Network Rail admits snow mistakes

The railways were “not quite ready” when the snow struck at the end of November, NR’s operations and customer services director Robin Gisby told the House of Commons transport committee.

MPs were also told that it had been possible to buy tickets for services that did not run during the bad weather.

Mr Gisby said: “We made a number of mistakes in the first week (of the bad weather). We learnt from this quite rapidly.”

He added that NR had “got into a pickle” on one bad day in December trying to run a full timetable.

Chris Scoggins, chief executive of National Rail Enquiries, said that warnings had gone out to the public that timetables were not being adhered to due to the bad weather but that “it was possible that you could buy tickets for trains that were not going to run”.

He went on: “We need to carry on working with NR to ensure that changes to timetables can be passed through to passengers more quickly.”