23/12/2016 Midlands Today

It's been dubbed Frantic Friday as people hit the roads,

railways and airports to visit family and friends for Christmas.

And with the addition of last minute shoppers,

the AA were predicting around 12 million cars on the roads

But, as well as congestion, Storm Barbara also made herself felt

with strong winds causing significant problems.

Who would fancy driving from Stoke-on-Trent to

Many in Staffordshire chose to let the train

I'm going on the way to Hastings to see my

I haven't seen them since last Christmas.

At Birmingham station, they're expecting 200,000 people to

The advice for anyone travelling on the train

over this period is, plan your journey well in advance and

secondly, on the day of travel, please check before you travel.

There are no train services on Christmas Day itself.

Network Rail say disruption will be minimal over

the holiday but they are warning that on the 27th, services between

Rugby and Stafford will be affected by work on the West Coast Mainline.

National Express have put on an extra 60,000

seats to cope with the

festive influx and Christmas Day is no exception.

We have nine services leaving from here on Christmas Day.

We have staff here to support customers and our drivers as well.

We're going to destinations as far away as

Glasgow, Edinburgh, Heathrow Airport, London Victoria

and Bristol and a number of

For those driving themselves, good news

over 100 works have been lifted across the Midlands but by

mid-morning, the partial closure of the M1 due to a serious accident

Fortunately, traffic levels have been much

lighter than usual and we'd like

to thank motorists for the help in making this getaway much, much more

Britain's wintry weather is of no consequence if you are jetting off

Birmingham Airport reports a 20% increase in festive

flyers and on Christmas Day itself, there will be 14,000 passengers in

and out of Birmingham, up an incredible 82% on last year.

We've been going for the last 15 years,

we've just gone away for Christmas and New Year, probably because of

our jobs, it's the best time to have off.

Christmas is the time to go to these countries, nice

weather, nice beaches, nice people, what can you say?

And for the very latest on both the travel and the aftermath

of Storm Barbara we can join Louisa Currie.

A number of trains have been delayed due to high winds

Public transport on the whole has been very busy.

The roads seems to be fairing well on the whole -

although winds have brought down a number of trees.

One family in Northdfield in Birmingham had a lucky escape

after this one came down in front of them.

There was also quite a serious accident on the M5 earlier -

but thankfully no serious casualties there either.

Things are widely expected to calm down now, although another spike

in travel is expected on Boxing Day morning as people head to the sales.

But, while others may have struggled to get away,

there was some good news in Coventry with work on the notorious

There's been absolute gridlock there on occasions,

whilst the junction's been completely re-designed.

It's taken major excavation work, spanning three years,

and costing more than ?100 million to redesign, Tollbar Island.

There have been endless queues and much frustration.

It took me over an hour to get up the road last night.

But at last apart from one lane restriction,

Driving through Tollbar during the height of the roadworks

could have taken you hours but now, thanks to the new underpass,

The project also took six months longer than expected

because the wrong concrete was used on new bridges and had

It was too much for Lisa Crankshaw from Hinckley who used to travel

through the junction on the way to work.

Getting back in time for her daughter became almost impossible.

Some days I was the last parent to pick their child up and it was just

getting so stressful that I just had to,

you know, rethink everything and

I decided that I was going to leave my job.

But at the Midlands Air Museum, which became stranded

on the wrong side of the roadworks, they're optimistic.

The last three years have been horrendous for us, both fast getting

in and for the customers getting air, but it is something that we

have had to deal with and thankfully hopefully we are now in a situation

The lane restrictions are due to be removed any time and then

the junction will be fully functioning in time

Finally, a woman from Gloucestershire who dreamed

of owning her own reindeer is spending her first

Karen Perrins, has been taking Dancer and Blitzen on visits around

the county to get everyone in the Christmas spirit.

They've been to schools, nursing homes and even

Gloucestershire Police's Christmas Community event.

Well, that's it from me - I think a white Christmas

is probably off the cards, but from all of us on the late team,

have a very Merry Christmas - here's Rebecca.

It certainly was a wet and windy day today. The storm clouds gathered

ahead of Stormont Barbara plumbing and from the West. That is now

starting to clear away. We still have a keen reader as we head into

Christmas Eve and we will keep that wind as we head through the weekend.

Tonight it is calmer out there. We do still keep the breeze so we

should stay frost free. Our temperatures are going to range

between two and four selfies. We start tomorrow with dry and bright

spells. A little bit of rain working its way down from the north and west

but plenty of bright spells around that. There will be a keen breeze as

well but not quite as strong as today. Temperatures between eight

and nine Celsius. This mistake itself, milder but we do have rain

to come and there is a chance we could see temperatures into high

double figures. big day? Christmas Day. It will stay

mild and temperatures could reach 14, 15. He is down bet that the

national picture. It will be more northern parts of

the UK that see the worst of the weather. Another storm is developing

in the Atlantic. This will