Volcano closes air space

There are no flights at all throughout northern Europe. All British, Dutch, Belgian, and northwards airports are closed. Also Paris. Not sure about south of France.

A volcano in Iceland is injecting large amounts of dust into the upper atmosphere, of the kind that can destroy jet engines.

This news must increase demand to travel on trains throughout Europe. Whether extra trains can be arranged at short notice I don't know. Eurostar haven't as yet. Perhaps tomorrow. At least in Europe there are trains to everywhere.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8621407.stm

Rail bookings increase
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8622510.stm

Trans-Atlantic air journeys are being diverted to southern Europe,while the cloud hasn't reached it.
The last time this volcano erupted it went on for about three years. However, it didn't emit dust all the time. Therefore it is possible that this kind of event may occur quite frequently for some time.

Here is where to find details of trains from Madrid to Paris and London.
http://www.seat61.com/Spain.htm#London%20to%20Madrid
I suspect that the fastest route is via Barcelona (AVE) and TGV from the frontier.

Travel from Madrid to Hendaye (on the French side of the Franco-Spanish frontier) by high-speed air-conditioned Alvia train, leaving Madrid at 16:10, Valladolid at 17:34 or Burgos at 18:37, arriving Hendaye at 22:03. Hendaye & Irun are only a few miles apart, but for historical reasons in the southbound direction French trains interchange with Spanish ones at Irun on the Spanish side, whereas northbound the Spanish trains continue to Hendaye and interchange with French trains there.
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Travel from Hendaye to Paris overnight by Lunéa sleeper train, leaving Hendaye at 22:18 and arriving Paris Gare d'Austerlitz at 07:11.
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Cross Paris by metro or taxi to the Gare du Nord.
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A Eurostar leaves Paris Gare du Nord at 09:13 arriving London St Pancras at 10:34. By all means choose a later Eurostar if if you'd like to stop off in Paris, or if this has cheaper tickets available.

Wow , that is a major shutdown . i guess it all depends on wind direction etc .

David Benton wrote:Wow , that is a major shutdown . i guess it all depends on wind direction etc .

Nothing like it has happened before. Of course volcanoes on Iceland can affect Europe and have done in the past. I think a sprinkling of dust will be good for the crops as they will deliver trace elements. This volcano erupted 200 years ago and caused poor weather for several years. Hekla of course is much bigger and devastated northern Scotland thousands of years ago, and would affect the whole country. I will look out for some dust in the next few days. Meanwhile many people in London will get some sleep as the noise has stopped. I suppose New Zealand gets this sort of thing quite often.

Tonight Eurostar says it is fully booked for tomorrow. As British Airways has just merged with Iberia I wonder if they could charter a train from London to Madrid and run their flights from there?

But if the wind starts coming from the southwest,as it usually does here, the cloud will go away and everything go back to normal.

Eurostar say

Stranded passengers have flooded other modes of travel. Eurostar trains reported a complete sell-out of its services to Brussels and Paris for the second day on Friday.

"We are carrying more than 38,000 people today and all our trains are full," a spokeswoman for the company said.

"We are telling potential customers without bookings not to come to St Pancras because they will not be able to travel."

from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8623806.stm
It looks as though there are no extra trains.

Some airports in western Scotland and Northern Ireland have re-opened. It seems southern France is open, so passengers on flights coming into Lyon or Bordeaux could continue by train to Paris (still closed). All surface modes of travel are very crowded. Ferries are turning away individual travellers but apparently accepting motors. Eurostar is fully booked.

I have seen no reports of trains outside Britain but I assume they are very crowded. Reports will presumably come in later issues of "Today's Railways".

Saturday
Airports in Italy are now closed and Glasgow and Belfast have closed again.

Trains seem to be fully booked. A well-known comedian hired a taxi from Oslo to Brussels (930 miles) because he couldn't get a train ticket. Cost 3300 pounds. Apparently he thought he could get Eurostar there. I suspect not as they are fully booked.

BBC reports that Eurostar put on an additional 8 pairs of journeys on Saturday to clear some of the extra demand to travel.

In other developments:

• Eurostar added eight extra services on Saturday, but passengers are advised not to turn up without a booking

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8627545.stm

Summary of travel opportunities within Britain and connecting to mainland Europe and Ireland
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8624764.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/default.stm
Royal Navy to rescue stranded passengers.

There is now discussion of whether the dust is really there or sufficient to cause the ban on flying. But the ban goes on. Some NATO fighters are said to have been damaged by the dust.

There is still little discussion of trains on the mainland. There are no cheap fares available on Eurostar (I have never paid the walk-on fare).

And the French railway company SNCF has said it will offer reduced fares and 80,000 extra seats between Paris and London this week.

Does that mean they will run French TGVs to London? If so, that's unprecedented as normal TGVs haven't passed the safety case for the tunnel. And will they have any drivers passed for the British side, or enough British drivers passed for TGVs? I suspect not.

Virgin trains are running more trains to Scotland and the East Coast also (currently nationalised).

Hi George,

I doubt it as none of the TGV rolling stock will have been gauged for the platforms and structures, which like you say, would preclude even a safety case run under a derogation.

This morning the news was reporting that the airliners (BA in this cas I think) have been flying tests all around the UK and haven't found any damage on inspection so are crying out for the airports to re open as they are estimating losing £1M an hour.

All in all a decent result for the Chunnel though after a shocking winter's running. They might be able to afford the required rolling stock modifications now!

Jack the Steam wrote:Hi George,

I doubt it as none of the TGV rolling stock will have been gauged for the platforms and structures, which like you say, would preclude even a safety case run under a derogation.

This morning the news was reporting that the airliners (BA in this cas I think) have been flying tests all around the UK and haven't found any damage on inspection so are crying out for the airports to re open as they are estimating losing £1M an hour.

All in all a decent result for the Chunnel though after a shocking winter's running. They might be able to afford the required rolling stock modifications now!

It looks as though the crisis might be coming to an end with Scotland and the north of England airports due to reopen tomorrow.

I would think High Speed One should be able to take TGVs. Eurostar did manage to put on more trains. I think Eurotunnel should have put on some buses. There was at the beginning a bus run by South East Trains (still part of BR) from Ashford to Calais. I took it twice and was sorry it stopped after one season. They didn't advertise it.

There are said to be 100,000 British people stranded in Spain. The government is sending a fleet of buses to take them via Paris to the Channel and on to ferries. Some have been evacuated from Santander by a Navy ship that was picking up soldiers being rotated from Afghanistan and diverted to Spain.

Some people have said there is a rail strike in France (again).

There are 70,000 in the US. They will probably be advised to go to Spain.

The cloud has now reached Newfoundland and Labrador.

The airports are opening again tonight. Whether it is safe or not is still hard to know. The volcano may have changed its emissions slightly but it certainly hasn't gone away.

Maybe the stranded passengers may finally get home.

Eurostar probably performed well, especially after they found some extra trains to run. SNCF seems to have been partially on strike. I wait for reports. Many other routes were overwhelmed and didn't find enough capacity. People stranded in Norway couldn't get away by train.The Channel Ferries shamelessly gouged their extra customers who I hope will take note and not use them in future.

Eurotunnel is patting itself on the back (as always) and handled more traffic but doesn't seem to have put on a bus service as such. However, it handled more coaches.

In order to help the return of passengers caught out by the closure of European airports, Eurotunnel has doubled its capacity and is offering Shuttle departures every 15 minutes, at the normal price. The crossing time is just 35 minutes.

Truck Shuttle traffic continues as usual.

To meet the increased demand from the coach sector, Eurotunnel has increased the number of places reserved for buses. 323 coaches crossed yesterday, 85% higher than forecast.

Eurotunnel has also provided extra crossings for Eurostar so that they can put on extra trains.

All together this enabled approximately 100,000 passengers to cross the Channel this weekend.

http://www.eurotunnel.com/ukcP3Main/ukc ... apacity-UK

Well shame on the fench railway unions if they used this to get more leverage from a strike . or if it was already planned , why not postpone it .

I am not sure whether sncf was on strike. One passenger said he failed to get a train because of a strike, but he may have been a disgruntled Tory making things up.

The British government, and possibly the German government too, organised fleets of coaches to to take stranded passengers. There was no talk of special trains. Probably there is no standby rolling stock. And international trains need all sorts of agreements.

Anyway, for the moment the situation seems to have cleared up, but the volcano is still there, and its neighbour Takla may erupt.

The clear sky was a bonus. This morning the linear clouds made by planes have returned, reminding us of the problem of http://www.angelfire.com/mac/egmatthews ... mming.html Global Dimming caused by the aviation industry.