CrossCountry cancels most UK trains after power cut hits Birmingham control centre
Has cancelled almost all of its UK train services after a power cut knocked out systems at its control centre in Birmingham on Saturday.
CrossCountry has cancelled almost all of its UK train services after a power cut knocked out systems at its control centre in Birmingham on Saturday. The disruption has spread across much of the network, leaving passengers facing major cancellations on Sunday and “until further notice”.
The operator said the outage left many of the systems used by its control teams unavailable. That has forced it to slash services on routes stretching from Glasgow to Penzance and from Leeds to Manchester, with CrossCountry warning of “significant and unforeseen disruption”.
Widespread disruption across major routes
The cancellations hit a long list of busy intercity links, including Birmingham to Manchester, Glasgow to Edinburgh, York to Newcastle and Cheltenham to Cardiff. A near-normal service was running only on a few routes, including Peterborough, Cambridge and Stansted Airport.
CrossCountry also said a planned rail replacement bus service remained in place between Leicester and Peterborough. Tickets bought for Sunday travel can be used with other train operators where ticket acceptance arrangements are in place, and may also remain valid on CrossCountry services until Wednesday, according to the company.
Some passengers described the situation as the “worst case scenario” for a weekend journey and posted complaints on social media. Others switched to coaches before completing their trips with another operator. Around the country, rail users were left checking live updates and hunting for alternatives.
Government and rail teams move in
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was concerned to hear about the outage and had asked publicly owned operators to provide extra services where possible. She added that Network Rail power teams were on site and working to restore power and systems as quickly as possible.
The disruption landed on a busy Sunday, with National Rail warning that alternative services to Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle were expected to be extremely busy. CrossCountry’s problems also coincided with football fixtures, adding pressure to already crowded trains and replacement services.
CrossCountry, which was ranked Britain’s worst rail operator in June, said it would run as many trains as it could. But for now, most of its network remains suspended. Passengers waiting for the next update have one clear message from the operator: service restoration depends on power returning to the control centre in Birmingham.
