So, there was I, stupidly thinking that I had successfully navigated my way through another miserable winter, when suddenly, the UK got hit by “The Beast From The East” – Probably because nothing rhymes with Siberia apart from Liberia and the meteorologists couldn’t crowbar that into a phrase to describe a scary weather scenario?
Suddenly, Britain was covered in a cold blanket of snow and the Republic of Sheppey was once again cut off from the mainland by the closure of both bridges, and no trains and Bob Geldof organised helicopters to fly over and drop food parcels into fields for it’s inhabitants. Or did I dream some of that?
It’s bizarre that kids are thrilled when it snows as they don’t have to go to school, but adults hate snow and become more desperate to get to work to escape their kids at home.
I learnt about the snow/rail conundrum and that trains can actually operate in snowy weather but it’s the rail points freezing in the cold temperature that causes signal failure and trains to crash and Morgan Freeman to be summoned to sort it all out again.
Obviously, no one said the words “trains will crash if signals fail” because we were already frightened and cowering under the duvet by the word “snow” and this would have made us even more scared.
I also learnt that train horns wear socks (Presumably tube socks?) to keep warm and if they don’t have socks, trains can only travel at 20mph – My grandad had a similar problem with an Austin 7.
Finally, there was the mad people who’d been constantly told by all media “not to travel out in the forthcoming snowstorm unless absolutely necessary” but did so anyway because their ears had seemingly fallen off in the cold weather, so they didn’t know about “The Beast From The East” and so they got stuck in snowdrifts for 17 hours whilst buying Jaffa Cakes.
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Russ Writes 
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