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Thursday 17 Feb 2022

Storm Eunice: rail travel warning for Midlands passengers

Region & Route:

North West & Central

| North West & Central: Central

• Rail companies in Network Rail's Central route strongly recommend people do not to travel by train on Friday.
• Railway teams worked flat out to get the Chiltern main line and Midlands rail routes moving after Storm Dudley.
• A fly-away mattress blew onto tracks near Stourbridge and gale force winds damaged a platform roof at Wolverhampton station.
• Storm Eunice is on its way and speed restrictions will be in place for trains across the entire country on Friday 18 February.

Rail passengers are being warned of further travel disruption when Storm Eunice hits the country later today.

The warning comes as Network Rail engineers worked to clear trees and debris from railway lines on the Chiltern main line and other Midlands rail routes after Storm Dudley brought gusts of 90mph overnight.

With just a few hours calm between the storms, specialist teams have been working around the clock to fix the damage.

Trees were brought down in multiple locations including on the Chiltern main line at Beaconsfield.

A fly-away mattress was also cleared from tracks at Lye near Stourbridge and some ceiling panels on a platform roof at Wolverhampton station were damaged by the gale force winds causing disruption for a short time.

With Storm Eunice forecast to be even more ferocious, passengers are being strongly recommended not to travel on Friday and that journeys will face disruption.

Network Rail will impose blanket safety speed restrictions – 50mph in most places – on the main rail lines across the country, with winds set to reach as high as 90mph in some areas.

Meanwhile in Wales all services will be suspended on Friday because of the storm's expected severity.

• Latest: Storm Eunice: Railway to close as biggest storm in a decade to hit Wales

Passenger are advised to check with their individual train operator for their latest travel advice.

Denise Wetton, Network Rail’s Central route director, said: “With such strong winds expected from Storm Eunice we know that disruption to passengers’ journeys is inevitable and we strongly recommend people do not travel on Friday. We have rapid response on standby to clear routes impacted by the bad weather and keep train passengers safe.”

Lucy Wootton, head of the Grand Railway Collaboration*, said: “We will do all we can to keep trains moving safely and the rail industry will react as quickly as possible to resolve any storm-related issues. However, we would urge people to decide if their travel on Friday is vital and if not, to travel on another day if at all possible.”

Network Rail and train operators are working together to keep people safe. 

Additional engineers will be out across the network ready to react to problems when they happen and will check all affected lines for damage before reintroducing services as quickly as possible.

People who re-plan a journey for Friday will be able to use their ticket to travel on equivalent services with their train operator any time on Thursday or Saturday.

​​People can keep up to date by checking www.nationalrail.co.uk or by following Network Rail Twitter accounts @NetworkRailBHM and @NetworkRailCML.