Rail travellers suffer major weekend disruption due to power outage

Credit: CrossCountry

Rail travellers faced significant disruption at the weekend with CrossCountry left to encourage passengers to check before making journeys, after a power outage affected its control centre.

The issue resulted in major disruption across the network including covering Long Eaton Railway Station which has services running through it to Nottingham, Birmingham New Street and Cardiff Central.

The building where CrossCountry’s control centre is located was affected by a power cut in Birmingham City Centre, which started on Saturday 22nd. As a result, many of the systems used to manage the railway were unavailable for a period.

Train services across almost all CrossCountry routes were withdrawn across Sunday 23rd August, with the exception of a small number of services which did operate to a near-normal status.

In response to the incident, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, said: “I am concerned to hear about a power outage affecting CrossCountry rail services today, which I know will be very frustrating to passengers. I’ve asked publicly owned operators to lay on extra services where possible. We’ve also sent Network Rail power teams who are onsite and working to restore power and systems as soon as possible.”

An apologetic CrossCountry spokesperson explained that there was disruption despite best efforts by staff to safely operate services using alternative processes.

Passengers were told to expect significant reductions to services and cancellations across almost all CrossCountry routes throughout the day, but that ticket acceptance was in place with other train operators, and customers had entitlement to Delay Repay compensation, or for those who chose not to travel, refunds were able to be claimed from the original point of purchase.

Work was ongoing with relevant partners to resolve the issue as soon as possible although limited services were able to run from 6:00pm on the Sunday 23rd, primarily on routes towards Leicester and Derby.

A full train service was expected to run on Monday 24th August. Customers were thanked for their patience and understanding during the period of disruption, but there was still guidance that ticket acceptance remained in place with other operators and of a need to check journeys before travelling.