when will normal rail services resume today?’