| Equipment Failure and Snow closure of EXD - Barnstaple and Okehampton 21112024 Posted by RailCornwall at 16:11, 21st November 2024 |      |
Last updated
21 Nov 2024 at 15:17
Train operators affected
Great Western Railway
Route(s) affected
Between Exeter Central / Exeter St Davids and Okehampton
Description
A points failure at Crediton means lines between Exeter St Davids and Barnstaple are blocked. Services between Exeter Central / Exeter St Davids and Barnstaple will be cancelled.
Additionally, heavy snow between Crediton and Okehampton means the line is closed. Services between Exeter Central / Exeter St Davids and Okehampton will be cancelled.
Disruption is expected until the end of the day.
| Re: Equipment Failure and Snow closure of EXD - Barnstaple and Okehampton 21112024 Posted by plymothian at 16:59, 21st November 2024 | |
As of the last update at 14:00, there have been 8 passengers stranded on a train on the Okehampton line for 6 hours. The rescue train of Network Rail personnel had only managed to get 3 miles from Crediton.
| Re: Equipment Failure and Snow closure of EXD - Barnstaple and Okehampton 21112024 Posted by PhilWakely at 17:12, 21st November 2024 | |
As of the last update at 14:00, there have been 8 passengers stranded on a train on the Okehampton line for 6 hours. The rescue train of Network Rail personnel had only managed to get 3 miles from Crediton.
Passengers were rescued by the fire brigade, but the train (2R52?) is still stranded.
An additional problem earlier was that the main road from Crediton to Exeter was blocked by a lorry, stuck on the hill through Newton St Cyres.
| Re: Equipment Failure and Snow closure of EXD - Barnstaple and Okehampton 21112024 Posted by RailCornwall at 17:45, 21st November 2024 | |
Train stopped and stranded at ......
Sampford Courtenay!!!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fD1nG5VPJus
| Re: Equipment Failure and Snow closure of EXD - Barnstaple and Okehampton 21112024 Posted by AMLAG at 18:18, 21st November 2024 | |
The weight of heavy snow is known to bring trees and tree branches down and if allowed to grow unchecked ( as has been the case on many mainly secondary lines for several years) problems as experienced today in numerous places on the Okehampton and North Devon lines
are inevitable.
Network Rail, through ‘Mitigation’ directives from over powerful Natural England has in last year or two had to spend hundreds of thousands /more than a million pounds acquiring land ( including over the odds prices paid for good agricultural land) adjacent, or in at least one case a few miles, from the Crediton to Okehampton line.
This former mainly agriculture land is being planted with thousands of mixed species trees, with it is understood non degradable plastic tree guards.
If only some of this money had been spent to remove the obvious safety hazards these trees pose, which are very evident to railway staff and passengers, along in particular the
13 mile ‘tree tunnel’ between Coleford Jn and Okehampton, then cancellation of train services as experienced again today could have been avoided.
