Solar storms could soon begin causing havoc on the UK’s rail services it has been revealed.
Scientists at Lancaster University warn that rare solar flares could trigger “powerful magnetic disturbances” on the lines disrupting electrical systems and causing signals to switch from red to green.
Network Rail says it considers the risk to be “very small” but university researcher Cameron Patterson told the BBC it needed to be “taken seriously” by the rail industry despite their rarity.
A solar flare is caused by high-energy particles blasting the Earth after being released in outbursts from the Sun.
Solar storms have disrupted the railways before, with one interfering with a particularly large one interfering with railway signalling and telegraph lines in Victorian Britain.
They have also caused problems at power grids, with one solar flare causing a nine-hour blackout for millions of people in the Canadian province of Quebec in 1989.
Lancaster University looked at how space weather events could cause rail signals to malfunction, testing their theories using a computer model of the Preston to Lancaster section of the West Coast Main Line and the Glasgow to Edinburgh line.
Mr Patterson told the BBC the events were expected in Britain every few decades and could cause “significant signalling misoperation, which has an obvious safety impact”.
The next solar event is expected in either 2025 or 2026, with Jim Wild, professor of space physics at Lancaster University urging the rail industry to protect against these events.
He told the BBC: “In future, we could see space weather forecasting being used to make decisions about limiting railway operations if an extreme event is expected, just as meteorological forecasts are used currently.”
But as the events are rare, Network Rail is said to be more focused on “higher priority issues” such as climate change.
