The West Somerset Railway has released an update after they had to cancel Flying Scotsman services today, 11th July 2025.
A trackwork incident was found yesterday, 10th July 2025, and meant they had to cancel services today. This was made worse due the extreme weather temperatures..
No work could be completed to the rail during daytime hours due to the weather, with teams working overnight to fix the issue.
It is expected that trains with Flying Scotsman will resume on Saturday 12th July and will be operating extra trains on the 13th to allow those who missed out on Friday the opportunity to still travel.
Jonathan Jones – Pratt, Chairman said ‘’Unfortunately the decision was made to suspend operations due to a trackwork incident yesterday. There have also been concerns with staff welfare and ensuring they are working in safe conditions given the extreme weather temperatures. This was a difficult decision to make and I am aware there are disappointed customers at this special time of operations on the line. Our team has been working extremely hard to overcome the challenges but given the excessive heat currently being experienced it has meant no work can be undertaken to the rail during daytime hours, causing the operational issues to be prolonged. Our teams are working exceptionally hard to try to resolve the issues and will be working overnight this evening, when temperatures will have dropped, to fix the current issues. We expect services to operate as planned tomorrow and will be offering additional operational services with Flying Scotsman on Sunday 13th to allow those who missed out on Friday the opportunity to still travel.
Responses
In these years of almost everything involving statements to the public having to be transparent, it is disappointing to find words such as “incident/challenges/to the rail/issues” as not describing the actual nature related problem. If the head of the PW department had stated for example, that the temperature had reduced the gap between the rail ends, then it is not an embarrasing point and everyone would be sympathetic.
I completely agree Neil. Good point well made.
Was it just the heat or was there a problem with the track itself
Being someone that’s actually worked on track in very hot weather in my 25 years on the railways I can assure you that it’s very unpleasant, you can add 5 degrees onto the air temperature as the ballast and rails reflect the heat, the rails are so hot you can hardly bare your hands on them. There’s a whole world of difference between working on a railway line in hot weather and sitting in the shade sipping a cold drink!
I’d be interested to know what these “extreme weather conditions” are. What was the temperature at Minehead today? I suspect it wasn’t above 30C and that is not “extreme”. We do now seem to get over-worried about a bit of hot weather – it’s quite normal in the summer in Britain