UK Flooding Is Ruining People's Homes And Now Their Journeys Into Work

Flooding Dries Up Road And Rail Services
Residents drive through flood water on February 11, 2014 in Chertsey, United Kingdom.
Residents drive through flood water on February 11, 2014 in Chertsey, United Kingdom.
Christopher Furlong via Getty Images

Road and rail travel is continuing to feel the full force of the flooding with several major highways and numerous train routes delayed or cancelled.

Landslips have added to travellers' problems, while those on the move in Derbyshire have been affected by snow.

Once confined to the south west of England, the wild weather has extended into Wales, parts of the Midlands and much of southern England, East Anglia and the Home Counties.

So bad was the flooding at Maidenhead in Berkshire that First Great Western (FGW) trains advised passengers not to travel between Paddington station in London and Reading. This particular problem was affecting many services out of Paddington to Berkshire, Oxfordshire, the West Country and Wales.

UK Winter Floods

The South West Trains, Southeastern, Southern and CrossCountry were all hit by the Thames Valley flooding, with other problem spots being Datchet in Berkshire - scene of some of the worst flooding - as well as locations near Staines and Windsor and Eton and also Oxford city.

Replacement bus services have been put on but with many roads submerged by the deluge, some stops have been made impossible to navigate in the area.

Commuters were left stranded as train services between Hastings in East Sussex and London's Charing Cross and Cannon Street stations were being disrupted by three landslips with the section of line between Wadhurst and Battle in East Sussex being closed. It is not expected to open before next Monday.

Another landslip, at Oxted in Surrey was affecting trains running between East Grinstead/Uckfield in West Sussex and London's Victoria and London Bridge stations, with no trains able to operate between Woldingham and Oxted.

South west England train services will be affected for around six weeks by the devastating damage to lines at Dawlish in Devon.

No trains are running between Exeter St Davids and Newton Abbot in Devon with buses replacing trains. While the line between Exeter St Davids and Newton Abbot is not expected to reopen until March 18 at the earliest.

Train services in Wales have also been hit by the floods. This led to delays between Porth and Pontypridd, while flooding near Abergavenny in South Wales meant that trains could not run between Hereford and Newport, with buses being laid on instead.

Train services between Manchester and Cardiff were also affected, while no trains were able to run between Bridgwater and Taunton.

The catalogue of closed roads due to flooding stretched across the country. Staines, Runnymede, Henley-on-Thames and Cookham in the Thames Valley all had streets under water in places, while many routes in Somerset remained unpassable.

Other areas with flooded roads included the cities of Oxford and Worcester, Purley in south London, Wrexham in north Wales, the A29 at Shripney in West Sussex, the A32 in Hampshire, various roads in Norfolk and Suffolk and the A4113 in Herefordshire.

It was snow that caused problems in Cheshire and Derbyshire though as the cold weather closed the A54 between Bosley and Buxton and sections of the A57 Snake Pass in Glossop.

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