Storm Otto: ScotRail disruption likely in Three Towns due to winds

The storm will bring gusts of more than 75mph in some areas, as the Met Office warns of travel disruption and heavy rainfall.

A yellow ‘be aware’ weather warning from the forecaster came into effect across North Ayrshire, and the whole of Scotland, at 3am on Friday, February 17, and will remain in force, covering the entire country, until 3pm.

Infrastructure company Network Rail says that emergency speed restrictions are in force on 13 sections of railway across Scotland because of the adverse weather conditions.

These emergency speed limits are in place from the start of service on Friday on the affected routes and, according to ScotRail, will remain in place until 12 noon.

One of the areas where emergency speed restrictions are in place is between Ardrossan South Beach and Largs. 

This includes the notorious and long-standing trouble spot east of Saltcoats station, where the railway’s location next to the sea makes it vulnerable to the effect of waves crashing on to the track during spells of bad weather.

According to ScotRail, services on the routes between Glasgow and Largs, and between Glasgow and Ardrossan Harbour, may be delayed by up to 10 minutes as a result of the emergency restriction.

⚠️ Due to adverse weather conditions from #StormOtto, emergency speed restrictions will be implemented on numerous sections of Scotland's Railway. These speed restrictions will be in operation for first services tomorrow, Friday 17th February. /1 https://t.co/713H9dbOjV

— Network Rail Scotland (@NetworkRailSCOT) February 16, 2023

The Met Office’s Saltcoats weather forecast is predicting that winds in the area will ease from 7am onwards, from a peak of gusts around 43mph.

Unsurprisingly, the Ardrossan-Brodick ferry service is also affected, with the 0700 and 0945 departures from Ardrossan and the 0820 sailing from Brodick all cancelled because of the adverse weather.

CalMac Ferries says it will provide an update at 10am regarding sailings later in the day.

🔶AMBER #Ardrossan #Brodick 17Feb The 07:00 ,09:45 sailings departing Ardrossan and 08:20 departing Brodick have been cancelled due to adverse weather forecast.
We will continue to monitor the weather conditions and will provide an update on later sailings at 10:00.

— CalMac Service Info (@CalMac_Updates) February 17, 2023

The Met Office says that the worst-affected areas during the storm could see winds gusting up to 75mph, but the worst of the conditions are expected in the north and north-east of the country.

For the latest train journey information, see ScotRail’s Twitter feed or look at journeycheck.co.uk/scotrail.

See the Met Office’s website for up-to-the-minute weather forecasts for the Three Towns area.