The British rail system was today in turmoil after being caught out by the wrong type of ice. Stations had to be closed and trains stopped en route stranding commuters as plunging temperatures gripped the nation.
Head of Rail infrastructure Sir Horace Moxom-Farsley said "As we are only responsible for the bolts that fix the tracks to the sleepers so I cant really comment, you would need to speak to the actual track management company but we do think it is unfortunate that temperatures have fallen so sharply causing this strange type of ice to disrupt the services".
The spokesman for the Rail track franchisee Bob Sproat commented "This is a very slippery type of ice, which causes the train wheels to slip, it is really very slippy indeed and certaily the slippiest ice we have ever seen whereas our track is designed to cope with the more grippy and sticky type of ice.
"Obviously I cant comment for the train operators or the bolt franchisee, or for that matter the company responsible for the stones in between the sleepers as these are all separate companies".
The freeze is expected to last until Friday and the train operators have said they expect services to return to normal by mid March.
