Railway station still closed after severe flooding

A railway station remains closed for clean-up and repair work after Storm Bert caused a major incident to be declared.

Repairs are under way in Northamptonshire after severe flooding was caused by the River Nene bursting its banks on Monday.

Network Rail advised passengers the track through Northampton station would remain closed on Tuesday and clean-up work could continue until Wednesday.

Andrew McGill, from London Northwestern, said a rail replacement bus would run instead of rail services as the situation on the roads had improved.

Mr McGill said the best-case scenario would be for trains to return on Wednesday, but he was aware that heavy rain was forecast for Wednesday morning.

"We all saw striking images from the station yesterday where the tracks were completely or partially submerged in brown murky flood water," Mr McGill told the BBC.

"Through the day that water did recede and drained away, which is good news in terms of exposing rails and giving us hope of resuming services.

"But what we need to do now is safety checks of the railway because of the length of time it was submerged."

Flood-damaged tracks, signalling equipment and hundreds of metres of cables need to be checked by National Rail.

A danger-to-life warning remains at Billing Aquadrome, which was evacuated for the fourth time this year.

More than 80 people from Billing spent the nights at Lings Forum Leisure Centre.

About 18 flood warnings and 11 flood alerts still cover stretches of the Nene, the Great Ouse, the Ise and the Tove as well as various brooks.

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