Engineers are continuing to assess Scotland’s railway after heavy rain and strong winds from Storm Dudley damaged parts of the country’s network.
Tayside appeared to face little disruption on Wednesday night due to the UK’s fourth named storm but most train services remain shut down.
All services except those on the Far North, Kyle of Lochalsh and Aberdeen to Inverness lines stopped running at 4pm on Wednesday as a precaution.
Train services
Areas of Scotland and the rest of the UK faced damage with Network Rail’s route director for Scotland Liam Sumpter revealing parts of the network will need repaired.
“It was a really tough evening and night for us last night, Storm Dudley hit us really hard,” Mr Sumpter told the BBC.
“We have numerous reports of trees on the tracks and also damage to overhead lines and even some damage to signalling systems.
“So there is a lot of damage out there today.”
Damage to overhead electric wires at Carlisle has seen all Avanti West Coast lines towards Glasgow and Edinburgh blocked.
Meanwhile residents in the north east of England, Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Lancashire lost power during the storm.
⚠️ Due to the early shut down following #StormDudley we’re doing our best to get our services back up and running as quickly as possible. As @networkrailscot engineers continue to do safety checks our services will not run until the lines have been cleared as safe to re-open. pic.twitter.com/yNF1YuBS2g
— ScotRail (@ScotRail) February 17, 2022
As of 8am on Thursday, lines across most of Scotland remained closed while engineers carried out safety checks.
A spokesman for Scotrail said they were trying to get services up and running as quickly as possible.
He said that engineers continue to carry out safety checks but train services will not reopen until the lines have been check and cleared as safe.
Scotrail have said that people with tickets for travel on Wednesday will be able to use them on Thursday.
It’s expected that most Scotrail trains in Scotland will be running again by 10am this morning.
Latest forecast
Meantime a yellow warning remains in place for wind and ice for parts of the country.
Tayside so far remains one of the areas expected to be worst affected.
According to the Met Office today will be cold with scattered wintry showers on Thursday, driest in the east.
UPDATE: As a result of strong winds and heavy rain due to #StormDudley Scotrail passenger services are withdrawn until approximately 1000 today with the exception of the following services: pic.twitter.com/rhsuFnDDfH
— ScotRail (@ScotRail) February 17, 2022
There will be sunny intervals and showers, most frequent in the west, and wintry on high ground. Showers will become isolated during the afternoon with more in the way of sunshine developing.
Strong westerly winds are likely with a maximum temperature of 6°C.
Any wintry showers are expected to soon dry out on Thursday evening. The rest of the night will then be cold and dry with widespread frost, and some cloud across the south of Scotland later. The minimum temperature will be -2°C.
After a dry start, sleet and snow will spread northeast in the morning, gradually dying out from the west in the afternoon with a maximum temperature of 4°C.
Friday will see Storm Eunice threaten wind and snow across the UK with parts of Perthshire and Fife impacted.
After a dry start, sleet and snow will spread northeast in the morning, gradually dying out from the west in the afternoon with a maximum temperature of 4°C.
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