Trains all at a stand in the Manchester area... (Thursday afternoon 06AUG2026)

[Mcr Warrior]

Understand that nothing's moving in the Manchester/Salford area just now, due to a complete loss of signalling. Maybe a power failure at a strategic location. Anyone got any further information?

 

[zwk500]

National Rail reporting:

"A failure of the electricity supply at a communications centre means trains across the Greater Manchester area, Midlands and North West of England are being disrupted."

East Midlands Railway customer advice:​

There is a failure of the electricity supply around the Manchester Piccadilly area. This is currently disrupting trains on the Liverpool Lime Street / Nottingham / Norwich routes and Crewe / Derby / Nottingham / Lincoln routes.

Incident: Manchester | National Rail

Disruption in the Greater Manchester area / Midlands / North West of England expected until the end of the day. Find details of all current incidents on National Rail Enquiries.

www.nationalrail.co.uk

Somewhat remarkably the incident has only got a yellow flag on National Rail!

LNR were reporting a power cut at Crewe earlier, not sure if a linked/separate/confused incident.

 

[KNN]

Understand that nothing's moving in the Manchester/Salford area just now, due to a complete loss of signalling. Maybe a power failure at a strategic location. Anyone got any further information?

There was an announcement at New Street saying there was a power supply failure so anything going via Crewe was affected

 

[nineteenninety]

Nothing going in/out of Piccadilly & Victoria for the time being.

 

[pnepaul]

There also seems to be an issue at Weaver Jnc on the down line to Liverpool. On Tracksy it has "No Go" on that line, with trains not moving at Acton Bridge and Harford down line only.

 

[zwk500]

Nothing going in/out of Piccadilly & Victoria for the time being.

2K16 (13.46 Manchester Piccadilly to Stoke, actual departure 1427) and 2B30 (13.51 Manchester Piccadilly to Buxton, actual departure 1428) and have just departed according to OTT, although it doesn't seem like anything else has been released yet.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

So far acceptance published on the link in post #1 is as follows

Northern customer advice:.

You can also travel on Transport for Greater Manchester bus services at no extra cost on any reasonable route until further notice.
Northern train ticket restrictions have been lifted in the affected areas, including Advance and Peak restrictions, during this disruption. Restrictions will be reinstated once the disruption ends.

TransPennine Express customer advice:

You can use your ticket at no extra cost on Metrolink services between Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Victoria/Manchester Airport and also on Bee Network buses throughout the whole network in Greater Manchester.

Transport for Wales customer advice:
Transport for Wales have organised buses to run between Warrington Bank Quay and Manchester Piccadilly to help you complete your journey, at no extra cost. These will arrive at Warrington Bank Quay at approximately 15:00 provided by Mario's.

These arrangements are in place on services until 18:00.

 

[zwk500]

Open Train Times showing trains have started to leave the main shed, and arrivals from Ardwick direction. P13/14 not showing anything moving and trains don't seem to be departing northwards from Stockport yet.

 

[Geeves]

I finished earlier and it seemed to get progressively worse as the morning went on, first issues were around Miles Platting around 1030 onwards with signalling black, that then went to Victoria and Piccadilly in pretty fast succession! Now all of the city.

Currently people stranded on trains as far away as Bolton on the latest report

 

[Iskra]

I’m at Oxford Road waiting for a train, nothing is moving although there are signs of life at Piccadilly now so that’s promising.

It would happen the one day I manage to finish early at work…

 

[Bow Fell]

Power blip at Manchester ROC, which you can appreciate covers a very big area, and all drivers needing to be spoken to to confirm exact locations but also affecting boxes which “fringe” to the ROC not being to send any trains. Some areas have recovered, and signalling has come back in, however a lot of areas track circuits / axle counters still showing occupied and axle counters may require to be swept.

 

[Geeves]

There also seems to be an issue at Weaver Jnc on the down line to Liverpool. On Tracksy it has "No Go" on that line, with trains not moving at Acton Bridge and Harford down line only.

That would make sense as the ROC at Manchester is controlling that area, all systems are down in the ROC + Piccadilly box

 

[Tetragon213]

Power blip at Manchester ROC, which you can appreciate covers a very big area, and all drivers needing to be spoken to to confirm exact locations but also affecting boxes which “fringe” to the ROC not being to send any trains. Some areas have recovered, and signalling has come back in, however a lot of areas track circuits / axle counters still showing occupied and axle counters may require to be swept.

You'd think such a nationally important bit of infrastructure would have Uninterruptible Power Supplies or their own power generation systems... heck, even enthusiast PC gamers are starting to get UPS's to protect their pride-and-joy builds!

 

[zwk500]

Northbound departures from Stockport appear to have resumed, but the Oxford Road and Victoria areas still look to be stuck.

 

[stevie2006]

Manchester ROC power failure - backup generators failed to start when they were supposed to activate.

 

[pnepaul]

It is now on the BBC website

Train delays latest: Services largely restored but passengers still facing some disruption

It comes after a 90-second power failure in Manchester affected a communications centre on Thursday, causing widespread delays and cancellations.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Topmandog1]

Manchester ROC power failure - backup generators failed to start when they were supposed to activate.

They should be testing them more often clearly

 

[brad465]

You'd think such a nationally important bit of infrastructure would have Uninterruptible Power Supplies or their own power generation systems... heck, even enthusiast PC gamers are starting to get UPS's to protect their pride-and-joy builds!

According to the following post, they do have backup, but the backup also failed:

Manchester ROC power failure - backup generators failed to start when they were supposed to activate.

 

[Andyh82]

On the Calder Valley, nothing was moving west of Bradford Interchange

 

[Westerndiesels]

We're not very good at resilience anymore in this country. Cant help feel a rogue state could cause a lot of problems with little effort.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Manchester ROC covers routes out of Liverpool Lime St too - are they affected?
The main WCML should be OK though.

PS I can see delays of up to 2 hours on services into Lime St on RTT, and many cancellations.
Liverpool might be reachable via Chester, and onwards via Merseyrail.
Similarly Manchester might be reachable via Chester, Northern to Altrincham and then Metrolink.

 

[HST125Scorton]

With no power it has taken out pretty much all the workstations covered by the ROC and also mentioned Manchester North and Piccadilly. We are going as far out as Blackpool Workstation, Liverpool Workstations etc.

 

[Horizon22]

According to the following post, they do have backup, but the backup also failed:

Which is pretty bad consideriding it's meant to be an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) on critical rail infrastructure.

 

[sh24]

Colleague is on the move from Macclesfield now just 96 mins late. I’m on the Bakerloo heading to Euston which will likely be horrendous.

 

[Accura]

I'm on the 13:53 from Euston to Piccadilly. We just made an unscheduled stop at Nuneaton due to the issues further north. We're now on the move again (23 or so mins late), but it will be interesting to see how far we get!

 

[jfollows]

It was also a right mess at Stockport, with station staff preventing access to the station even though I knew (and had told Omar who was trying to travel) that trains had left Piccadilly and were en route to Stockport. The "omniscient" member of staff wasn't having it - "no trains". Omar went and used Uber to get home.

 

[AGH]

I back onto Chat Moss at NLW. A TFW just went past heading to Earlestown but it's been awfully quiet all afternoon. I think the last I heard was a Hull express about 215

 

[Bantamzen]

I've just left Manchester via Metrolink to Altrincham, and there was definitely nothing moving as I left. Now planning on jumping onto 2 buses from Altrincham as there's no chance of any service on the Mid Cheshire.

Edit: Qudos to TfM at Altrincham, there's details of the issue on the bus departure screens in the Interchange.

 

[jfollows]

2D48 14:10 Piccadilly-Chester left at 14:36, 26 minutes late, but is currently only 15 minutes late at Mouldsworth. The doom and gloom stories put about were exaggerated, there was a block for a while and it’s taking time to recover of course, so 2D49 15:10 Piccadilly-Chester doesn’t seem to be running, and if that’s the train you wanted it’s worse for you than some of course.

 

[sh24]

Euston surprisingly peaceful. 1553 to Manchester is boarding and very busy. Great timing for Avanti to do a full revenue check with several train loads of people piling on to Platform 1.