TREACHEROUS weather conditions on a notorious Swindon hill were no match for Queen Boadicea yesterday, despite becoming temporarily stranded.

The number 11 Thamesdown bus, named after the Queen of the Brits, came acropper in the snow on Victoria Road yesterday morning shortly after 9am, with its wheels spinning helplessly as it struggled to gain traction up the hill.

The stricken bus made a number of attempts to climb the hill, but became stranded opposite the Regent pub, while cars continued to try and pass the bus in both directions. Some cars heading up the hill gave up and reversed on to Hunt Street, avoiding The Brow entirely while others gave up further down and simply rolled back on to Regent Circus.

When a Thamesdown technician arrived on scene, the driver managed to manoeuvre the bus with the use of some grit under the tyres to give it the grip it needed to get going once again.

It eventually managed to free itself and make its way to the top of Victoria Road without any further problems, although Thamesdown temporarily suspended the number 11 services through Old Town until later in the day.

The driver received a number of messages of support from reader's of The Adver's Facebook page who praised his skills in getting the vehicle on the move again.

Alex Chutter, general manager of Thamesdown, Swindon’s Bus Company, also praised his team. He said: "We’ve been careful to assess the conditions for travelling today, only operating routes if we feel it’s safe to do so.

"We take the skills of our drivers into account when we make these decisions. They are highly trained, and we’re proud of their expertise and professionalism.

"I would like to thank all of my team for the excellent service they are providing, despite some challenging driving conditions.”

Some readers questioned whether the road had been gritted at all, as vehicles were having to contend with several centimetres of snow. But Swindon Borough Council announced on Sunday morning that around 200 miles of the town's roads had been gritted overnight, while the team had also been out that morning specifically to retreat some of the town's hills - including Victoria Road.

A spokesman for Swindon Borough Council said: "Our gritting crews treat all major routes in the borough when surface temperatures are likely to drop below freezing.

"They don’t just go out when it snows. It’s not always easy to predict when roads will freeze, so we receive specialised weather reports and constantly monitor the actual road surface temperature via remote weather sensing stations at two locations in the borough."

The council added that it costs around £5,000 for all vehicles and drivers to carry out a night's operation. They use 25 tonnes of salt to treat all of the main routes in the town during freezing weather, but when snow is involved the amount of salt used doubles.

He added: "We have got eight ploughs. We cannot just scrape the ploughs along the road as this would just wear the rubber blade out within minutes. Meaning we need to have at least two inches of snow on the road before the ploughs are used.

"We have over 500 salt bins in over 200 locations around Swindon. These are for use by local residents to help make pavements and slopes safer in adverse weather conditions.

"Our road salt is a specialist product that is effective at preventing freezing down to -8C for up to three days, depending on conditions, and it’s less corrosive to vehicles than the salt that was used commonly by all councils in the past.

"We concentrate on treating the routes that are most heavily used, which in Swindon is around 200 miles of highway. Swindon has over 500 miles of roads in total, which means that around half aren’t treated at all and require extra care when the weather is bad. While we do our best, we cannot guarantee the routes we do treat will always be free of ice so if you see a problem, please let us know."

The snow caused further disruption for rail passengers as well, with some of the rail replacement bus services connecting Swindon with the wider rail network cancelled due to the "parlous" state of the road network around the town.

Trains running through Swindon were suspended over the weekend anyway due to planned engineering works on the line, with replacement bus services organised to run between Swindon and Chippenham, as well as Didcot Parkway, Westbury and Gloucester.

But on Sunday morning, GWR advised all passengers travelling on its network that due to severe weather fewer trains are able to run, and some replacement bus services may also be affected. Earlier in the morning the train operator announced that all rail replacement buses operating out of Swindon had been cancelled, but it is understood that buses were able to run between Swindon and Chippenham/Westbury/Didcot/Reading, later in the day, although travel to Gloucester remained cancelled. with delays to services, but no buses are running to Gloucester.

Passengers were advised not to travel, and told that their tickets would be valid today.

The Met Office has extended its yellow weather warning until 10am this morning, with more snow forecast overnight.

A Met Office forecaster said: "After a cold start, many will have a dry and fine day with sunny spells. It will remain breezy but with lighter winds than on Sunday. Temperatures will recover closer to average. Maximum temperature 6 °C.

"After a frosty start, it will be dry and fine on Tuesday with lighter winds. It will turn more unsettled thereafter with spells of rain and strengthening winds, although with temperatures recovering closer to average."