All cross country services suspended 23/08/26

[railpigeon]

I quote my tweet to them from a moment ago…

“Can you somehow pass on my thanks to all the staff today on 1V52. I joined at Leeds and enjoyed the party to Newton Abbot.

The people on the front line were patient, courteous, firm, informative, assiduous in the right measure.

Not their fault that Cross Country is an institutional, mis-resourced shambles on which a 3 (standard class) car DMU is considered adequate for one of the longest routes in the UK.

To have patrolled the carriages today handing out customer
service feedback forms really deserves a medal.

Cross Country 1V52 on-board team: I salute you.”

 

[cats_five]

Car wins every time over the hell that is XC.

It doesn't from Scotland to Penzance. If money is no object then LNER / GWR does.

 

[sh24]

Absolutely true. But does “a power cut” really come under the heading of “curveballs and wrinkles and unexpected stuff”?!?

Very true / I guess I don’t know enough about the specifics to judge if this was predicable or out of the leftfield. Or even a conscious decision that a power cut was so unlike it was pointless having a fallback facility.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 19:08 ==

Is it a British thing that we seem to put up with this level of incompetence?

I can't help but think that in some other countries, those responsible for such ineptitude would have to fall on their sword or else be outed.

Have you seen the mess that is Deutsche Bahn?!

 

[andyjhatton]

Have you seen the mess that is Deutsche Bahn?!

I'm aware of it yes.
And I'm old enough to remember the Jürgen the German sketch form Harry Enfield and chums.

I know many of the structural issues with DB are the same as faced here, so sooner or later we'll join our German cousins. Something to look forward to.

 

[dosxuk]

Absolutely true. But does “a power cut” really come under the heading of “curveballs and wrinkles and unexpected stuff”?!?

Depends if the only issue was the power cut. Personally I find it hard to believe that in 20 years at the same location they've never had an opportunity to discover that a power cut will mean no trains operate the following day. Which to me means there must be more to the story that just "there was a power cut so we went home".

Is it a British thing that we seem to put up with this level of incompetence?

I can't help but think that in some other countries, those responsible for such ineptitude would have to fall on their sword or else be outed.

Is it a British thing that we think that we like to think what we do is the worst in the world? We might be far from the best, but there's plenty of countries with far worse attitudes to recovery, information dissemination and customer service than the UK.

 

[GoneSouth]

It doesn't from Scotland to Penzance. If money is no object then LNER / GWR does.

Probably cheaper that way to be fair. XC are so outrageously expensive

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 20:43 ==

Depends if the only issue was the power cut. Personally I find it hard to believe that in 20 years at the same location they've never had an opportunity to discover that a power cut will mean no trains operate the following day. Which to me means there must be more to the story that just "there was a power cut so we went home".


Is it a British thing that we think that we like to think what we do is the worst in the world? We might be far from the best, but there's plenty of countries with far worse attitudes to recovery, information dissemination and customer service than the UK.

As one irritating TV personality used to say…

Distinctly average

 

[Dave61]

Depends if the only issue was the power cut. Personally I find it hard to believe that in 20 years at the same location they've never had an opportunity to discover that a power cut will mean no trains operate the following day. Which to me means there must be more to the story that just "there was a power cut so we went home".

Depends on the severity of the power cut: was it local to their building (as it seems in this case) or was central Birmingham taken out, in the latter case New Street would also probably be blacked out and XC's problems would fade into the background.

Most power cuts in the UK are usually power blips that get recified or routed round fairly quickly, and a local UPS should ride those out for a few minutes. Obviously other events like bad weather, JCB taking out the only feed to your street/area or power substations blowing up (aka Heathrow) take a lot longer to recover from but then again in these latter cases the issue is probably likey to be fairly widespread again.

 

[AndrewE]

It does seem to have been a local power cut, NCE says (https://www.newcivilengineer.com/la...ut-at-control-centre-shut-network-24-08-2026/)

The distribution network operator for Birmingham is National Grid Electricity Distribution and a spokesperson said: “Our engineers completed repairs overnight and power has been restored following a fault affecting CrossCountry’s Birmingham control centre.


“We know this disruption will have been frustrating for passengers and we’re sorry for the inconvenience caused.”

Still not good enough though... Something this important should have a serious UPS and a stand-by generator (i.e. XC were at fault, not the DNO)

 

[Elorith]

It does seem to have been a local power cut, NCE says (https://www.newcivilengineer.com/la...ut-at-control-centre-shut-network-24-08-2026/)

Still not good enough though... Something this important should have a serious UPS and a stand-by generator (i.e. XC were at fault, not the DNO)

There are both UPS batteries and emergency generators on-site, so it appears to have been a multi-layered collapse where the failure of one system compromised the other, or a common-cause event took out both safety nets at the same time.

 

[ox_chap]

Agree I wish this was the regular Oxford - Brum service, hope Chiltern/DFT look at how it can be implemented as relief from XC on that stretch.

That would be just great. Sometimes to avoid crush loadings when returning to Oxford, I'll go as far as I can from Brum on Chiltern (which is Banbury of course), and then it should be just 20 minutes on XC to get to Oxford.

Slightly off-topic from XC (sorry mods). For the summer Sunday stoppers to access the canal between Oxford and Banbury, I've always thought this should be an extension of the Chiltern service from Marylebone to Oxford. So out with the crayons - how about a two-hourly Marylebone-Bicester-Oxford-local stops-Banbury-Leamington-Stratford upon Avon. Cheap Sunday rover tickets for the train. Could make a brilliant tourist service, along with a spot of shopping at Bicester Village if that appealed. OK, it would be slow, but who cares if you were a tourist and wanted to see lots of sights in one day - and enjoy all the nice scenery on the way.

 

[A S Leib]

OK, it would be slow, but who cares if you were a tourist and wanted to see lots of sights in one day - and enjoy all the nice scenery on the way

You'd see little enough of the sights of Oxford from the train that most tourists doing the London – Bicester – Oxford – Stratford-upon-Avon circuit would be getting off at Oxford anyway, so a direct train wouldn't help as much. There's also the Cowley branch to consider as I think that's planned to be Marylebone services.

12 CrossCountry passenger services fully or partially cancelled at New Street today seems at least no worse than last Monday (19 full or partial cancellations, including the first Cardiff, Stansted and Bournemouth services of the day).

 

[ox_chap]

You'd see little enough of the sights of Oxford from the train that most tourists doing the London – Bicester – Oxford – Stratford-upon-Avon circuit would be getting off at Oxford anyway, so a direct train wouldn't help as much. There's also the Cowley branch to consider as I think that's planned to be Marylebone services.

12 CrossCountry passenger services fully or partially cancelled at New Street today seems at least no worse than last Monday (19 full or partial cancellations, including the first Cardiff, Stansted and Bournemouth services of the day).

Yes, I do mean get off the train at Oxford. So suggesting with a rover ticket is, say, two hours in Bicester, two hours in Oxford, two hours in Stratford u Avon. Or a walk along the Oxford canal. All sorts of combinations. Ultimately all Chiltern trains will reach Cowley, as you suggest. I work with a lot of international students, and many say they always like the Marylebone run from Oxford because much of the scenery is “so pretty and English”.

Back to XC, it’s always tempting to suggest Oxford visitors make longer trips. But if it all goes wrong, and you’re in a country where you cannot assess the alternatives, it could become a miserable experience. Thinking back to last Sunday and the Chinese family at Oxford expecting to catch a train northwards, and cannot understand what has happened.

 

[cats_five]

Probably cheaper that way to be fair. XC are so outrageously expensive

Thats edinburgh to penzance via london. No, xc are cheaper and no need to transit from kx to Paddington with a big suitcase. Changing platforms at Plymouth was more than enough.

 

[DelW]

Thats edinburgh to penzance via london. No, xc are cheaper and no need to transit from kx to Paddington with a big suitcase. Changing platforms at Plymouth was more than enough.

Thameslink to Farringdon then Elizabeth Line to Paddington should be step-free if the relevant lifts are all working.

It occurred to me on Sunday that that might be the best option for XC passengers diverting via London, whose tickets wouldn't have had validity for transfers via the Tube.

 

[jagardner1984]

The bit that confuses me. Obviously there was a fault in one location, potentially wiping out the local backup.

But wouldn’t a simple solution, given presumably a lot of these systems are cloud based or have cloud backup, for ALL of the TOCs, or different bits of GBR in the future, be to effectively have empty computers / desk space at another location, like a ROC or a reciprocal arrangement with another neighbouring TOC, to allow staff to connect to some systems from another secure, railway location ?

Not suggesting it is easy or free, but can’t imagine delay repay for tens of thousands of people is particularly cheap either.

I suppose the bigger fear is that as GBR potentially eyes up more “efficiency savings” - that you potentially have more control function affected by a single or single location point of failure.

I suspect resilience - not just in transport but health, education, banking - will become an increasingly active topic as the vulnerability of those services is a route to causing major economic harm. Which of course some other countries will have a definite interest in, as being rather a more convenient way of causing harm than sending operatives to Salisbury to explore some historical tourist hotspots.

 

[Haywain]

Thameslink to Farringdon

Aren't the lifts at St Pancras Thameslink platforms currently out of action?

 

[duffield]

Thameslink to Farringdon then Elizabeth Line to Paddington should be step-free if the relevant lifts are all working.

It occurred to me on Sunday that that might be the best option for XC passengers diverting via London, whose tickets wouldn't have had validity for transfers via the Tube.

Yes, it should be step-free but it's really not at all hassle free with luggage, multiple lifts** with waiting time, quite long walks down various tunnels involved, serious crowds at time, it's really a pretty nasty experience with heavy luggage, compared to getting on a train at Edinburgh, stowing your luggage, sitting down and that's it. If XC worked properly and had enough capacity it would be a far, far superior experience than going via London.

**The chances of at least one of the sets of lifts being out of order are pretty high when so many are involved - is it four or is it more?

 

[Recessio]

Depends if the only issue was the power cut. Personally I find it hard to believe that in 20 years at the same location they've never had an opportunity to discover that a power cut will mean no trains operate the following day. Which to me means there must be more to the story that just "there was a power cut so we went home".

It's possible that they do have some form of backup continuity / recovery systems that have functioned in the past, but for some reason didn't work this time. I guess we'll see when more information is released in the future

 

[rmHawk765]

Just to let people know, you don't need all your services on the cloud for them to be reliable or accessible from the Internet... you can also just, you know, have backup servers in other physical locations?

The push to cloud services is purely as a result of companies that cannot be asked to upgrade their decades-old on-premises infrastructure, opting to ignore the host of issues that comes with a cloud approach.

 

[Hadders]

Thameslink to Farringdon then Elizabeth Line to Paddington should be step-free if the relevant lifts are all working.

It occurred to me on Sunday that that might be the best option for XC passengers diverting via London, whose tickets wouldn't have had validity for transfers via the Tube.

Hammersmith & City Line from Kings Cross St Pancras to Paddington has lifts.

 

[WelshBluebird]

It is worth repeating that we dont know the details. It is likely there was some redundancy and a backup plan but for whatever reason it didnt work.

That is actually not that uncommon as backup systems by their very nature arent something you use all the time. Faults could have arisen in them that you hadnt been able to notice, the situation may be subtly different to what you had expected or something unforeseen may have happened.

The important part is learning from it. I hope XC, NR and the DfT do the kind of five whys / post-mortem you often see in the software world to really get as much from this as possible. I'd also hope at least some of this can be done in the open and made public - again from the software world some of the best examples are from companies like Cloudflare who public detailed blogs about the incidents when they learn the root causes etc.

Thameslink to Farringdon then Elizabeth Line to Paddington should be step-free if the relevant lifts are all working.

Even if step free through London, that is still a huge pain compared to a direct train thiugh (and of course wouldn't be steps free onto and off of the mainline services either side).

 

[snookertam]

It is 2026. In 2026 this sort of thing is cloud based and people access from laptops from home.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Sunday at 20:45 ==



This is simply not true of any part of the IT industry I have experience of (and this is my job).

Laptops and VPNs or cloud services are a key part of almost any business's resilience plans. Fire alarm? Go to Starbucks.

Operating a railway control from Starbucks. I’ve seen some daft stuff on here but this is a belter.

 

[Acathater]

There's always one problem when you have backup sites......local management may have different ideas.

I once went to an NHS site to upgrade a backup suite of around 30 PCs. They were fallbacks for the central booking line in case the main site had to be closed / evacuated.

When I got on site I found not one of the thirty working: they'd all been stripped as "christmas trees" because the local site management felt they had a better idea of how and where to use them.

I raised a job to get them replaced urgently, which I did next day. Went back a week later to do some finishing off and guess what.......half of them had been stripped again.

They'd been hijacked and used to replace other older machines on site. Official complaints went in, but nothing was resolved. The backup suite simply didn't exist as a useable resource.

 

[Carlisle]

Operating a railway control from Starbucks. I’ve seen some daft stuff on here but this is a belter.

Better that than nothing running at all.

 

[zwk500]

Better that than nothing running at all.

It would be the same effect.

 

[blimmo]

The important part is learning from it. I hope XC, NR and the DfT do the kind of five whys / post-mortem you often see in the software world to really get as much from this as possible. I'd also hope at least some of this can be done in the open and made public - again from the software world some of the best examples are from companies like Cloudflare who public detailed blogs about the incidents when they learn the root causes etc.

Ha! I will eat my hat if there is any publicly released information about this incident ever again. Maybe it can be FOIed once XC transfer to public ownership.

 

[Recessio]

Operating a railway control from Starbucks. I’ve seen some daft stuff on here but this is a belter.

You joke, but a few years ago I used to work in a building that also shared offices with a TOC (not Cross Country) and the building evacuation plan was just to disperse at least 100 metres.

The fire alarm went off once, and there was a pub 125 metres away that we inevitably headed to.

As well as most of my colleagues, I also did see people wearing that TOC's lanyards, with laptops out - I don't think this particular office had anything "mission critical" for that TOC though.

 

[GordonT]

Operating a railway control from Starbucks. I’ve seen some daft stuff on here but this is a belter.

Does have the important virtue of supplying free refills of standard tea/coffee provided you remain within the premises.

 

[Bikeman78]

Is it a British thing that we seem to put up with this level of incompetence?

I can't help but think that in some other countries, those responsible for such ineptitude would have to fall on their sword or else be outed.

The same thing happened to the Dutch Railways quite recently. No service across most of the country for a day. Everything is done by computer now.

I seem to recall British Airways had a computer failure which meant hundreds of flights cancelled, presumably worldwide. On a smaller scale, the computers crashed at McDonalds outside Liverpool Street one evening when I was passing. Lots of staff, lots of hungry people, lots of food but no way to sell it to them because the computer said no.

 

[sharpener]

You joke, but a few years ago I used to work in a building that also shared offices with a TOC (not Cross Country) and the building evacuation plan was just to disperse at least 100 metres. Fire alarm went off once, and there was a pub 125 metres away that we inevitably headed to. As well as most of my colleagues, I also did see people wearing that TOC's lanyards, with laptops out - I don't think this particular office had anything "mission critical" for that TOC though.

Not a good plan. I was seconded for a while to a central goverment office when bomb scares were quite frequent. The evacuation plan (which was never varied) was to congregate in a public space 200m away. I only went once, after that I reckoned the ppl who started the bomb scare were only too capable of putting the bomb at the evacuation point.