There's No Business Like Snow Business!

The Brighton Main Line fared particularly badly and this is believed to be the first down train on the morning of 2nd February First Capital Connect 319446 - passing through Salfords. At this time only FCC were running between London and Brighton.

photograph by Ian Buck

Southeastern were faring even worse! Contrary to some reports some services did run on the Monday, though not at the London end. At Headcorn at 09:31 375804 is captured running a Tonbridge to Ashford shuttle.

photograph by Steve Roffey

Three and a half hours later and the weather had deteriorated in Kent. Here 375923 and 375815 departs from Tonbridge with the 13:00 to Hastings.

photograph by Colin Price

This illustrates why Southeastern services were not running to and from London - Bickley late afternoon on the Monday. Bickley is a suburb of South East London!

photograph by Anthony Francis

Although South West Trains comparatively ran more services this was not because they did not have their fair share of the snow. Here 444016 departs Farncombe on Monday 2nd.

photograph by Jonathan Holmes

Below: Two close ups of below the floor details on the Class 444 illustrating how the snow gets everywhere. It is believed a significant number of train failures over the entire system were actually due to snow getting into door track mechanisms and this was in part due to platforms not being adequately swept.

photographs by Jonathan Holmes