Hundreds of delegates hoping to travel to Glasgow for the COP26 climate summit by train have been left stranded inside London’s Euston station tonight after torrential rain and 80mph gale-force winds saw trees fall on the railway lines and halt services.
Network Rail tonight urged passengers to go home and ‘travel tomorrow instead’ after the extreme weather caused damage to overhead electric lines.
The railway company said they were ‘truly sorry’ for the disruption to passengers and admitted ‘today’s extreme weather got the better of us.’
The scenes of chaos comes as more than 100 world leaders descended upon Glasgow today as the first day of the two-day world leaders’ summit takes place at the Cop26 UN climate conference.
Tonight spokesman for Network Rail, Chris Halpin, said: ‘I’m afraid there are still major delays on the West Coast main line and the advice once again is to not travel this evening.
‘That’s because the diversionary route by Northampton that we had been able to run trains is now not viable.
‘We had problems on the West Coast main line at Long Buckby this afternoon because overhead lined were damaged by trees that had come down in the very wet and windy weather that we had overnight.
‘We had been running a diversionary route that got a limited number of services back up and running again but that now is closed and blocked because of problems with the overhead electric lines there.
‘Our engineers are working as fast as they possibly can to try and get routes back up and running again so we can get people on the move but our advice to people this evening is not to travel.’
A statement from the rail company added: ‘We’re advising passengers seeking to get from London to Glasgow to travel tomorrow. This is due to the impact of heavy rain has had on the railway today.
‘All line north have been affected at times including the West Coast main line, which remains impassable due to damaged overhead electric wires.
‘We are truly sorry for this. We exist to get people and good swiftly from A to B. But today’s extreme weather got the better of us.’
