Britain is often mocked for its reaction to slight snow falls, but rail freight ploughs on through in some of the hardiest of winter conditions. The headlines last week, of the Merseyside metro network brought to a halt amid conditions that hardly merited even the local authority to deploy the road gritters, brought criticism to Network Rail. That though is in stark contrast to the harsh and often unpredictable conditions tackled by the infrastructure agency, up and down the UK.