TransPennine Express is urging passengers travelling and from Edinburgh tomorrow (Thursday 21st December 2023) to delay their journey due to anticipated disruption caused by Storm Pia.
High winds, and a yellow weather warning, is set to cause disruption to trains with speed restrictions in place.
TPE is advising passengers not to travel in and out of Edinburgh until after 3pm, with no services running between Edinburgh and North West England until Thursday afternoon.
Kathryn O'Brien, Customer Experience and Operations Director for TransPennine Express said: “Our number one priority is to keep our customers and colleagues safe, and we will be doing all we can to keep people moving in difficult conditions.
“We are urging anyone travelling across the affected routes to plan ahead, allow extra time, check their journey up until the last minute, and follow the guidance provided.”
Once again we get apoplectic weather warnings from the Met Office and the railway companies immediately withdraw train services proactively because “safety is our number one priority”.
If that was really true they wouldn’t run any services at all, ever – because all human activity carries with it some risk and we all constantly have to balance risk against the advantage to us of the activity.
Up to around 20 years ago this country didn’t shut down everything at the mere forecast of some bad weather – why have we become so paralysingly risk adverse?