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

[Class 466]

Intriguing how only a couple of sections of the Network are back up and running so many hours later. Points towards something going seriously wrong.

 

[campdave]

We took the X2 from Lime Street to Preston, Preston was like a ghost station, as was Lancaster when we finally made it. A kind train manager said we could get on the Northern to Windermere to make it to lancaster despite there not being ticket acceptance for that route between Northern and TPE

 

[Killingworth]

Hearing tales that only 3 car Northern stopping trains have been getting through to Sheffield, very late, severely overcrowded with many baling out at Dore for family pick ups and taxis!

Delayed, rescheduled 3 car TPE 1B92 2013 Piccadilly to Cleethorpes is now on its way.

​

 

[Belperpete]

This is the point I was making earlier. If the network falls over so completely the way it did today, and if putting on RRBs isn't feasible, at least point passengers in the direction of alternatives.

And before anyone says this wouldn't be possible, back in 2007 when the devastating floods were hitting the north of England, rail staff at Leeds were actively pointing passengers towards possible bus alternatives, including giving directions to stops where they would be leaving from and even phoning the bus companies to try and get updates as to what services were running. As a result I was able to get a good distance home (I was living in South Elmsall & working in Bradford at the time), before having to get a taxi the remainder of the way home. They proved almost 20 years ago that this kind of comms can be done.

Yes, but the poster you were replying to was complaining that he couldn't get this information from social media feeds. As Iskra said, this kind of information will be very station specific. It will likely also be very time specific, changing as the situation evolves. Other posts on here suggest that information was being given out at stations, in the kind of way that you suggest. However, it just isn't practical to give out this kind of information on social media feeds, as the volume of information would totally overwhelm the feeds.

Unfortunately people seem to be increasingly reliant on the internet, and totally helpless without it.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Gave up getting from Manchester to Leeds and went to a friend's for tea and waited for a lift.

Advice from the fleet engineer who was out in hi Vis at Victoria trying to help was to not try with a 1 year old and a pram if I had a plan B as anything was going to be horrifically overcrowded. Fair play to honesty and for dragging everyone out into the concourse to help people. They did not go absent and stood there with a good attitude.

 

[Russel]

We took the X2 from Lime Street to Preston, Preston was like a ghost station, as was Lancaster when we finally made it. A kind train manager said we could get on the Northern to Windermere to make it to Preston despite there not being ticket acceptance for that route between Northern and TPE

Laughable that in times like this that any form of ticket restriction would still be in place.

 

[Geeves]

The word on the street now is that it's the substation it's self has become damaged that supplies the ROC and that's the reason for the continued issues.

 

[Belperpete]

Manchester ROC has 2 independent 6.6kV DNO intake feeders fed from a primary substation either of which can feed the entire building by closing the relevant bus bar couplers on the HV panels ( there are some reports of a large part of Ardwick also bring without power) do sounds like it’s a SPENWL issue.

I recall that Southern Region power boxes had two separate feeds from the traction supply. The concept was that if the traction went down, there was little point in keeping the signalling going. Even so, there was also a backup DNO supply. Does Manchester ROC not have a feed from the traction supply?

 

[Acathater]

Just to make it a perfect day......just saw this on the BBC live update page

Disruption caused by wartime bomb ends, National Rail sayspublished at 19:47
19:47​

As we just reported, Network Rail earlier warned "a wartime bomb near the railway between Tamworth and Burton-on-Trent" was blocking all lines between the two stations.

In an update on X, it says that the disruption caused by the bomb has now ended.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I recall that Southern Region power boxes had two separate feeds from the traction supply. The concept was that if the traction went down, there was little point in keeping the signalling going. Even so, there was also a backup DNO supply. Does Manchester ROC not have a feed from the traction supply?

Yup that was SR practice as each of the traction supplies could be sourced from at least two different grid supply points.

Not sure whats an Ardwick but the bulk of the equipment in a ROC will be fed from UPS's which ought to be sized support signalling and communications equipment for two hours.

 

[noddingdonkey]

Have evacuations taken place on the track? Somebody mentioned it up thread and it made me wonder how they take care of those unable to evacuate via ladders - I presume they are made comfortable on the train by crews

Would that be needed in this situation? Couldn't trains be talked past signals (or authorised to proceed at a walking pace and read to stop short of any obstruction, or similar) to a suitable platform in most cases?

 

[JonB4472]

Just to make it a perfect day......just saw this on the BBC live update page

Yes, as someone who was travelling to Manchester today from Derby, it made for an incredibly long journey home. Not least made difficult by EMR cancelling all trains and telling people ‘not to travel’ despite the fact it’s 14:00 and most people have already travelled to work by this point.

Credit where it’s due though, and it feels odd to say this, but the staff on 1G85 (XC) were the only staff to actually say something constructive, rather than just bark orders at passengers, so shout out to you!

The way some staff were treating people at Manchester Piccadilly especially is something that should not be witnessed in any public facing role and, despite a few helpful faces, it seems they are told to treat us like a herd of cattle and nothing more!

 

[Acathater]

Would that be needed in this situation? Couldn't trains be talked past signals (or authorised to proceed at a walking pace and read to stop short of any obstruction, or similar) to a suitable platform in most cases?

that assumes there's an empty platform.....more likely that every station was gridlocked with trapped trains

 

[The Planner]

I've always thought how good it would be to have a massive injection of money to reopen key lines across the UK. But with this sort of thing happening so often, maybe we should be lobbying for any available extra funds for the railway to go toward the maximum possible resilience enhancements of the network we have.

I'd imagine there are some very gifted technical people in Network Rail who would spend such money wisely. Maybe they even read these forums and could make suggestions.

Oh we do...

Another episode which shows the folly of having all your eggs in the one basket!

But this has been happening since the 60s with PSBs etc.

Is there not a backup location for the Manchester ROC? I seem to remember there was a secondary site for the Birmingham ROC

No secondary site for Saltley that I know of, not sure where you would put it.

 

[Northerngirl]

With the usually utter lack of communication from the companies, does anyone here know what kind of state Manchester will be tomorrow, ive got an interview so if needs must a 4 hour bus from Liverpool will have to suffice

 

[Cell2025]

A word of caution - the walk from LDS to the bus station is a few minutes and takes you through a very lively part of the city. At that time of night, you need to have your antennae up, don't catch anyone's eye and stride with purpose !

Source: A few years living in Leeds

Good grief. It's not Knightsbridge but it's equally no more dangerous than anywhere else in the centre.

Source: Living for 30 years in Leeds.

 

[Starmill]

Safest way, although longer, would be to go up Park Row to the Headrow, turn right and follow the Headrow all the way down into Eastgate to it's end by the traffic lights, then turn right until you reach the bus/coach station. Any other way is dodgy.

It's not lovely, but taking basic precautions (keeping all phones and valuables out of sight or zipped up in bags, not wearing headphones, walking quickly and not stopping to speak to anyone) you'd almost certainly be absolutely fine. It's important to allow enough time to get there before the bus leaves, though.

 

[JonB4472]

With the usually utter lack of communication from the companies, does anyone here know what kind of state Manchester will be tomorrow, ive got an interview so if needs must a 4 hour bus from Liverpool will have to suffice

I imagine it’ll depend on the operator, Avanti seemed to be on top of swapping their roster to accommodate for cancellations and putting staff on other trains to get them home, so they shouldn’t be in too bad a state for tomorrow.

TPE on the other hand seemed to have far more cancellations and don’t seem to have got much through Victoria, if anything. I would imagine it will take quite a while for them to get back to usual and a lot of ECS moves are likely in store! As for other operators, I don’t really know, sorry. Best of luck in your interview!

 

[Mcq]

Is Network Rail a basket case?

By which I mean guilty of putting more and more eggs in the basket until it breaks.

Case 1) the current disgrace - as commented by others earlier, full testing with switchover onload and prolonged running in that state is mandatory.
If you decide to replace staff in signal boxes with levers, with digital stuff, you need to be more resilient than they were over the whole area in question.

My background in broadcasting involved very regular tests involving killing the mains and testing that the diesels and battery UPS covered the outage and that nobody noticed it on the output!

Case 2) bigger basket, more eggs, more people affected and more frequent - OHL!
There seems to be precious little understanding of 'Single Point of Failure' (SPF), whilst there is much excitement and whooping about new areas going under the wires, OHL has an enormous disaster disruption potential that steam or diesel locos just don't have.
Reducing the number of Thunderbirds as opposed to increasing them seems to indicate the basic lack of understanding of risk that is being undertaken.

There is an issue of professionalism here, if you're asked to design and implement something that you don't feel has the necessary reliance considering the potential SPF consequences, don't do it, don't complain about budget constraints - yes of course that's difficult.

 

[wilsontown]

With the usually utter lack of communication from the companies, does anyone here know what kind of state Manchester will be tomorrow, ive got an interview so if needs must a 4 hour bus from Liverpool will have to suffice

Units and staff will be all over the shop, so check first. I'd also contact whoever it is that is interviewing you and explain the issues, maybe they could do it over Teams / Zoom given the circumstances.

 

[Andyh82]

I imagine it’ll depend on the operator, Avanti seemed to be on top of swapping their roster to accommodate for cancellations and putting staff on other trains to get them home, so they shouldn’t be in too bad a state for tomorrow. TPE on the other hand seemed to have far more cancellations and don’t seem to have got much through Victoria, if anything. I would imagine it will take quite a while for them to get back to usual and a lot of ECS moves are likely in store! As for other operators, I don’t really know, sorry. Best of luck in your interview!

Looking on realtimetrains, it looks like nothing has run between Leeds and Manchester on either route since lunchtime. Some trains seem to be getting as far as Hebden Bridge or if you are lucky Rochdale.

 

[didcot_watcher]

Manchester ROC has 2 independent 6.6kV DNO intake feeders fed from a primary substation either of which can feed the entire building by closing the relevant bus bar couplers on the HV panels ( there are some reports of a large part of Ardwick also bring without power) do sounds like it’s a SPENWL issue.

Looking at the various public records, it looks like a very short duration say 90 second power cut in the local area with some kind of HV fault, could both bar couplers have been closed and this caused faults in the intake room?

 

[Cell2025]

Safest way, although longer, would be to go up Park Row to the Headrow, turn right and follow the Headrow all the way down into Eastgate to it's end by the traffic lights, then turn right until you reach the bus/coach station. Any other way is dodgy.

Boar Lane, past the Corn Exchange down Kirkgate and turn left into New York Street. When you've walked through Manchester Piccadilly at any time of the day then you have nothing to fear down there. You can even call into a couple of decent pubs, including one of the city's finest, The Duck and Drake.

 

[M60lad]

Northern are apparently advising not to travel before 10:00 tomorrow morning, National Rail are advising Major Disruption until the end of the day tomorrow

 

[Justin Smith]

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.

In my experience revenue checks, particularly on the train, rarely happen when there is major disruption, the staff would rather just keep their heads down.... To be fair, at Piccadilly today there were loads of staff out and about giving advice, so fair play to them.

 

[Starmill]

I imagine it’ll depend on the operator, Avanti seemed to be on top of swapping their roster to accommodate for cancellations and putting staff on other trains to get them home, so they shouldn’t be in too bad a state for tomorrow. TPE on the other hand seemed to have far more cancellations and don’t seem to have got much through Victoria, if anything. I would imagine it will take quite a while for them to get back to usual and a lot of ECS moves are likely in store! As for other operators, I don’t really know, sorry. Best of luck in your interview!

It doesn't appear that Network Rail have been able to accommodate any passenger trains leaving Manchester Victoria for quite some time. It seems they've been busy trying to move stranded trains in, and ensuring everyone trapped is released, and presumably beyond that working on restoring power.

 

[Cell2025]

Safest way, although longer, would be to go up Park Row to the Headrow, turn right and follow the Headrow all the way down into Eastgate to it's end by the traffic lights, then turn right until you reach the bus/coach station. Any other way is dodgy.

Boar Lane, past the Corn Exchange down Kirkgate and turn left into New York Street. Whe you've walked through Manchester Piccadilly at any time of the day then you have nothing to fear down there. You can even call into a couple of decent pubs, including one of the city's finest, The Duck and Drake.

Is Network Rail a basket case?

By which I mean guilty of putting more and more eggs in the basket until it breaks.

Case 1) the current disgrace - as commented by others earlier, full testing with switchover onload and prolonged running in that state is mandatory.
If you decide to replace staff in signal boxes with levers, with digital stuff, you need to be more resilient than they were over the whole area in question.

My background in broadcasting involved very regular tests involving killing the mains and testing that the diesels and battery UPS covered the outage and that nobody noticed it on the output!

Case 2) bigger basket, more eggs, more people affected and more frequent - OHL!
There seems to be precious little understanding of 'Single Point of Failure' (SPF), whilst there is much excitement and whooping about new areas going under the wires, OHL has an enormous disaster disruption potential that steam or diesel locos just don't have.
Reducing the number of Thunderbirds as opposed to increasing them seems to indicate the basic lack of understanding of risk that is being undertaken.

There is an issue of professionalism here, if you're asked to design and implement something that you don't feel has the necessary reliance considering the potential SPF consequences, don't do it, don't complain about budget constraints - yes of course that's difficult.

When Leeds went down a fortnight or so ago, the view seemed to be that these things happen very rarely and should just be sucked up. Suggestions of incompetence and awful back up plans (such as they were) were rounded upon. It happens nationally far too often, but passengers seem to be at the bottom of the pile compared to covering industry backsides.

 

[QueensCurve]

1N66 is shown stopped near Water St Jn and pictures on the BBC of it being evacuated - so Traksy is correct in that respect

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:G89602/2026-08-06/detailed

Where can we see that?

 

[Bow Fell]

Sounds like an ongoing issue with the power supply, so definitely disruption into tomorrow.

Signalling was restored on the Chat Moss with trains starting to move, albeit it was freight, for it to have a loss of signalling yet again on the workstation.

Edit: Signalling back again, as I posted this! But definitely needs some proof of stability before a full train service is reintroduced.

 

[LYuen]

With the usually utter lack of communication from the companies, does anyone here know what kind of state Manchester will be tomorrow, ive got an interview so if needs must a 4 hour bus from Liverpool will have to suffice

Bee Network just pushed an alert saying services will be affected tomorrow morning.

Delays and cancellations are expected on all operator routes across Greater Manchester until the end of service this evening (Thursday 6th August) as well as affecting services on Friday morning (7th August).

Major Rail Disruption - Power Failure

Advice for customers travelling by rail

tfgm.com

National Rail even says disruption expected until the end of the day on Friday