"Trains delayed due to weather" is the usual excuse from the train companies around the UK, however it's not something you expect to hear when you try and access a website.

It seems, though that the National Rail website has been inundated with so many people trying to work out whether or not their train is running on time, or even running at all that it's been forced offline.

Visitors to the site, nationalrail.co.uk, are presented not with a "bad weather" excuse or even a timetable, but a rather unhelpful "Service Temporarily Unavailable" message.

Rob Cotton, chief executive officer of website monitoring and load testing expert, NCC Group Plc, comments: “Despite forewarning, a number of travel companies have underestimated the number of travellers logging on".

It seems that weather can even affect the Internet.

UPDATE: It seems the site is back up now.

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