Worcestershire was really hit badly by flooding on Thursday. Not as badly as Yorkshire, as far as I can tell from the news, but it still caused chaos. Not only were the train lines to Oxford and Cheltenham flooded, as I found out through personal experience, but also the route to Hereford was flooded at Ledbury, and the Birmingham New Street Line was under water at Bromsgrove. So Malvern and Worcester were virtually cut off. And there was flash flooding on many main roads throughout the county as well, to the extent that the rail replacement coach was up to its axles in water on several occasions, and we passed though several villages where the inhabitants were trying to protect their homes with sandbags. So it’s just as well that I decided to press on with my journey on Thursday afternoon, as I’m not sure that it would have been easy to get back to Malvern anyway.
My conference in London was very interesting and well worth making the effort to get to. But then I had to get home again. The train line was still flooded at Moreton in Marsh (the clue is in the name!) and it was a choice of another rail replacement coach over the Cotswolds or going home via Birmingham and hoping that the line through Bromsgrove was open again. I decided the latter was the lesser of two evils. It wasn’t a particularly smooth journey – my train from London to Birmingham was heavily delayed around Rugby and I ended up sprinting the length of the concourse at Birmingham New Street to catch the Malvern train by less than ten seconds. I must have looked dreadful as, even though the train was heaving, and it was standing room only, a woman immediately offered me her seat!
I’ve checked this morning, and the main line to London is still flooded at Moreton in Marsh. There is also concern about a rail bridge over the River Avon at Evesham which may be unsafe due to the extremely high water levels. I am very relieved that I don’t have any meetings in London next week. And I do hope that the water starts subsiding soon so that the people in the lower lying villages can start getting back to normal.