Rail passengers across Greater Manchester have been warned of another day of chaos on Friday after an electricity supply failure caused major disruption to train services on Thursday (August 6).
The issues are widespread and are currently affecting Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, London Northwestern Railway, Northern, TransPennine Express, and Transport for Wales.
Cause of the disruption
An electricity supply failure at a communications centre is the cause of the disruption, National Rail has said. The outage occurred shortly before 2pm in Manchester and has impacted signalling, it added.
In an update issued on Thursday evening, National Rail warned that major disruption is now expected until the end of the day on Friday.
National Rail statement
It said: "It is not yet known how services will run tomorrow, Friday 7 August. Please do check back. As soon as we have information, we will keep you updated."
"Engineers are working hard to restore the issue and we are hopeful that train services will return to normal tomorrow. However, due to a number of trains being in the location, there will be some disruption to services on Friday morning."
"Major disruption is expected until the end of the day on Friday 7 August."
Northern's warning
Northern has also warned that there will be continued disruption into Friday morning due to a number of trains being in the wrong location. It added that customers are strongly advised to avoid travelling before 10:00 on Friday morning and that they should check before they travel as some services may not be able to run at all.
It said: "Due to the ongoing major signalling problems in the Manchester area, many Northern routes are suspended."
"For the remainder of today (Thursday) we will not be able to run any service on any routes into Manchester Victoria, and also between Preston, Bolton, Wigan, Liverpool and Manchester."
"Engineers are working hard to restore the signalling and we are hopeful that train services will return to normal tomorrow. However, due to a number of trains being in the wrong location, there will be some disruption to services on Friday morning."
"Customers are strongly advised to avoid travelling before 10:00 on Friday morning if possible. Please CHECK BEFORE YOU TRAVEL. Some services will be amended and may not be able to run at all."
Passenger experiences
Passengers have been vocal about how the disruption has inconvenienced them on social media, with some speaking of their journeys across Greater Manchester on Thursday.
One user said: "It was an absolute nightmare. Trains stopped just after 2pm no replacement busses people told to get busses up to Bolton and try get to their destinations heading towards Preston."
Another commented: "Took me 5 and a half hours to get back from York to Chadderton. Managed as far as Leeds then offloaded. It was very disorganised."
"Nobody knew what was happening. No-one to ask and had to keep changing platforms to try and get a train going in the right direction. Eventually managed to get a train to Rochdale to be then offloaded at Hebden Bridge."
"I managed to find a local lady that told us where we could get a bus to Rochdale. Waited an hour for that, then a tram from Rochdale. A lot of people had to travel further and will be stranded."
