Travellers have endured more mid-winter misery as Britain remains in the tightening grip of Arctic weather and plunging temperatures left vast parts of the country struggling against treacherous icy conditions.
Temperatures fell to record lows in some areas - with the mercury plunging as far as minus 17C in Greater Manchester, turning the heavy snowfalls of the previous two days into ice.
A Eurostar train broke down in the Channel Tunnel and there were widespread delays and cancellations at airports and on domestic rail services.
With many roads described as "treacherous", police announced that a 16-year-old boy was killed and his mother seriously injured in an accident on an icy stretch of the A1 in North Yorkshire. As councils struggled to grit roads, the suppliers of rock salt warned that stocks were running low.
Transport Minister Sadiq Khan said the Government was doing "everything possible" to keep roads open.
Although major airports stayed open, some air passengers had long waits for their flights, particularly at Gatwick in West Sussex where more than 130 flights were cancelled. EasyJet had to axe more than 100 flights and British Airways was among other carriers that had to cancel some services.
A fire on a train that led to an evacuation of passengers at Surbiton in south-west London was just one of a number of problems faced by rail travellers.
Many rail companies ran revised services. Of the trains that were due to run under the revised schedules, fewer than half were on time and 11% were cancelled.
The Eurostar breakdown involved a Brussels to London service, which had left the Belgium capital at 7.05am UK time and had been due to reach London at 8.56am. Eurostar said the train, which was in the tunnel for two hours, suffered a "non snow-related problem". The company said this was a different fault to the one that led to the pre-Christmas disruption when a series of Eurostar breakdowns led to thousands of passengers being stuck in the tunnel and services being suspended for three days.
The train, with 230 passengers on board, had to be pulled out of the tunnel by a diesel locomotive and it reached Ashford in Kent at 10.55am. The passengers were taken from there to London by another Eurostar train, reaching London's St Pancras station at 12.19pm.
