Commuters left high and dry after flooding hits

Published on Friday 4 February 2011 16:23

RAIL commuters suffered rush-hour chaos last night after flooding hit Scotland's busiest line, while the Highlands were battered by hurricane-force gusts of up to 131mph.

• The flooded line between Edinburgh and Glasgow

Trains were halted on the Edinburgh-Glasgow route by floods in at least three places, which also hit services on several other busy rail links across the Central Belt.

The first major storm of the year left 17,000 homes in the north and west without power, while fallen trees blocked roads and power lines fell on a rail route in the Highlands.

By last night, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency had issued six flood warnings, for stretches of the rivers Earn, Lyon and Tay in Perthshire, the Teviot Water in the Borders and the White Cart at Pollok Park in Glasgow. Flood watches were in force for 20 other areas of Scotland.

Flooding hit the Glasgow Queen Street-Edinburgh Waverley route late yesterday afternoon at Winchburgh in West Lothian, Castlecary, near Falkirk, and on the approaches to Queen Street station.

Trains were halved in frequency to half hourly just before 6pm, but they ground to a halt between 6:30pm and 7:30pm after flooding worsened.

Trains to Aberdeen, Inverness and Dunblane were also affected.

One Edinburgh office worker waiting for a train home to Glasgow said: "Waverley is like a disaster zone - hardly any trains are going anywhere. I was kicked off a Dunblane train too, and no information is being given out - same old story."

A commuter at Queen Street, Daniel Donaldson, said: "There are thousands of people stranded. Nothing is going out and nobody is telling us whether we will get home tonight. This is an absolute scandal. People are getting pretty desperate."

Earlier flooding delayed trains on several routes at Larbert, near Falkirk, and on the secondary Edinburgh-Glasgow line via Shotts.

A fallen power cable blocked the Inverness-Kyle of Lochalsh line at Achnashellach, which is likely to stay closed until this afternoon.

A ScotRail spokesman said that providing information to passengers at Waverley was Network Rail's responsibility as it operated the station.

A Network Rail spokesman said: "We have been doing our best, but while we were awaiting assessments of the flooding it was hard for station staff to say anything more than there was disruption."

Cross-Border passengers also suffered delays because of a problems on the east coast main line between Edinburgh and York.

The Western Isles took the brunt of the storms, leaving thousands of people without electricity and 17 of the islands' 39 schools closed.

Scottish & Southern Energy said 11,000 customers had lost power, mainly in the Western Isles, Argyll and Caithness. It sent more than 40 engineers to the Western Isles to repair damage.

ScottishPower said 6,000 customers had been affected, most on the Clyde coast, Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway.

Caledonian MacBrayne ferry sailings on the west coast were badly hit, with Barra hoping to see its first service to the mainland for four days today. Ferries to Arran, Gigha, Iona, Islay, Lismore and Skye were cancelled.

A 131mph gust was recorded on Aonach Mor mountain, near Fort William, while the weather station at the summit of Cairngorm near Aviemore closed down for four hours after winds reached 115mph.

The strongest wind at lower levels was a 93mph gust at Lerwick in Shetland yesterday - far short of the record 142mph gust recorded at Fraserburgh in 1989.

Damage to buildings caused by the winds included the roof being torn off a block of flats in Dumfries, forcing the evacuation of 50 people. A Dumfries and Galloway Police spokesman said: "It was very lucky that no-one was injured either inside the building or in the street."

Several roads were closed by fallen trees in the region.

Roads blocked by fallen trees included the A70 west of Balerno in Edinburgh, while the Hillend dry ski slope in Midlothian will remain shut until Tuesday because of damage caused by the strong winds which is still being assessed.

Firefighters had to remove a metal railing which was hanging dangerously from a tenement on Great Western Road in Glasgow.

In North Lanarkshire, a driver was cut free from his overturned car on the M73 near Gartcosh. It is believed the car aquaplaned on the northbound carriageway before landing on its roof.

Strong winds led to speed limits or certain vehicles being barred from the Erskine, Forth, Skye and Tay road bridges.

Drivers were warned of an increased landslide risk on the A83 at the Rest and Thankful in Argyll, which has suffered repeated landslips in the past.

In Staffordshire, a 51-year-old man was killed late on Thursday night when his car was hit by a tree uprooted by strong winds.