Snow Train Running

[severe_delays]

The more alert among you may have noticed that the rain has been rather fluffy and white lately. And given that this is the south of England this has naturally caused all sorts of chaos.

Much of the line now looks like this. The rails are dry, the current supply is pretty steady and we don't really have any problems. It wasn't always this way.

Comments

[techiebabe]

I thought of you when it snowed. Not so much the issues caused by it (well that's boring and predictable!) but rather the lovely views you would have.

One year when it snowed my first thought was to jump on the DLR (sitting at the front pretending to drive, natch) and admiring the undisturbed snow all around. Very pretty views of Docklands in the snow - sadly I didn't have a DSLR then so I just have a few grainy snaps. Might try it again if I'm well enough, but you need enough snow to look thick and pretty without being so much that you might not get home easily :-)

Anyway enough reminiscing - but this is why I thought of you when it snowed.

Too early for cute baby animals in the snow?

[severe_delays]

Oh now that you're getting more stamina you should totally get some good photos from the DLR. Better do a snow dance!

I certainly don't have any shots of cute baby animals. There's a lot of bird activity but it's a bit tricky to juggle a train and a camera at speed! I did see three of the fluffiest foxes ever today. Huge winter coats. There was a vixen and cubs in the same area last year so I wondered if it was the same family. Lots of small animals to eat there so probably not much need to fight for territories.

[swaldman]

I treasure a memory of a journey on the Far North Line a couple of winters ago. That, as you can probably imagine, is a line that is quite used to snow; the rails aren't kept clear by running because there are only six trains a day, and I doubt that it's considered worthwhile to snowplough it (especially as that would presumably occupy one of those 6-a-day slots) Indeed, a few days after my journey it was closed for weeks until the weather improved.

At the time, however, the snow had only been falling for a few hours, and yet we were trundling at about 20mph. After a while, the driver explained "We're not going slowly because of the snow; we're going slowly because it's foggy, and my foghorn is full of snow". I found this entertaining, though I don't really know why.

We trundled for about another 40 minutes to the next stop, at which point the driver got out and kicked the foghorn until there was not snow in it any more. Then we carried on at a normal speed :-)