Fun in the sun as rail fails in heat
Nicola Cuthbertson and Janice Buchanan enjoy the hot weather under The Kelpies in Falkirk yesterday as the mercury rose to 32C in parts of Scotland, but it was chaos on the railways as services struggled to cope with the heat.
Record temperatures in parts of Scotland caused misery for rail passengers with speed restrictions triggering disruption across the Central Belt.
Glasgow basked in record heat of 31.9C which melted part of the Glasgow Science Centre roof.
That beat Wednesday’s high of 31.3C in Aviemore, and came close to matching the hottest June day ever recorded in Scotland – 32.2C at Ochtertyre in Perthshire in 1893.
Glasgow was followed yesterday by 31C at Strathallan in Perthshire and 30.7C at Tyndrum.
However, Scotland’s biggest city’s new peak remains 1C below the Scottish record of 32.9C, which was set in the Borders in August 2003.
However, track temperatures on the rail network hit 51C in places such as Livingston, disrupting thousands of passengers.
Commuters complained of chaotic scenes at major stations, furious at the lack of information about the meltdown. Worst affected was Central and Queen Street in Glasgow, where staff handed out water to sweltering passengers.
The heat forced speed restrictions to reduce the risk of rails buckling, slowing trains down and causing knock-on delays.
Jessica tweeted: “I’m currently away to collapse in queen street cause it’s a greenhouse and every single train is delayed. It’s mayhem.”
At Central, it was a second evening of disruption after all services were suspended when several sets of points linking tracks were knocked out on Wednesday night.
Trains were halted yesterday between Edinburgh and Bathgate. Services on other lines were halved in frequency, such as the main Edinburghglasgow line, Edinburghdunblane and Glasgow-lanark.
Scotrail said: “Due to high rail temperatures, we’re having to reduce services to and from Glasgow Central High Level. Those that are running will be subject to delay and alteration.”
This was despite Network Rail activating its extreme weather action team “to ensure passengers are kept safe and our railway keeps running as reliably as possible”. This included engineers painting rails white around Central to deflect the heat and reduce the amount they expanded.
There were also many complaints about trains being unable to keep people cool.
Physio Jill Adams tweeted: “Trying to get to Livingston on the 16.03. It’s on/ off/ on again meanwhile waiting in a packed, inhumanely hot train. Where’s the air con?”
Some travellers questioned why the rails couldn’t cope with high temperatures, unlike hotter countries.
But Network Rail said because of Britain’s variable weather it was neither practical nor cost effective to stress the rails to cope, as happened in other countries, and this could put them at greater risk in the winter.
A Scotrail spokesperson said: “We sincerely apologise to customers affected by this disruption and completely understand their frustration when these things happen.”
Some 65 firefighters were battling a 200-acre wildfire in woodland at Fauldhouse in West Lothian.
The blaze has raged since Wednesday afternoon, with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service issuing a wildfire warning across the country until Monday.
At the Glasgow Science Centre on the River Clyde, staff confirmed its weatherproof membrane had melted in the extreme conditions, dripping down the building.
A spokeswoman said: “The structural integrity of the roof is completely sound, but we are left with a bit of an unsightly black goo on the roof.”
Glasgow’s new temperature record was nearly 1C higher than the previous record in 1950 of 31.1C.
Met Office forecaster Sophie Yeomans said: “It’s the warmest day of the year in Scotland again, but we haven’t quite beaten the June record.
“Around the coastline it will have been a little fresher, with Aberdeen recording a high of 23.7C.”
South of the Border, Porthmadog in North Wales produced another hottest day of the year for the fourth day in a row where it reached 33C.
However, temperatures are expected to dip today and into the weekend.
A 17-year-old boy was found dead in the River Aire in Leeds in the early hours of Wednesday morning following a search and rescue operation. It is believed he got into difficulties while swimming on Tuesday evening.
The body of Ryan Evans, 13, who went missing on Monday after getting into difficulty in Westport Lake in Stoke-ontrent, was recovered from the water. The body of a man was also recovered from a lake in Nutfield, Surrey, on Monday.
COMMENT “The structural integrity of the roof is completely sound, but we are left with a bit of an unsightly black goo”
GLASGOW SCIENCE CENTRE