Leeds Disruption - 26/07/25

[TUC]

Sorry - I would, because I know the difference. I know lots of people use apps now, but a lot of us still do the old-fashioned thing of finding the taxi rank and queuing. Both should be catered for, we need to get over this idea that everyone can easily get on online (see also disruption information).

I'm not saying that everyone can get online, but if there are good arrangements in place for the very large number who can, that makes it more manageable to have separate arrangements for the rest.

As for taxis vs private hire, I suspect the approach of most people would be to go on apps whilst standing in a taxi queue, and taking whichever comes up with the goods first.

 

[marsker]

A long time ago, when I firsy heard of the move to consolodate railway signalling and control into a small number of centres, I felt that "Bigger and better signalling hubs are going to lead to bigger and more disruptive signalling failures". In the last week, we've seen major outages at both Leeds and South West London. There may or may not be parallels between them, but some sort of enquiry is surely warrented. There is a need to understand what went wrong and how some level of degraded working can be sustained during the failure. (Would it help of driving cabs on trains were equipped with a clamp which a driver could apply to an undetected set of facing points? - I don't know, I'm not an expert, but it's the sort of question that could be asked).
The sort of meltdown that we saw yesterday afternoon is not acceptable and workarounds that enable some sort of service to be provided without compromising safety need to be devised. 60 years ago, when I spent a lot of time (as an enthusiast) around the railway system, a shutdown such as yesterday's was beyond imagination.

 

[Falcon1200]

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.

Many posters on here sat behind their screens have a) dealt with such incidents during their railway careers and b) experienced disruption themselves when travelling; In my case both a) and b), the latter more than once this year already. So we do have empathy.

There is always a lot more the railway could do with comms and messaging in times of major disruption.

There are not, and are never likely to be, sufficient staff on duty to everything that should be done, especially during such a major incident as this. Which does not help the passenger of course. As already mentioned a full investigation is needed into how such a disruptive incident occurred, and to prevent any recurrence.

The workload on the signallers and controllers would have been absolutely unprecedented and unmanageable.

Yes indeed.

 

[dk1]

There are not, and are never likely to be, sufficient staff on duty to everything that should be done, especially during such a major incident as this. Which does not help the passenger of course. As already mentioned a full investigation is needed into how such a disruptive incident occurred, and to prevent any recurrence.

And hasn't it been reported in another thread that NR (or the government) want to make another 15% in cost savings?

 

[TUC]

And hasn't it been reported in another thread that NR (or the government) want to make another 15% in cost savings?

That is not automatically the same as staff reductions.

 

[dk1]

That is not automatically the same as staff reductions.

Hopefully not but NR has pruned quite a bit of staffing particularly S&T over the last few years from what I hear at work.

 

[NickBucks]

A long time ago, when I firsy heard of the move to consolodate railway signalling and control into a small number of centres, I felt that "Bigger and better signalling hubs are going to lead to bigger and more disruptive signalling failures". In the last week, we've seen major outages at both Leeds and South West London. There may or may not be parallels between them, but some sort of enquiry is surely warrented. There is a need to understand what went wrong and how some level of degraded working can be sustained during the failure. (Would it help of driving cabs on trains were equipped with a clamp which a driver could apply to an undetected set of facing points? - I don't know, I'm not an expert, but it's the sort of question that could be asked).
The sort of meltdown that we saw yesterday afternoon is not acceptable and workarounds that enable some sort of service to be provided without compromising safety need to be devised. 60 years ago, when I spent a lot of time (as an enthusiast) around the railway system, a shutdown such as yesterday's was beyond imagination.

Probably the best post I have seen on this subject over 6 pages. These things happen and there are no easy solutions. I was not involved but those whose lives were disrupted deserve that a proper enquiry be undertaken into the circumstances and that the issue is not kicked into the long grass three months or so down the line until it happens again. The travelling paying public need to be assured that a ROBUST solution to the signal failure be put in place and not the same situation that occurred on SWR just a few days ago when " we have fixed it" seem to have been repeated over 2/3 days.

 

[Horizon22]

What it seems was missing is what is always missing in such situations, and that is communication, both for passengers and for staff assisting them.

But what does “communication” mean to you? Because there is often a huge amount of information available but there is no way that it can be tailored to every individual at every location from a centralised source. And sometimes delivery is difficult in the thick of disruption when staff are dealing with multiple problems and fire-fighting issues.The flow of information is very complex and difficult to perfect because there are simply more people who would want to know (train crew, station staff) than information control staff can possibly deliver news to all at once - especially in an individual service / station level.

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

complaints centre around poor or non existent communication by "the railway". If responses are to be called hard to fault then such criticisms shouldn't be being raised.

There are undoubtedly some things that can be done better and some quick wins.

However to appease the majority of people who would consider it to be “good” or “great” communication in how their personal circumstances were dealt would need a huge influx of money to deliver, as well as extra staff who, 99% of the time, will be doing nothing.

Exceptional, major incidents will always struggle to deliver because ideally you need extra resource available at the snap of your figures, which in the real world is not possible.

 

[Bertie the bus]

But what does “communication” mean to you? Because there is a huge amount of information available but there is no way that it can be tailored to every individual at every location from a centralised source. The flow of information is very complex and difficult to perfect because there are simply more people who would want to know (train crew, station staff) than information control staff can possibly deliver news to all at once - especially in an individual service / station level.

I wasn't caught up in this but I was caught up in the Church Fenton points failure delays 2 weeks ago. I was trying to get from Leeds - Preston and was wondering whether I should go via Manchester or chance the direct service. I checked Traksy, RTT and NRES and in the end plumped for the direct via Burnley service as it was showing as running late and terminating at Preston. It was still showing as terminating at Preston on departure from Burnley and then suddenly the automatic announcements stated "This is the service to Blackburn". Control hadn't even informed the guard on the train as he had to contact them after a passenger asked him why the train was suddenly telling us it was terminating at Blackburn.

If that experience is anything to go by Northern don't even make any attempt at all to communicate with passengers or even their own staff.

 

[sh24]

There are some very simple things that could be done to improve communication and messaging

* eliminate the "disruption expected until 13:00" when it's very obvious things will be bad for the rest of the day
* stop talking about ticket acceptance on other TOC that are also disrupted - LNER are bad for this
* make sure the NR app, station boards etc only show services that are 100% guaranteed to run. there is often a trail of impossible and implausible services advertised which causes confusion and suspicion
* when alternative transport is needed, empower customers to arrange their own and reclaim. BA do this - well - with hotel accommodation for overnights and other reasonable expenses. that frees up resource for those who truly need help. the suggest of a barcode to approve this (noted above) is an EXCELLENT one

 

[43096]

There are some very simple things that could be done to improve communication and messaging

* eliminate the "disruption expected until 13:00" when it's very obvious things will be bad for the rest of the day

Or at least change it to something realistic. Everyone knows they are always hopelessly optimistic and that "ok by 1500" becomes 1700, 1800... end of day.

* stop talking about ticket acceptance on other TOC that are also disrupted - LNER are bad for this
* make sure the NR app, station boards etc only show services that are 100% guaranteed to run. there is often a trail of impossible and implausible services advertised which causes confusion and suspicion
* when alternative transport is needed, empower customers to arrange their own and reclaim. BA do this - well - with hotel accommodation for overnights and other reasonable expenses. that frees up resource for those who truly need help. the suggest of a barcode to approve this (noted above) is an EXCELLENT one

I would add, stop using "Do not travel". It's an utterly stupid message when people are already travelling or have gone out and need to get back. It's just an attempt by the TOCs to weasel out of their responsibilities to their customers. It needs to be replaced by something more nuanced about the likelihood of completing your journey.

 

[Horizon22]

There are some very simple things that could be done to improve communication and messaging

* eliminate the "disruption expected until 13:00" when it's very obvious things will be bad for the rest of the day

It is not "obvious". It may be in hindsight, but if the infrastructure provider suggests it will reset soon, who are you to argue? When the full circumstances are known or at least become clearer, that is when the message can be changed with relevant advice and a better estimate of a timeline.

* stop talking about ticket acceptance on other TOC that are also disrupted - LNER are bad for this

Mutual ticket acceptance is completely normal. I suppose a caveat could be added (..."but please note these services may also be disrupted")

* make sure the NR app, station boards etc only show services that are 100% guaranteed to run. there is often a trail of impossible and implausible services advertised which causes confusion and suspicion

You cannot "remove" services from most apps - the best you could do is cancel them outright for X number of hours. Station boards could be blanked for hours. But again this requires someone to actively do this, staff who are dealing with many other tasks and this then becomes a matter of prioritisation (unless you have all the additional staff at the drop of a hat). There's a lot of manual processes needed, and could be an area for better automation.

* when alternative transport is needed, empower customers to arrange their own and reclaim. BA do this - well - with hotel accommodation for overnights and other reasonable expenses. that frees up resource for those who truly need help. the suggest of a barcode to approve this (noted above) is an EXCELLENT one

I agree, allowing passengers to reclaim can be a good way of doing it. Operators are increasingly moving in this direction and some do it quite well (SWR for one).

 

[sh24]

It is not "obvious". It may be in hindsight, but if the infrastructure provider suggests it will reset soon, who are you to argue? When the full circumstances are known or at least become clearer, that is when the message can be changed with relevant advice and a better estimate of a timeline.

Is it though? If the entire W Yorks signalling system is down, will there really be no disruption in 2 hours time?

I've managed a lot of disruption in a customer centric environment outside the railway and one of my big learnings was setting realistic, bordering on pessimistic expectations. Rolling delays really frustrate people and erode trust greatly.

 

[Iskra]

In this scenario they were quite honest that disruption would last until the end of the day. This was an overestimate rather than an underestimate considering trains started running again in limited amounts and I was able to commute to work pretty much as normal (athough with intense monitoring of Traksy/RealTimeTrains etc).

 

[sportzbar]

I wasn't caught up in this but I was caught up in the Church Fenton points failure delays 2 weeks ago. I was trying to get from Leeds - Preston and was wondering whether I should go via Manchester or chance the direct service. I checked Traksy, RTT and NRES and in the end plumped for the direct via Burnley service as it was showing as running late and terminating at Preston. It was still showing as terminating at Preston on departure from Burnley and then suddenly the automatic announcements stated "This is the service to Blackburn". Control hadn't even informed the guard on the train as he had to contact them after a passenger asked him why the train was suddenly telling us it was terminating at Blackburn.

If that experience is anything to go by Northern don't even make any attempt at all to communicate with passengers or even their own staff.

I wasn't caught up in this but I was caught up in the Church Fenton points failure delays 2 weeks ago. I was trying to get from Leeds - Preston and was wondering whether I should go via Manchester or chance the direct service. I checked Traksy, RTT and NRES and in the end plumped for the direct via Burnley service as it was showing as running late and terminating at Preston. It was still showing as terminating at Preston on departure from Burnley and then suddenly the automatic announcements stated "This is the service to Blackburn". Control hadn't even informed the guard on the train as he had to contact them after a passenger asked him why the train was suddenly telling us it was terminating at Blackburn.

If that experience is anything to go by Northern don't even make any attempt at all to communicate with passengers or even their own staff.

The problem is that there is only a finite number of people to man the phones and contact on train staff. The system itself updates on train announcements automatically, which can, on the rare occasion (as you have experienced in this situation), be before the guard or driver can be informed. The controller may be on the phone to another guard and may well have many calls in a queue.

I know this from experience, having sometimes waited over 30 mins to get through during disruption. Yet, when everything is running fine I can get through in two rings.

I get where you are coming from, from a customer perspective is looks like there is no communication. But in reality, during disruption there is a ton of information to get out to the right people, in the right order, meaning that it can appear as if communication has failed. It really hasn't, it just takes time to get the correct information out, which is preferred, rather than the wrong information which can be given out quicker but cause more problems ...

 

[Killingworth]

On compensation the following was sent by Northern after another recent disruption. I wasn't the one disrupted but some were by over 2 hours. Not sure how that final paragraph is being interpreted this time.

The Consumer Rights Act (CRA) states that Train Operating Companies are to provide a service with reasonable care and skill. Where a Train Operating Company fails in these obligations, you may be entitled to compensation when you have experienced disruption or cancellations. However, there are some instances on the railway that falls outside of the Train Operating Companies responsibility, such instances include – 

- Acts or threats of violence or terrorism;  
- Suicides or accidents involving trespassers;  
- Gas leaks or fires in lineside building not caused by the Train Operating Company;  
- Emergency services requesting line closures;  
- Severe weather conditions; Industrial action; 
-  Riots or civil commotion;  
- Fire, mechanical or electrical failure including signaling or infrastructure faults and striking of a bridge by a vehicle. 

Having looked on our historic departure boards, I located the disrupted service that you intended to board. Unfortunately, as this service was disrupted due to signaling fault this would fall out of our obligations for reimbursement and I can only apologise for any disappointment this may cause.

I can understand the operational difficulties at times like this. That's little comfort to passengers marooned for hours at places they don't want to be, most especially at smaller unmanned stations with limited information and minimal scope for alternative transport. There's not a good answer available. It's inevitable that quite a few who were delayed will be wary about using trains in future.

 

[trainophile]

I thought if it wasn't the operator's fault they paid up anyway and passed the cost on to whoever was responsible, often Network Rail in the case of trespassers or landslip etc.

Only recently I was on a train that was very delayed due to trespassers earlier in the day, and the guard actually announced a reminder about Delay Repay, so I think Northern are out of order here.

 

[Killingworth]

I thought if it wasn't the operator's fault they paid up anyway and passed the cost on to whoever was responsible, often Network Rail in the case of trespassers or landslip etc.

Only recently I was on a train that was very delayed due to trespassers earlier in the day, and the guard actually announced a reminder about Delay Repay, so I think Northern are out of order here.

It wasn't me who was delayed but I'd also have assumed that, but the quotation seems to come from some form of official manual. Maybe they don't work strictly to that rule.

 

[JordR]

Going slightly into the realms of speculation here, but hopefully sufficiently on topic...

What seems to be consistently clear from posts is that the ordinary public weren't receiving much or clear "what do I do next" information. I imagine this can't be generated bespoke between every impacted station pair in the moment as the resource won't exist, but a software solution does seem possible. LNER already uses pre-prepared alternative journey maps, which seem like a basic implementation, but I wonder if something more advanced is possible. It doesn't seem beyond the realms of possibility for you to tell a system that area X or stations Y are unavailable and for it then to be able to generate a "next steps" plan between any given station pair - be that "take alternative train to X then change" or "take taxi from this station to train at Y" or "take taxi from this station to destination".

Taxi (used in the broadest common sense to include private hire and Uber) probably should have a standardised way of being paid in advance. Whether that be issuing vouchers through a self service mechanism, by staff at staffed stations or by staff using a B2B app to summon them in bulk pre-paid. I accept there would be capacity issues, there probably then needs to be a switch to hotels at a certain time of night, that's also doable through B2B booking services.

In the absolute worst cases, we're going to have to acknowledge that there's still some risk that all of the above will result in people still unable to complete their journey at 10pm or some other unsuitably late time at night. I don't want my ticket price increasing to reduce that risk to near zero, it's not proportionate. I think a sensible amount of risk should fall to the public, I think that should include either being prepared to be stuck on your route or having access to a two-digit or possibly low three-digit amount of cash that will get you your own taxi or hotel and be reimbursed in a timescale of about a fortnight.

 

[northernchris]

What was actually closed? The entire station or just the platforms? If the concourses were shut I can't imagine that the tenants operating businesses there would have appreciated it. Closing platforms that are unlikely to see a service for a long time doesn't seem unreasonable.

I was caught in the disruption yesterday as it began. Initially each train was just announced as delayed, then after around half an hour an announcement was made asking everyone on platforms to return to the concourse. All shops remained open, and access to toilets remained open.

Whilst there are a lot of good people working on the railway, not everyone has the energy or the confidence to challenge diktats from above in order to source assistance for those passengers entitled to such assistance.

This may explain why the info from Northern yesterday was worse than the other affected operators. A few weeks ago I experienced a delay onboard a service, and during the 15 minutes the train was stationary there was no info from the conductor and no visible presence once the journey continued. When Northern can't manage the basics it's no surprise they go into meltdown every time there's a major incident.

Out of interest, did the display boards at Leeds all clear to only show services that were actually running? I hate it when NR do that (though it makes more sense at unstaffed two-platform stations, clear the display and put up an informative notice).

Initially the boards showed all trains as delayed, then updated to cancelled. As I passed by the south entrance later on, the screens were only showing 1 service, which was a TPE to Manchester Victoria.

 

[Llandudno]

Not selfish - it is sharing resources. Instead of a bus every ten minutes you get one every 20 minutes. Just a minor irritation in what is a major crisis. Everyone needs to pull together when there is emergency and did when a major incident was declared here due weather

This is the north of England not London, doubt there are many, if any bus routes in West Yorkshire that run as frequently as every 10 minutes on a Saturday night….!

 

[GoneSouth]

So we are just expected to accept that we are stranded and have no way of getting to our destination.

Utterly disgraceful.

Delayed, not stranded.

Whilst I am no fan of Northern and their shoddy treatment of passengers, this wasn’t a Northern problem and we probably have to accept that sometimes in life s*** happens. Get over it, move on.

Although they issued a don’t travel instruction, this was unavoidable for anybody on a long distance connecting service which began before the disruption. I hope Northern did what they could in the circumstances for these folk

Perhaps you could put yourself forward as an emergency rail replacement bus driver for next time (there will probably be a next time unfortunately).

 

[1D53]

This may explain why the info from Northern yesterday was worse than the other affected operators. A few weeks ago I experienced a delay onboard a service, and during the 15 minutes the train was stationary there was no info from the conductor and no visible presence once the journey continued. When Northern can't manage the basics it's no surprise they go into meltdown every time there's a major incident.

.

I'm not sure you can blame a full TOC's incident response on one poor incident with one conductor.

 

[WAB]

I'm not sure you can blame a full TOC's incident response on one poor incident with one conductor.

Although it does sound like some Northern managers could do with travelling to London to see how LUL encourages their staff to make timely and regular announcements at stations and on trains, as well as clearly specifying which services are running or not.

 

[TUC]

Although it does sound like some Northern managers could do with travelling to London to see how LUL encourages their staff to make timely and regular announcements at stations and on trains, as well as clearly specifying which services are running or not.

I agree. There doesn't seem to be a consistent expectation of what is required as a high quality minimum.

 

[MichaelTrains]

What it seems was missing is what is always missing in such situations, and that is communication, both for passengers and for staff assisting them.

Quite right but don’t expect industry staff on here to accept that the way Northern treated customers on Saturday was both dangerous and disgraceful.

No apologies, no communication, just a fend for yourself attitude which is why there needs to be an inquiry into Saturday.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Jul 2025 ==

Many posters on here sat behind their screens have a) dealt with such incidents during their railway careers and b) experienced disruption themselves when travelling; In my case both a) and b), the latter more than once this year already. So we do have empathy.



There are not, and are never likely to be, sufficient staff on duty to everything that should be done, especially during such a major incident as this. Which does not help the passenger of course. As already mentioned a full investigation is needed into how such a disruptive incident occurred, and to prevent any recurrence.



Yes indeed.

I hope you don't take my comment about a lack of empathy personally. I truly believe that you and others do care, and I appreciate your efforts on here.

It's important to acknowledge that there are differing perspectives on this issue.

However, for those, who can see the industry doing nothing wrong.

They should strive to empathise with the customers who are experiencing challenges and difficulties as a result of the current situation.

It would be a lot better if Northern worked towards better solutions in times of crisis that can help improve our experience.

Rather than shut up and fend for yourself mentality experienced on Saturday night.

 

[growse]

They should strive to empathise with the customers who are experiencing challenges and difficulties as a result of the current situation.

You seem to be confusing "lack of resources" with "lack of empathy".

 

[1D53]

I agree. There doesn't seem to be a consistent expectation of what is required as a high quality minimum.

There is a consistent expectation of what is required. Whether an individual applies it or not is difficult to prove or disprove unless the management team are accompanying every service, all day, every day.

 

[noddingdonkey]

You seem to be confusing "lack of resources" with "lack of empathy".

Others seem to be confusing "lack of resources" with "the passenger's problem"

 

[growse]

Others seem to be confusing "lack of resources" with "the passenger's problem"

The problem of "how am I getting home" quite literally is the passenger's problem. What it's not is *just* the passenger's problem.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that the railway has an absolute duty of care to every single passenger at all times, and that there should be standby armies of buses, drivers, health workers (for those passengers with specific needs), etc. on retainer 24/7 so that they can meet that obligation under every conceivable eventuality. Unfortunately, no-one knows how that'd work or who'd pay for it.