THE ALL WEATHER MODE. Trains Answer The Call – Record Passenger Volumes On Numerous Train Routes Seen. The experience, however, might not be positive enough for European travelers inconvenienced by that volcano to ride again.

By Friday the no-fly zone has spread to much of France, Germany, Holland, Scandinavia, Belgium and Poland. Already by Thursday evening passengers in the UK began flooding Eurostar’s terminal in London’s St. Pancras station in hopes of taking a train to either Paris or Brussels and then continuing on to other European destinations by any transportation means available. The sudden rush on Eurostar train ticket counters prompted Eurostar to issue press releases that only confirmed ticket holders should appear at the rail stations. This move was misinterpreted by a few news agencies, including CNN International, as a possible sign that there were technical difficulties due to volcanic ash with Eurostar trains. In fact there were zero technical issues on Eurostar, only incredibly high demand.

But difficulties on the rail system in continental Europe did exist. A labor strike against certain TGV rail lines was underway in Paris and other parts of France and later on Saturday morning in Hamburg, Germany vandals torched a truck parked underneath a railroad bridge in the harbor city. The fire from the vandalized truck in turn severely damaged cables for the track signals between Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (central station) and Hamburg-Harburg station, thus severing rail corridor between northernmost Germany as well as Denmark from the rest of Germany and Europe for at least the rest of the weekend.

In Britain a window for trans-Atlantic flights to land and take-off from the airports in Prestwick and Glasgow opened up for a brief period over the weekend. But rail transit had to play a major roll with the moving of thousands of passengers to/from Manchester, Birmingham and London and southwestern Scotland. Recently completed upgrades to the so-called “West Coast Main Line” helped keep passengers moving reliably and quickly along this important rail corridor.

In the massive Frankfurt airport waiting lines for ICE trains to Cologne, Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich at the airport’s high speed rail station approached 500 meters long as Germany’ flag carrier, Lufthansa, entered a total flight shut-down, the first time ever in the German airline’s history. Similar stories were repeated across western Europe, including Paris CDG airport, Amsterdam, London Heathrow and Gatwick, Copenhagen, Zürich and Milan.

Nearly all major European rail lines responded to the crisis by adding extra trains where they could and increasing staffing at train stations in or near major airline hubs. Ulrich Homburg, president and general manager of passenger train operations for Deutsche Bahn, stated that the rail company was doing everything possible to transport airline passengers by placing its employees on high alert and ramping-up staffing of stations, trains and call centers, as well as taking measures to increase and maximise the amount of rolling stock in operation over the coming days. With the volcanic activity in Iceland apparently intensifying, the well-developed rail network in Europe is proving to be an invaluable back-up to its traditional rival.

(You mean this volcano did what Dowding and Harris never managed?)

Keep scrolling and you'll find a post that answers a question that might have occurred to some observers.

Trains are in general powered by diesel engines or electric motors. In both diesel engines and electric motors, cooling air velocity is substantially lower than in aircraft turbine engines. In diesel engines, combustion temperatures are likewise significantly lower than in a modern aircraft turbine engine, while peak temperatures in electric traction motors are many hundreds of degrees below the melting point of volcanic ash, in-fact just slightly hotter than a common hair dryer. In addition, a diesel engine is not dependent on small, fragile compressor blades for its power. Even the turbocharger in train engines is a centrifugal design which is not nearly as sensitive to erosion induced problems as the bladed axial-flow compressors in jet engines and turboprops. And in most rail applications both the intake air for diesel engines, and the cooling air for electronics and traction motors is cleaned by either filters or centrifugal dust/ particulate separators or both. The reciprocating engines (gas or diesel) in automobile engines are similar to diesel engines in trains as far as sensitivity to airborne sand and grit, in other words, as long at the air filter is not clogged, there is no issue with operation in volcanic dust.

We're not talking about snow outside the Chunnel here, people. And have you ever looked closely at a moving train ... it kicks up dust. Highball!

(That said, Burlington Northern shut down in Oregon and Washington for a few days when Mt. St. Helens, which it owned at the time, blew up in May 1980.)