It's snow time to stop

The weather may have de-railed train companies, grounded airlines and put the skids on commuters, but it took more than a bit of snow to stop our engineers – with one or two even stripping off for work, despite the Arctic conditions.

Engineers prove they
have "the white stuff"

Amid heavy snow across the UK, our engineering teams pulled out all the stops to ensure that, wherever it was safe enough to do so, they maintained services – dealing with customer faults in the sub-zero temperatures.

Conditions were so severe in many areas – particularly in Wales – that major disruption was caused to airports, railways and roads.

But special snow socks for the wheels of Openreach vans proved vital in ensuring the vehicles were able to drive along icy roads. Some crews also used 4x4 vehicles to get around in the worst of the weather.

Howard Pugh, Openreach senior operations manager for Mid Wales and Shrewsbury said: “The snow plan we put in place has worked really well and the troops have been fantastic as we put more customers back into service than I ever thought we would have done. And, above all, we have had no accidents reported.

“The snow socks made a huge difference, keeping the fleet as mobile as possible. I’m very proud of the team.”

Giving a whole new meaning to the term "ice pole"

Engineers Paul Thompson and Jim Parry from the Network Delivery South West team proved they're made of stern stuff as they carried on working in the snow – and stripped to the waist after building up a sweat locating and digging out manholes.

Openreach chief executive Liv Garfield praised teams for doing “an amazing job”. She said: “It’s a huge step forward from previous winters.  The work we have done on the last few months planning for the snow has been massively beneficial.”