A major electrical failure brought parts of Britain’s national rail network to a standstill on Thursday. The problem left thousands of passengers stranded as trains were cancelled, delayed or diverted across the Midlands, Greater Manchester and the North West.
Officials have warned that disruption is expected to continue until the end of the day.
According to Network Rail, the disruptions that occurred today, due to a power failure at a signal and communication center near Ashburys in Southeast Manchester, which caused several rail lines, which use computer controlled systems to guide train movement, had to be shut down for safety reasons.
This means trains could not run safely on these rail lines from Manchester Piccadilly Station and Manchester Victoria Station to Bolton.
At least 7 train operators
- Avanti West Coast,
- Northern,
- TransPennine Express,
- CrossCountry,
- East Midlands Railway,
- London Northwestern Railway,
- Transport for Wales,
were impacted by this outage. Many of these rail companies have asked their customers not to attempt to board a train unless absolutely necessary.
Other rail companies will honour tickets issued prior to today’s power failure on other available routes without an additional fare.
As you may expect, restoring signaling systems is a complex task. Each safety-critical component has to be completely tested before regular train operation resumes.
Engineers are currently investigating why the power failure occurred and if a fault in the local power distribution system caused the outage. Regional electricity provider SP Energy Networks is also looking into this issue.
If your trip was canceled or substantially delayed, please contact your train operating company about possible refund/compensation options.
Passengers should also review current service information prior to departing since significant delays and cancellations are expected until the work is completed.
2026-08-06 21:18:00
