Third Day Of British Rail Dislocation

Northern Advocate, 31 January 1940, Page 6

Third Day Of British Rail Dislocation

(Received noon.)

LONDON, January 30. THE GREAT RAILWAY DISLOCATION ENTERS ITS THIRD DAY, WITH ICOO PASSENGERS . AND ESSENTIAL FREIGHTS SCATTERED IN ISOLATED PARTS OF THE COUNTRY. Relief trains are going out from Enston station, but main-line expresses are still disorganised, arid there are no trains to or from Scotland. <AII country trains are hours late, although the services are improving. Strenuous efforts are being made tb relieve the congestion and rescue those marooned. Incoming trains are bringing stories of extreme hardship, of nights without sleep or food.

300 Children Rescued, Three hundred children, many i'll from exposure, were rescued from two expresses marooned in Lancashire. Police organised 100 volunteers, who struggled a mile carrying stretchers, food and hot drinks to stationary trains. Scores of children from these trains collapsed and were carried to the village of Adlington for medical attention. Two schools were converted into relief centres. The village food rations did not enable those marooned to get adequate supplies, but the local food controller was granted special authority to slaughter three cattle and ten sheep. The village is still cut off from all road and rail communication with the outside world. Guard’s Gallant Struggle. The guard of another train, stranded in Derbyshire, made a gallant struggle to secure food for the most, needy of 200 passengers. He made a four-mile journey and returned with hot milk and tea. He again set out, but collapsed on the line, and was found an hour later unconscious. R.A.F. leave has been temporarily suspended owing to the weather. One of the lost Scottish trains arrieved in London early this morning. Unprecedented Situation. It was 28 hours overdue. When the full story of the traffic chaos is permitted to be told, the facts will reveal the extraordinary extent to which the weather alone was responsible for the entire disruption of the country’s essential road and rail communications. It created a situation unknown in living memory.