Entertainment

This website lets you see all of Scotland’s spectacularly named gritters in action

Just in case you are bored in the break between Christmas and New Year.
Just in case you are bored in the break between Christmas and New Year. Just in case you are bored in the break between Christmas and New Year.

A website showing Scotland’s gritting vehicles in action is entertaining some Twitter users.

The Trunk Road Gritter Tracker is run by Transport Scotland and provides updates every two hours on the location of gritters of Scotland’s main roads.

The best thing about the service is the ability to see all the wonderful names the gritters have been given. These include Gritallica, Sir Andy Flurry, Gritty Gonzales and the Sir Salter Scott.

Scottish Transport can deploy over 173 gritting vehicles in heavy snow conditions, but not all of these are named. Many are just shown on the interactive map by their number plates.

Some have also been given less interesting names, like Jack, Fred and the oh-so-original Gritter.

The gritters have been busy over the past few weeks. Glasgow saw the biggest snowfall in the UK overnight on Thursday, with more than 10cm recorded in Bishopton – forcing the city’s airport, one of Scotland’s busiest, to temporarily suspend flights.

The latest snowfall to hit the UK comes around a fortnight after hundreds of schools were closed, homes were left without power, and travellers were stranded or forced to stay indoors when a deep freeze gripped the UK.