Leeds Disruption - 26/07/25

[JordR]

So those 28 trains should all come to a stand on a failsafe basis as following the failure the next signal they encounter will either be red or unlit?

Those 21 with plain line to the next station can be authorised to pass the signal. If the train can't be detected does that mean the driver moves on a line of sight basis?

The 7 stuck between points works similarly, but first someone will have to physically secure the points?

 

[Horizon22]

What I'd expect would be some formal agreement in place between rail operators and local bus companies in the event of a signalling meltdown or other serious issue, passengers would be able to use their rail ticket on the local bus service(s), to get them to their destination. Not ideal, but it does keep things moving. E.g someone stranded at Hebden Bridge would be permitted to use First Halifax services 590/591/592 to Halifax, then Arriva Yorkshire service 255 to Leeds.

Yes train companies regularly get ticket acceptance with local buses. This is completely routine and would have happened today.

 

[Crossover]

Those 21 with plain line to the next station can be authorised to pass the signal. If the train can't be detected does that mean the driver moves on a line of sight basis?

I can’t directly answer this, but I do think one train set back from the junction around Copley Hill, back to Cottingley today. Said train was also one of the first to then go into Leeds whereas trains back along to Mirfield had a much longer wait

 

[wanderingriver]

Network rail website claims the incident has been cleared as of 2:00am July 27th 2025

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service-disruptions/leeds-20250726/

 

[Cormoran1274]

Network rail website claims the incident has been cleared as of 2:00am July 27th 2025

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service-disruptions/leeds-20250726/

They regained signalling at 22:15. LNER 1 p-coded train

 

[wanderingriver]

They regained signalling at 22:15. LNER 1 p-coded train

Ah, my bad

 

[Cormoran1274]

Ah, my bad

NR tend to follow the operators route disruption messaging. So if they cleared theirs, NR follow

 

[43094]

As it stands, the only alteration to LNER on Sunday 27 July is the cancellation of 1A28, 1140 Leeds - Kings Cross.

As always, subject to change.

 

[TUC]

What do you suggest they do, when the whole of West Yorkshire (and beyond) is crippled?

Demonstrate a sense of ownership of the problem. Even if it is not possible to arrange RRBs to everywhere, ensure there is clear information that:

a) points passengers to where they can find information on bus services to any given destination
b) gives a guarantee which passengers can show when boarding a bus that rail tickets will be accepted on these services
c) gives a contact point (which isn't a remote call centre) for passengers with significant remaining challenges (such as disabled passengers not able to readily get to wherever a relevant bus service is operating from).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jul 2025 ==

Yes train companies regularly get ticket acceptance with local buses. This is completely routine and would have happened today.

But did it, or are you just assuming this?

 

[1D53]

So those 28 trains should all come to a stand on a failsafe basis as following the failure the next signal they encounter will either be red or unlit?

Those 21 with plain line to the next station can be authorised to pass the signal. If the train can't be detected does that mean the driver moves on a line of sight basis?

The 7 stuck between points works similarly, but first someone will have to physically secure the points?

Yes, except you can go back into a station if that's closer not forward. The drivers will be told to go at caution and to be prepared to stop - effectively it is a line of sight basis. It takes some impressive coordination from the driver, hence it took time.

 

[Iskra]

My usual Sunday morning service has emerged from Neville Hill depot 41 Late today.

 

[skyhigh]

My usual Sunday morning service has emerged from Neville Hill depot 41 Late today.

Assuming you are referring to 5B97, it was delayed because the booked unit failed on departure. Nothing to do with yesterday.

 

[ajp999]

What do you suggest they do, when the whole of West Yorkshire (and beyond) is crippled?

One thing that South Western Railway do in this situation where they cannot resource rail replacement buses is allow people to source their own taxis and then claim back the taxi fare - have seen this mentioned on the National Rail disruption page numerous times when there has been large scale issues in their area.

 

[noddingdonkey]

Non-facetious answer, once you’ve brought all the trains in your area to a stand, you work out where all your trains are, work out which ones need moving into platforms, work out how you’re going to achieve that, and put those steps in motion.

Would you also have a situation where the failure has thrown signals back to red, so paperwork needs to be completed with drivers regarding SPAD/ SPAR situations?

 

[zwk500]

One thing that South Western Railway do in this situation where they cannot resource rail replacement buses is allow people to source their own taxis and then claim back the taxi fare - have seen this mentioned on the National Rail disruption page numerous times when there has been large scale issues in their area.

That's fine, but there would not have been nearly enough taxis in the Leeds area to have satisfied the sudden surge in demand.

Leeds to York or Doncaster is a 45-60min drive and a taxi can take 4 people, so the capacity is somewhere around 2 people/hr in one direction (one taxi will only be able to make the journey every 2 hours or so). An LNER train to London from Leeds on a Saturday could be carrying somewhere around 500 people. If you had a fleet of taxis just shuttling back and forth to/from Doncaster and York, you'd need 200-250 taxis to clear 1 train in 1 hour, depending on how many 7-Seat taxis also came in. Leeds normally has a half-hourly service to London so you're looking at somewhere in the region of 400-500 taxis purely shuttling between Leeds and Doncaster/York PER HOUR to satisfy the demand. 500 Taxis at Leeds station per hour is a taxi every 7 seconds. And that's just for the London traffic.

Add in trans-Pennine flows and passengers taking taxis to other destinations and then consider how many vehicles might actually be available in Leeds on a Saturday, and it's quick to see that summoning potentially 1,000 taxis or more to try and move people is just not going to happen.

 

[Howardh]

Was anyone completely stranded overnight at a station?

 

[pitdiver]

Someone up thread mentioned a bus every ten minutes. Where I live, north Nottinghamshire we. Have a bus every 30 mins, if we're lucky . Just like west Yorkshire.On a Sunday one every hour plus no trains.

 

[MichaelTrains]

Demonstrate a sense of ownership of the problem. Even if it is not possible to arrange RRBs to everywhere, ensure there is clear information that:

a) points passengers to where they can find information on bus services to any given destination
b) gives a guarantee which passengers can show when boarding a bus that rail tickets will be accepted on these services
c) gives a contact point (which isn't a remote call centre) for passengers with significant remaining challenges (such as disabled passengers not able to readily get to wherever a relevant bus service is operating from).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jul 2025 ==


But did it, or are you just assuming this?

Excellent post.

Far too many posters on here sit at home behind their screens with zero empathy for the customer and the crap situation that they have been left to experience by Northern.

I have just emailed my MP calling for pressure for an inquiry because it simply can’t be right for Northern to just shut a train station (not Leeds) leaving 100+ people, some with medical conditions and young families to fend for themselves at 9.00 pm on Saturday night.

I still say their actions where utterly disgraceful.

 

[Horizon22]

Excellent post.

Far too many posters on here sit at home behind their screens with zero empathy for the customer and the crap situation that they have been left to experience by Northern.

I have just emailed my MP calling for pressure for an inquiry because it simply can’t be right for Northern to just shut a train station (not Leeds) leaving 100+ people, some with medical conditions and young families to fend for themselves at 9.00 pm on Saturday night.

I still say their actions where utterly disgraceful.

People do not have “zero empathy” for customers. Nobody wants to be left trapped, stranded or otherwise have a journey that takes hours longer than it should do.

Many people on these forums are railway staff or have deep knowledge of the industry. This all comes down to realism and what is actually possible. People have worked through these situations and they are incredibly stressful.

There are only so many staff available in control centres, control rooms and stations to help manage disruption. Where you have disruption this widespread and this severe - and may I add, disruption that is incredibly rare - there are simply not enough resources to get everything right, communicate every situation to every passenger and get everything piece of information bang on correct. I would go as far to say it is probably impossible.

Why would you not shut a station if no services can be confirmed? Rather than piling people onto a platform and having them wait around in hope, adding overcrowding and a potential risk to the situation. Ideally, yes you move people to alternative transport but as has been stated many many times, it is not easy to get taxis and buses at the drop of the hat and incredibly difficult to do so when the rest of the region is in the same boat.

I will take your point that Northern’s information was perhaps not as good as other TOCs but the point remains.

Arguably your complaint should be direct to Network Rail to explain how such a dramatic signalling outage and infrastructure failure was allowed to occur.

 

[skyhigh]

Far too many posters on here sit at home behind their screens with zero empathy for the customer and the crap situation that they have been left to experience by Northern.

There is a middle ground where it's accepted that the situation for passengers was awful but there's not a magic wand that can be waved to sort everything perfectly.

There simply, even if huge money was on offer, isn't enough coaches or taxis to cope with unexpected disruption on this scale.

Information for passengers could have been better but this was such a disruptive event that it was bound to end badly, no matter how hard staff tried.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jul 2025 ==

Why would you not shut a station if no services can be confirmed?

The risk would be incredible. Hours worth of frustrated passengers crammed into the concourse - just imagine the carnage when the first York train got called on the boards.

 

[Peterthegreat]

People do not have “zero empathy” for customers. Nobody wants to be left trapped, stranded or otherwise have a journey that takes hours longer than it should do.

Many people on these forums are railway staff or have deep knowledge of the industry. This all comes down to realism and what is actually possible. People have worked through these situations and they are incredibly stressful.

There are only so many staff available in control centres, control rooms and stations to help manage disruption. Where you have disruption this widespread and this severe - and may I add, disruption that is incredibly rare - there are simply not enough resources to get everything right, communicate every situation to every passenger and get everything piece of information bang on correct. I would go as far to say it is probably impossible.

Why would you not shut a station if no services can be confirmed? Rather than piling people onto a platform and having them wait around in hope, adding overcrowding and a potential risk to the situation. Ideally, yes you move people to alternative transport but as has been stated many many times, it is not easy to get taxis and buses at the drop of the hat and incredibly difficult to do so when the rest of the region is in the same boat.

I will take your point that Northern’s information was perhaps not as good as other TOCs but the point remains.

Arguably your complaint should be direct to Network Rail to explain how such a dramatic signalling outage and infrastructure failure was allowed to occur.

Excellent post.

 

[nlt]

What's needed here is a full inquiry into the cause of the failure, ie what went wrong and why, which should be made public. As well as the technical failure of the signalling it should also include the arrangements in place to deal with an event like this for passengers. Questions should be asked as to why a major hub like Leeds is left so vulnerable. Back up systems should be in place and regularly rehearsed.

 

[godfreycomplex]

Would you also have a situation where the failure has thrown signals back to red, so paperwork needs to be completed with drivers regarding SPAD/ SPAR situations?

Very possibly

 

[J663738]

As was mentioned earlier, there was a complete system failure in one of the control rooms, which suggests an IT failure of some sorts. I know none of the UK critical infrastructure will ever publicly admit to a cyber attack, but its just a possibility?

Or it could just be a random electrical fault and the UPS system failed, as they seem to always do when you need them in anger!

 

[Crossover]

Excellent post.

Far too many posters on here sit at home behind their screens with zero empathy for the customer and the crap situation that they have been left to experience by Northern.

I have just emailed my MP calling for pressure for an inquiry because it simply can’t be right for Northern to just shut a train station (not Leeds) leaving 100+ people, some with medical conditions and young families to fend for themselves at 9.00 pm on Saturday night.

I still say their actions where utterly disgraceful.

Utter tosh. I was one of those semi caught up in it all trying to assist my friend back to Kent!

The issue yesterday was beyond unprecedented as the failure wasn’t a single line or panel but the whole of West Yorkshire

Whilst things maybe could have been better, with the best will in the world you have naff all chance of getting that quantity of people moving quickly or that many feet on the ground from TOCs at station when the disruption is so massively widespread

 

[Peterthegreat]

Utter tosh. I was one of those semi caught up in it all trying to assist my friend back to Kent!

The issue yesterday was beyond unprecedented as the failure wasn’t a single line or panel but the whole of West Yorkshire

Whilst things maybe could have been better, with the best will in the world you have naff all chance of getting that quantity of people moving quickly or that many feet on the ground from TOCs at station when the disruption is so massively widespread

Absolutely. And it wasn't just West Yorkshire which was affected. Trains were disrupted in Carlisle, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Hull and York as well as many other towns.

 

[Howardh]

Utter tosh. I was one of those semi caught up in it all trying to assist my friend back to Kent!

The issue yesterday was beyond unprecedented as the failure wasn’t a single line or panel but the whole of West Yorkshire

Whilst things maybe could have been better, with the best will in the world you have naff all chance of getting that quantity of people moving quickly or that many feet on the ground from TOCs at station when the disruption is so massively widespread

I was very lucky that I found a train standing there @ Hebden Bridge which went to Blackburn! Otherwise I would have been one of the stranded, although it appears some trains (every hour?) managed to run to Victoria.

Also lucky that had I been stranded for some time, the station did have good facilities, toilets, shelter etc and, of course, near a town for supplies. I would expect in situations like last night for station facilities such as toilets to remain open until the last train, some toilets get locked quite early in the evening.

One thing which would have been appreciated had I been left there would be a map at the station of local buses and timetable to save fiddling on my phone. Rochdale and Halifax buses were available from nearby which would have been an escape route!

 

[Crossover]

I was very lucky that I found a train standing there @ Hebden Bridge which went to Blackburn! Otherwise I would have been one of the stranded, although it appears some trains (every hour?) managed to run to Victoria.

Also lucky that had I been stranded for some time, the station did have good facilities, toilets, shelter etc and, of course, near a town for supplies. I would expect in situations like last night for station facilities such as toilets to remain open until the last train, some toilets get locked quite early in the evening.

One thing which would have been appreciated had I been left there would be a map at the station of local buses and timetable to save fiddling on my phone. Rochdale and Halifax buses were available from nearby which would have been an escape route!

We were at Bramley which has no such luxuries. At least the help point worked though and my friend did get a call back from someone in customer service. It was all quite slow going though, but maybe unsurprising given the number of others that needed help

 

[Howardh]

We were at Bramley which has no such luxuries. At least the help point worked though and my friend did get a call back from someone in customer service. It was all quite slow going though, but maybe unsurprising given the number of others that needed help

Where were you heading? Think close to Bramley station there are bus routes to Bradford and Leeds, I would have attempted to get to Bradford and see what was available from there - plus I expect toilets and drinks/snacks machines there too!

As an aside there's a Morrison's petrol station adjacent to the station, I hope they have public toilets, or if not allow you to use the staff ones!
Edit; 2230 was the first chance of a train from Bradford to Manchester!

 

[Centralsimon]

Anyone trying to escape Leeds after yesterday's disruption will find this morning is not the best of starts

Over running engineering works and now a power supply problem has closed Kings Cross and probably everything south of Peterborough.