FrodshamJnct
Established Member
LNWR look to have told the BBC the power cut is at Crewe?
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Trains all at a stand in the Manchester area... (Thursday afternoon 06AUG2026)
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Unobrow
Member
I don’t think the doom and gloom stories are exaggerated. I also for example doubt those who have been sat on 1N66 between Deansgate and Water St for over two hours do either! At least some of the stranded trains around Picc are platformed.
Iskra
Established Member
I disagree, Piccadilly was alright because some trains started running fairly quickly. It was a different story elsewhere. It was well managed at Oxford Road though.
Indeed, similarly those stranded at Macclesfield for over 90mins would see it as fairly doom and gloom.
zwk500
Veteran Member
The last arrivals and departures at Manchester Victoria were at 1336-1338. No train has moved in the more than 2hrs since.
ox_chap
Member
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.
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.
weastebusdepot
Member
That was probably the same one I saw/heard at a stand for a while just short of Eccles signal box shortly before. The first sign I knew that anything out of the ordinary was going on.
Yeah the 15:10 was what I was aiming for, although I had a feeling it wouldn't run hence why I jumped on a tram to Altrincham. This way I can get a 5 to Stockton Heath, then onto a 9 home, albeit with a couple of pub sized connections. So it's honestly not too bad.
If I had gone to Picc to try for it, all the above would have fallen apart...
Not necessarily. A firm I worked for tested them once a month. On one occasion the Facilities Manager thought it would be smart to put the batteries on boost charge afterwards. Then he forgot and they boiled dry.
A few days later there was a real power cut and the genny failed to start leaving entire complex without any power.
You'd expect an actual on-line UPS to be powering the critical kit as the first line of defence.
With the back-up generators then starting to re-power everything else and then support the critical kit as well, until the mains supply is restored and stable.
A friend of mine on his way to start his shift is on one stuck next to Newton Heath. It's sounding like there will be an evacuation there soon too so it's seemingly not looking good what ever has been broke is very broken
Though depending on quite how big a load we're talking, the UPS may only be sized to keep things running until the generators are expected to start (i.e. a few minutes). If the generators have failed then you'll just run out of battery and everything dies a few minutes later than it otherwise would have.
Or maybe they are being proactive & ensuring people are on the right train and/or offering a form of travel advice.
Bertiethebobby
Member
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Surely the ROC must have a UPS with the batteries capable of keeping it going for a few hours should the generator fail to start. I suppose the problems come when track circuits, axle counters etc lose their local supply. Are signal heads locally powered with standby batteries?
Dave61
Member
They probably do but it is a classic in the IT world that generators get tested quite often but then one or more things happen to cause the test to be meaningless:
1. They don't do an actual switchover - just see that the generators start and never apply load
2. They have used nearly all the fuel in testing and when needed in anger there is none / little left - stop laughing there at the back as it happens all to often.
Nothing moving North from Lime street. Had a transpennine advance for the 1612 to Glasgow (going to Lancaster). Transpennine advice is do not travel but that doesn't really help me. Currently on the X2 bus to Preston. What's the terms of travel I need to be quoting to get on a train out of Preston if anything is moving. Travelling with an autistic 11 year old.
Faults can just happen whatever the mitigations. A story from one college lecturer was about a business she attended because they had their servers fail, no problem they have dual tape backups...
Turns out both tape drives were from a bad batch and as such no backups!
Turns out both tape drives were from a bad batch and as such no backups!
Bertiethebobby
Member
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Yes could be what happened, also it depends on the state of the batteries. They're going to be fine driving the UPS genny when they're being floated from the mains but take that supply away and it could go south pretty rapidly.
I was there, they were not.
MingTMerciless
New Member
At Three Bridges ROC, in the event of power failure there is a Battery UPS that catches the loss of supply and then gives the huge Diesel Generator time to spool up and settle down before the UPS hands supply duties over to the generator (a matter of a few minutes). When I was a Radio Tech I was tasked with babysitting the GSMR system, whilst we did a power outage test. There were other Telecoms techs present and a couple of members of the D&P to ensure if it didn't work as designed then we could get it back on the DNO supply and reboot any systems that fell over. It worked fine when we tested it.
chrissawer
Member
I live next to the Calder Valley line at Todmorden and a 195 has just gone past towards Manchester, the first train since around 2pm. It's this one I think https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:G89235/2026-08-06/detailed
Hopefully this means that things are moving again towards Victoria and your friend will be on the move soon.
That service is terminating at Rochdale - looks like Victoria is still entirely blocked.
QueensCurve
Established Member
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This shows the problem with what might be regarded as overcentralisation. Historically the local signal boxes were too labour intensive and there was rightly seen as a need to get away with that. What did other countries do? I know Switzerland has signal panels in stations and people seem to appear from other jobs to set routes.
If you are going to place a lot of dependence on these huge 'ROCs', a lot of thought should be going into the power supply arrangements. There should be multiple grid feeds with the opportunity to switch automatically between them along with diesel generators that can come in if needed. I once worked on a safety critical plant with A and B supplies where a failure of the A supply (I heard the bang when it disconnected at the substation). The B supply failed to take over and the diesel generator also failed to start up. Subsequent investigation showed that the B supply was in fact dependent on the A supply and there was another design issue in the diesel system. Much improvement was needed.
That one too. One piece of equipment had a redundant and a current database in the PC. The responsible person wanted to reformat the PC. i told him there were two databases and to make sure he had a copy of the right one. It turned out that the automated daily backups had been made of the redundant database and he lost all the data.
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Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
At least presumably a (lengthy) Metrolink journey is possible from there?
Calderdale Ian
Member
Nothing moving thru Victoria at the moment : Traksy shows 1321/1352 X Rochdale units at Moston and Mills Hill . The last service from Manchester Victoria for Rochdale departed at 1336 . The 1325 Chester to Leeds train has been at Newton Le Willows since 1400 .
Mcr Warrior
Veteran Member
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Indeed. Ticket acceptance in place via Metrolink. Typically at least an extra 30 minutes or so's journey time, though, possibly longer.
zwk500
Veteran Member
If the trains can get to Rochdale, that is. 1J21 (the train mentioned passing Todmorden above) seems to be being held at Littleborough. Otherwise Northern are going to be getting some big claims for taxi bills coming through...
Mcr Warrior
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Presumably Northern (and the other TOCs) will in turn be due some not insignificant amount of compensation from Network Rail?
Real Time Trains shows every train on the Standedge route to have been cancelled for the last three hours, apart from one or two near the end which are not running through, but not yet shown as cancelled. My wife's very relieved she works from home on Thursdays!
zwk500
Veteran Member
Oh I dread to think what the Schedule 8 cost for NR will be at the end of all this! Although note that the compensation from NR is tied to the value of each minute's delay/cancellations of the TOC's trains, not the value of any compensation the TOC may be required to pay out to their passengers.