HELENSBURGH and Lomond appears to have escaped the worst of the wintry blast which struck much of central and southern Scotland this week.

Despite heavy snow across the region on Tuesday, schools in the Helensburgh and Lomond area remained open, and roads, including the A83 trunk route over the Rest and Be Thankful, appeared largely unaffected.

However, one Advertiser reader complained that while the public roads on the Rosneath peninsula showed little evidence of treatment, the Ministry of Defence road between Garelochhead and Coulport had "not a snowflake in sight".

Cove resident Penny Elles said: "On Tuesday evening I drove home to Rosneath Peninsula from Helensburgh around 11pm. The council roads were covered in snow, with little apparent treatment. The MoD road was completely clear."

There was minor disruption to some bus routes on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, though Garelochhead Coaches, which operates several local bus routes and all the area's school buses, advised on Wednesday that all its services were operating, albeit subject to some delays.

Wilson's of Rhu advised that their local buses were also running as normal on Wednesday, while the First Glasgow route between Helensburgh and Glasgow was unaffected.

Social media users reported that the main roads in and out of Helensburgh were all open on Wednesday morning.

A police request for drivers not to travel in large parts of Scotland late on Wednesday and into the early hours of Thursday, due to forecasts for heavy snow and strong winds, didn't apply to the Helensburgh area, and as the town awoke on Thursday morning there had been no further snowfalls in the area.

A Met Office yellow warning for snow and ice across western, central and southern Scotland remained in place until 11am on Thursday.

As this story was published on Thursday morning, the Met Office was forecasting a mixture of sunshine and wintry showers for Helensburgh on Thursday, with further showers overnight into Friday, though no further significant snowfalls were forecast in the local area.

For the latest local forecast check out helensburghadvertiser.co.uk/li/weather.in.Helensburgh/

* SEPARATELY to the winter weather, rush hour trains to and from Helensburgh were disrupted on Wednesday morning.

ScotRail said a signalling fault between Cardross and Craigendoran was to blame for the disruption, which also affected services on the West Highland Line via Helensburgh Upper.

Some of the busiest trains of the day from Helensburgh Central to Glasgow and beyond were cancelled altogether.

The first train to run as normal after the line reopened was the 9.56am from Helensburgh to Edinburgh.

The line reopened at around 9.20am but the train operator warned passengers that disruption was likely until around noon.

A further signalling fault on Wednesday morning, this time east of Partick, caused more delays to trains on the Helensburgh-Edinburgh route and other services between Glasgow and Dunbartonshire.

That disruption lasted well into the evening, and resulted in Helensburgh trains calling additionally at Kilpatrick and Bowling to compensate for the cancellation of Dumbarton-Cumbernauld services.