Trains lost? in Scottish blizzards

Press, 23 January 1984, Page 1

Trains lost ? in Scottish blizzards

NZPA Glasgow Two trains were “lost” in blizzards sweeping the Scottish Highlands early yesterday and four more were stuck in snowdrifts.

About 2000 people were isolated in the eastern Highlands at the Glenshee ski resort, north-west of Perth, and almost every road across the border to England was blocked by snow, the police said. In the United States subfreezing temperatures also touched all mainland states for the second day in a row yesterday and record low temperatures struck states around the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes. Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, recorded —36degC and readings of —29 deg or colder were reported in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The cold extended into the south with readings well below freezing in parts of Tennessee, Mississippi, Northern Georgia, and

North Carolina. The wintry weather has been blamed for 28 deaths in the last week, 14 in traffic accidents on icy roads. Scotland’s bad weather interfered with the communication systems installed on Scottish trains after one was lost for a time in a snowstorm six years ago, said British Rail. One missing train was on the Sutherland-Caithness border between Inverness and Wick at the north-east tip of Scotland. The other was about 100 km west of Inverness on the line to Kyle of Lochalsh on the west coast. Blizzards raged throughout Saturday, said the Inverness police. The four trains stuck in Highlands snow had about

500 passengers who were being transferred to one train to Inverness, British Rail said. The police said conditions were also bad in southern Scotland and hundreds of motorists had taken refuge in wayside homes, schools, and taverns. Trapped road passengers included a party of schoolchildren on a bus among dozens of vehicles held up in and around snowbound Drumochter Pass, 65km south of Inverness. Winds and snow were so bad that two snowploughs and a snowblower were unable to force their way to the pass. The police said they had no reports that people trapped in various places were in any immediate danger.