Although it is still autumn, wintry weather has swept across the Midlands, Northern England and North Wales overnight. Railways are affected by snow in a number of places and Network Rail has launched its snow plan, which involves removing ice at junctions and equipping locomotives with mini snow ploughs.

The cold belt has now reached London and South East England.

National Rail is warning that services affected include Bradford Interchange to Huddersfield, Hebden Bridge to Halifax, where some peak services to Leeds will not run, and Halifax to Hull, where trains are running only between Bradford Interchange and Hull. Further south, there are no trains between Nottingham and Worksop this morning, while in Wales buses have been replacing trains on the Conwy Valley line between Llandudno and Blaenau Ffestiniog.

Snow is not the only problem. Flooding near Ulverston has resulted in an emergency speed restriction, and this is delaying trains between Barrow-in-Furness and Lancaster. Some may be cancelled. Carlisle to Lancaster services are terminating at Barrow and so are not calling at stations between there and Lancaster.

Network Rail’s North & East route operations director Karen Duffy said: ‘Our teams will be monitoring conditions and engineers are on standby ready to respond if necessary. We are urging all passengers to check their journeys.’