Ten mast-mounted weather stations give rail teams local readings
Ten weather stations have been installed on existing railway communications masts across the Wales and Borders route, giving Network Rail local readings from the lines it manages. The infrastructure owner announced the deployment on 14 October. It says this is its first route to use GSM-R railway communications masts for the equipment.
The ten monitoring locations
- 1
- Whitland
- 2
- Llantwit
- 3
- Cilmeri
- 4
- St George’s
- 5
- Trewyn
- 6
- Craven Arms
- 7
- Gobowen
- 8
- Glantwymyn
- 9
- Llanrwst
- 10
- Buckley
Readings directly from the railway
The stations measure rainfall, wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity and air pressure. Network Rail says the sites fill monitoring gaps in places vulnerable to severe weather. The readings will supplement the forecasts it receives from MetDesk. The intended benefit is more targeted decisions about inspections, response teams and measures such as speed restrictions. The announcement does not establish how much passenger delay the new equipment has prevented.
Storm costs and autumn preparations
Network Rail says 25 named storms affected the route between February 2023 and January 2026. For storms with complete performance data, the average was more than 38 hours of delay and £179,000 in train performance costs. It does not give the number of storms with complete data. A separate joint autumn-preparations announcement on 9 October set out plans for four treatment trains to cover more than 54,400 miles of track. Those planned treatment miles are separate from the new monitoring sites.
Background and supporting figures
Where this sits
New readings supplement MetDesk forecasts to inform operational response. No measured delay reduction claimed.
25 named storms February 2023–January 2026; average >38 hours and £179000 only where complete data available, denominator unstated. No extrapolated total.