Londoners battled through snow and ice on Monday as schools, railways and Tube lines were closed, hundreds of flights axed and warnings were issued ahead of a week of chaos on the transport network.
At 4pm ahead of the evening rush hour Londoners were still facing travel chaos. While many Tube lines returned to a good service, severe delays continued for the Central, Jubilee, Northern and District Lines.
The London Overground remained suspended between Watford Junction and Willesden Junction due to heavy snow and ice on the track. Hammersmith & City, Piccadilly and Victoria Lines had minor delays due to problems caused by ice on the tracks.
A West Croydon-bound London Overground train was stuck on the tracks for 20 minutes betwen Surrey Quays and New Cross Gate after the cold weather meant it lost power on Monday evening just after 6pm.
A number of rail services were still heavily disrupted, with East Midlands, Gatwick Express, South Western, South Western, Southern and Great Northern and Thameslink expected to have major delays for the rest of Monday.
Affected services may be cancelled, delayed or revised until the end of Monday, National Rail said.
Londoners were advised only to travel if “absolutely essential”.
“It is likely that you will only arrive at your destination after a significant delay,” National Rail warned.
A number of flights were cancelled from Heathrow Airport on Monday afternoon. Several flights due to leave Gatwick Airport were delayed, while a string of Ryanair flights scheduled to leave Stansted Airport were cancelled.
Gatwick Airport said on Twitter: “The airport is open and flights are operating; however freezing weather will cause delays and cancellations for the rest of today. Please check the status of your flight with your airline - and local travel conditions - before coming to the airport.”
The capital woke to a thick carpeting of snow and freezing conditions, with a yellow severe weather warning in place across the South-East for snow, ice and fog until 11am on Tuesday. The AA said the “winter wonderland” scenes created a “nightmare scenario” on the roads.
Drivers on sections of the M25 were trapped for hours with traffic at a standstill, while many parents were forced to take time off work to look after children whose schools were closed. The mayhem came ahead of days of strike action which will wipe out most services on Britain’s railways, starting on Tuesday.
At Solihull in the West Midlands, three children rescued from a lake after falling through ice died in hospital, while a fourth remains in a critical condition. Thirty nurseries, primaries and secondary schools were closed in Waltham Forest and school closures were also reported in Newham, Greenwich, Haringey and Bromley.
Thousands of children took part in online lessons because teachers could not get to work or because icy conditions made school sites unsafe.
Stansted and Gatwick, which closed their runways on Sunday night, cancelled dozens of flights, with stranded passengers forced to sleep on the floor at Gatwick. More than 300 flights due to serve UK airports were cancelled across Sunday and Monday.
Heathrow axed more than 80 and Luton and London City suffered cancellations and delays. Some Stansted planes were reported to have been diverted as far away as Brussels on Sunday night.
A Gatwick-bound plane had to land at Manchester. Others ended up in Amsterdam and Newcastle. Some flights returned to their departure airports.
Drivers were trapped overnight for hours on the M25 when it was closed in both directions between South Mimms and Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire. Despite gritting lorries having been sent out earlier, National Highways said vehicles became stranded and lorries jack-knifed in around two inches (5cm) of snow.
The northern section of the M25 was closed again on Monday morning but reopened after 8am with an 11-mile anti-clockwise tailback and four miles of clockwise queues. This caused huge delays on the A406 North Circular as drivers sought an alternative route. There were also problems on the M11 and A1(M).
Nationside some 7,500 drivers broke down and called the “exceptionally busy” RAC due to the freezing temperatures. This is “some 50% more than we’d expect on a typical Monday in December”, the roadside assistance company said in a statement on Monday.
Daniel Duffield, a 22-year-old off-duty paramedic, was stuck on the M25 for more than two and a half hours on Monday morning while attempting to travel home to Birmingham.
Drivers in central London faced further delays due to Just Stop Oil protests in Clapham, with action also planned in Camden Town on Monday afternoon. Councils such as Greenwich suspended bin collections.
There were widespread problems across the national railway — at a time when many passengers will have brought forward essential journeys to avoid six days of strike disruption by RMT union members at Network Rail and 14 train companies.
Many schools battled to stay open for vulnerable pupils. Henry Maynard Primary in Walthamstow was closed due to teacher shortages but children eligible for free school meals were offered a hot lunch and families needing a warm space were encouraged to drop in. Steve Chalke, head of the Oasis Academy chain, said all of the 39 “warm spaces” provided by its schools remained open.
