‘What you call the Beast we call normal’ Finland amused by UK’s icy plight

While just a few inches of snow and icy conditions bring Britain’s public transport grinding to a halt and leave motorists stranded, the Finnish capital Helsinki rarely encounters such problems.

Only when they have more than 18 inches of snow in a single day will trains be delayed, and even then the disruption lasts just a few hours. Despite temperatures often plummeting to -40C and several feet of snow falling during long, dark winters, their preparation for the extremes of nature mean residents only see brief delays to public transport every few years.

Sampo Hietanen, who founded Whim, a travel app which is launching in Birmingham next month, helped design Helsinki’s public transport set-up.

He said: “We consider even half a day of delays a failure of our planning. “What you call the Beast from the East we call a normal winter, so we have de-icing equipment in place for when temperatures drop to -7C.

“Below this we use snow ploughs, and winter tyres for cars are mandatory.

“We also have a million sockets for cars to plug into in Helsinki to warm the engines before starting them, so when we switch our heaters on they are hot straight away. “It really is a case of planning well in advance of severe conditions, not trying to react afterwards.”

Mr Hietanen, 43, a civil engineer whose app allows Finns to access all forms of public transport with one user account, added that his fellow citizens chuckled at last week’s travel chaos across Britain.

He said: “It is funny when people in the UK can’t cope with a little snow and ice.

“We in Finland are so bad at football and even did worse than you at the Winter Olympics so I think it’s only right we can have a laugh at your handling of winter conditions.”