UK weather: Stansted Express closure causes passengers to miss flights

The expressions on the faces of passengers on the concourse at London Liverpool Street station at 6am ranged from bemusement to despair. Almost all of them were trying to reach Stansted airport, and had arrived to discover that the first six services of the day had been cancelled due to extreme winter weather.

A sullen cheer greeted the announcement of a platform for the first train out, at 6.25am – by which time many of the passengers knew they would miss their flights. With the exception of one departure to Frankfurt, planes from Stansted have been taking off as normal.

One traveller without baggage was Stephen Girling, a hospital porter, who was trying to get back from London Liverpool Street to Witham in Essex after a night shift.

“The train have been cancelled since five o’clock onwards. As far as I know there’s no snow. I’m stranded, basically, which I don’t understand.

“They’ve jumped the gun. They’ve been too quick to shut down the whole service. When I was growing up, trains actually did run through snow and ice.”

Greater Anglia, the train operator, is telling passengers: “As a result of the extreme conditions forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday, Network Rail is concentrating on keeping main routes operating – Norwich to London, Southend to London, Norwich to Cambridge and Cambridge/Stansted to London.”

The train operator is planning an early finish tonight and a late start on Wednesday, with many fewer trains – and those that are running will be slower.

“There will be no services on rural routes: Norwich to Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth and Sheringham, and Ipswich to Felixstowe and Lowestoft. There will be no rail replacement bus service on these routes either,” Greater Anglia added.

Half a mile away, Fenchurch Street station was even quieter, with the train operator c2c urging travellers on the line to Southend and Shoeburyness “not to travel where possible”.

Great Northern cancelled its express trains between King’s Cross, Cambridge and Ely, and has warned of an early close-down of services north of Royston in Hertford.

Passengers in Sussex experienced problems travelling from Hastings and Uckfield, but in Kent Southeastern reinstated many trains that had been initially been cancelled overnight.

Rick Methven, who moved from the UK to Linköping in southern Sweden 15 years ago, told The Independent: “I am continuously amused by the pathetic fear of a bit of snow in the UK. Here in Sweden it has been below freezing since end of January, today -12, wind chill -18 yet no transport disruption.”

A Network Rail spokesperson said: “Our priorities are always to keep passengers safe and to run the best service we can. Last night the rail industry took pre-emptive action based on the best weather forecasting available, forecasts that in the past, have proved to be highly accurate.”

Nearly 100 flights were grounded in and out of Heathrow airport, as airlines trimmed their schedules to create “firebreaks” in a bid to avoid short-notice cancellation. British Airways cancelled 80 domestic and European services, including multiple services to and from Edinburgh, Manchester, Berlin and Milan.

Aer Lingus, Lufthansa and Swiss cancelled single round trips to their hubs at Dublin, Frankfurt and Zurich respectively.

Naples airport was closed for most of the morning because of snow. Services to and from Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester were cancelled or severely delayed.