All cross country services suspended 23/08/26

[Jim]

I see WMR have joined in now with some additional Birmingham to Crewe via Stoke services.

 

[Halwynd]

Yes....the late Peter Rayner for one. Well worth reading his excellent book "On and Off the Rails" for his candid opinions on the cack-handed way the railways were privatised.

Having heard a few tales about how Peter operated, I can imagine him writing a good book. I'll have to keep a look out for it, thanks.

 

[Swedenorer]

What was it that John Major, Brian Mawhinney, et al, we're saying all those years ago? Something along the lines of privatisation increasing passenger choice and service efficiency?

You are referring to two individuals who lacked any foresight. Where we are was entirely predictable.

 

[Dood75]

Interesting that National Grid report the affected postcode (B4 6BS) , power was restored by 1949 22/08/26

Good job I'm not using the railway from my local...I only have EMR to rely on today

 

[Harpo]

Without more facts, trying to place blame on today’s major collapse is pure speculation. Trying to attach it to events of 32 years ago (privatisation) is even further stretched as, to the best of my knowledge, there has been no similar whole TOC meltdown of a similar type in that time.

Like several other major rail events recently, root causes and their real (as opposed to guessed) underlying issues are yet to be disclosed.

 

[Requeststop]

For once, I feel sorry for any holiday makers trying to return home to say the North East from the South West, Having to decide how to get home.
GWR service to Didcot, then to Oxford then Birmingham and connect somehow on services to the North East?
Or GWR to Worcester having to change at Bristol and then to New Street?
Not exactly a decent journey home.
GWR do not go further north than Worcester, and only XC go from Cheltenham to Birmingham directly.
XC services from Penzance are now restricted to two services per day and GWR only have the one direct service a day from Penzance to Bristol Temple Meads.
Not exactly a decent connection to the rest of the country when an operator crashes down.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Yet another sad indictment of thirty years of a fragmented - in more ways than one - railway system. What was it that John Major, Brian Mawhinney, et al, we're saying all those years ago? Something along the lines of privatisation increasing passenger choice and service efficiency? If it does really turn out that there were no workable back-up systems in place, the boss of Cross Country should fall on her sword.

Ah, the 'deeply inefficent BR' as Major said - at least BR always got you home.

Only a year to go to nationalisation (or earlier if there are any more disasters) - what is intriguing is how XC will fit into GBR. Presumably it will be divvied up amongst the 'regions', including the Control function?

 

[D6130]

Without more facts, trying to place blame on today’s major collapse is pure speculation. Trying to attach it to events of 32 years ago (privatisation) is even further stretched as, to the best of my knowledge, there has been no similar whole TOC meltdown of a similar type in that time.

Like several other major rail events recently, root causes and their real (as opposed to guessed) underlying issues are yet to be disclosed.

Very true....but if it hadn't been for the ridiculous fragmentation of the system, we wouldn't have different sections of the passenger business operating from random different buildings around the city and indeed the country. I would be interested to know why both Cross Country and West Midlands Trains declined to move their control offices into the West Midlands ROC.

 

[Andyh82]

For once, I feel sorry for any holiday makers trying to return home to say the North East from the South West, Having to decide how to get home.
GWR service to Didcot, then to Oxford then Birmingham and connect somehow on services to the North East?
Or GWR to Worcester having to change at Bristol and then to New Street?
Not exactly a decent journey home.
GWR do not go further north than Worcester, and only XC go from Cheltenham to Birmingham directly.
XC services from Penzance are now restricted to two services per day and GWR only have the one direct service a day from Penzance to Bristol Temple Meads.
Not exactly a decent connection to the rest of the country when an operator crashes down.

Rather than trying to cobble a route together as close to the regular route as possible, the easiest option in many cases would be to just go via London, GWR and then either EMR or LNER to Yorkshire and the north east

 

[Ferret]

How far CrossCountry has fallen. This is a total shambles, very much on brand of course, but a shambles nonetheless. In days gone by, it was off to a back up - the so called “War Room” at International, and carry on as if nothing happened.

To end up abandoning the entire service is just completely unacceptable. Will anyone be held accountable though? I very much doubt it. A clear-out of incompetents at that company is very much needed, and long overdue.

 

[Harpo]

Very true....but if it hadn't been for the ridiculous fragmentation of the system, we wouldn't have different sections of the passenger business operating from random different buildings around the city and indeed the country.

Pre-privatisation, something taking down a control with no means of back-up could have affected an entire region. Perhaps we should reflect on the fragmentisation meaning that the whole railway is still open but ‘only’ minus a major train operator?

 

[Andyh82]

Apart from the "last mile" into Peterborough, all of this is now on railway operated by the Greater Anglia Integrated Business Unit.

GBR Anglia

Today with the press reveal of GBR Anglia units 357008/020 and 720144/501 and an outline of plans for GBR Anglia and the following press release produces some clarity on proceedings...

www.railforums.co.uk

Could that have something to do with it?

BBC now has a report see here:

CrossCountry cancels 'almost all' UK services after power cut

The operator says services will be "significantly disrupted" until further notice.

www.bbc.co.uk

Said report says that trains from Leeds to Manchester are affected.

It also talks about Leeds to York and Glasgow to Edinburgh which are hardly the best examples of major Crosscountry flows. I’m guessing the reporter isn’t familiar with the XC network

Not to mention the obligatory inclusion of someone ‘taking to X formerly known as Twitter’ and having a rant which is apparently worthy of publication by the national broadcaster

 

[Djgr]

Pre-privatisation, something taking down a control with no means of back-up could have affected an entire region. Perhaps we should reflect on the fragmentisation meaning that the whole railway is still open but ‘only’ minus a major train operator?

Oh great. That's okay then.

 

[The exile]

I believe XC’s control is based at their HQ in Cannon House which is just a serviced office building shared with other (non-railway) companies. I would therefore be surprised if it had the resilience that one would expect from a more conventional control centre [notwithstanding the fact there have been some high-profile failures elsewhere on the network before].

Sounds like gross neglience on the part of whoever sanctioned that arrangement.

 

[positron]

They don't want to taint the GBR brand with CrossCountry anytime soon.

That's exactly it, until GBR have a plan for more cross country carriages they'll want absolutely nothing to do with it.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Sunday at 11:53 ==

Pre-privatisation, something taking down a control with no means of back-up could have affected an entire region. Perhaps we should reflect on the fragmentisation meaning that the whole railway is still open but ‘only’ minus a major train operator?

How many routes are there with no reasonable alternative though? You can't get from Bristol to Birmingham without CrossCountry or a very indirect route via Newport. So yeah maybe not an entire region but there are chunks of the railway that are ruined by it.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Because XCs Control office is just a floor in rented office building shared with many other non railway, non safety critical businesses.

Ok fair enough, thanks! That's surprising though

No, that’s absolutely not fair enough

BC/DR * should be a fundamental for businesses, especially those operating in what used to be the public sector, ie what you might call “public critical” services. If Tesco choose not to (they don’t) then that’s their loss. This is a public service for goodness sake

Was there really nothing in the tender documents that required XC to provide and demonstrate sufficient resilience, or did the DfT accept that they’re OK if a power cut can knock out an entire TOC?


* business continuity / disaster recovery

 

[Halwynd]

Was there really nothing in the tender documents that required XC to provide and demonstrate sufficient resilience, or did the DfT accept that they’re OK if a power cut can knock out an entire TOC?


* business continuity / disaster recovery

I could be wrong, but my own understanding is that every franchise agreement has to include a business continuity plan, provided within 30 days of the franchise start date.

 

[dosxuk]

At risk of asking a stupid question, why aren't there backup generators for critical operations such as this?

How do you know there aren't?

As we have since found out, there were backup generators at the Manchester ROC, but that still lost power.

Because XCs Control office is just a floor in rented office building shared with many other non railway, non safety critical businesses.

That doesn't mean there isn't any power redundancy, plenty of shared buildings have infrastructure dedicated to a single user.

Its also a 1960/70s building that appears not to be refurbished to a modern spec (you can see the lighting internally compared to new buildings looks ancient in colour). I bet the electrical wiring internaly in places is old and has not been touched.

You can hardly work out the age of the wiring based on looking through the windows and judging the lighting. I've been to several old buildings where they've been completely re-wired in recent years, but maintain their old aesthetics.

 

[The Planner]

Could she use this as an excuse to bring forward nationalisation of the operator? I'm not saying that would instantly improve things, but it wouldn't be the first time a TOC was stripped due to some issue the TOC was responsible for.

It wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.

Indeed, and I remember all those career railwaymen who left BR and took all their operating experience with them because the privateers thought they could do it better. Well, here we are now.

Doesn't matter if it was pre BR, BR, Railtrack, TOC/FOC and soon GBR. People leave the industry with the same thoughts and people are still career railwaymen, it didn't all end in 1994.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Does anyone have any idea why the Peterborough/Cambridge/Stansted services can run? It seems weird that Control being unavailable would allow some sections to work as normal while others cannot.

I suspect this route, being separate from the core Cross Country network, may be controlled from a separate location rather than the main XC control room?

 

[brad465]

It wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.

I didn't say it would, but any government looking for PR spin would do something like this, even if the situation on the ground won't instantly change with it.

 

[The exile]

How many routes are there with no reasonable alternative though? You can't get from Bristol to Birmingham without CrossCountry or a very indirect route via Newport. So yeah maybe not an entire region but there are chunks of the railway that are ruined by it.

Agreed that it's probably not a "reasonable alternative" and may not be available on a Sunday - but for the rest of the week GW to Worcester and WM on from there would be the alternative from Bristol to Birmingham for those who have time...

 

[Iron_Duke]

I suspect this route, being separate from the core Cross Country network, may be controlled from a separate location rather than the main XC control room?

No, it's controlled from Canon House along with the other services. This puzzles me as well as it's managed from the same desk that runs the Midlands and Manchester services.

 

[ox_chap]

Nightmare if you want to travel north from Oxford. No East West rail available, changing at Worcester Parkway won”t work. Walk across Bicester it is…

 

[GoneSouth]

Just a normal weekend service on the XC Cardiff to Nottingham service then!

 

[Haywain]

Only a year to go to nationalisation (or earlier if there are any more disasters) - what is intriguing is how XC will fit into GBR. Presumably it will be divvied up amongst the 'regions', including the Control function?

Things are not going to change overnight just because GBR comes into existence. It will take years.

 

[GoneSouth]

Nightmare if you want to travel north from Oxford. No East West rail available, changing at Worcester Parkway won”t work. Walk across Bicester it is…

Changing at Shrub Hill or Foregate Street would get you to Birmingham

 

[Haywain]

Nightmare if you want to travel north from Oxford. No East West rail available, changing at Worcester Parkway won”t work. Walk across Bicester it is…

See post #33, which says:

Chiltern are doing their bit this morning, running Oxford-Birmingham services in the XC paths:

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:09539/2026-08-23/detailed

 

[NCT]

Pre-privatisation, something taking down a control with no means of back-up could have affected an entire region. Perhaps we should reflect on the fragmentisation meaning that the whole railway is still open but ‘only’ minus a major train operator?

Very good point.

 

[EYFanatic]

I apologise if this has already been answered, but why can crews not report themselves ready for duty by telephone or by text message under the circumstances or by signing a paper  something at their depots or signing on

Surely the rest of the job, ie: putting trains on the right tracks and headcode allocations, is NR's job