Merseyrail and road passengers had their plans thrown into chaos this morning as railway lines and some roads were closed due to heavy flooding following torrential rain.
The Met Office said around 40 to 50mm of rain fell on Merseyside on Monday, which is roughly two to three weeks’ worth falling in one day, according to the Liverpool Echo.
Hundreds of rail commuters who travel daily from Chester and the Wirral into Liverpool were greeted by the grim news that services had been cancelled as they arrived at their departure points.
An array of posters highlighting the problem had been placed around stations, and an urgent notice appeared on the Merseyrail website homepage explaining the problems.
It was not just those travelling to work or university that were affected, as many holidaymakers were stranded in an attempt to get to John Lennon Airport in Speke, including Duncan Jenkins who told JMU Journalism: “I’m trying to leave this weather behind and meet my partner in Spain, I’ll have to get a taxi, which is so expensive, or risk missing my flight.”
Commuter Janice Copperelli described the news as a “nightmare”, adding: “The announcements should be far more frequent. People pay a lot to use this service, I’m going to find a manager.”
As the departure boards started to tick over from ‘on time’ to ‘cancelled’ many more passengers also headed to the customer service points where their misery quickly turned to anger as Merseyrail revealed that they would not be putting on a replacement bus service.
One representative for the company based at Chester station said: “It’s not our fault, we can’t do anything about the weather, and there was no plan for this so we didn’t book any buses. The train on platform 7a is one of our services from last night; we don’t know when we can start full operations again.”
According to national statistics, Merseyrail is responsible for the journeys of 100,000 passengers every day, but following this incident some may have lost faith in the company.
Any passengers trying to find more information can visit the Merseyrail Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/merseyrail for updates.