Leeds Disruption - 26/07/25

[Crossover]

I’ve got a friend with me in Leeds who needs to get back to Chatham tonight, which could be fun!

Both still saying all lines are blocked!

A few things have moved but I think mainly into Leeds. There are still trains stuck at Batley, Dewsbury, Ravensthorpe, Mirfield, Sowerby Bridge and Halifax, so it’s not ideal

 

[DarloRich]

I’ve got a friend with me in Leeds who needs to get back to Chatham tonight, which could be fun!

I would drive or coast liner them to York asap!

 

[Crossover]

I would drive or coast liner them to York asap!

The difficulty is they have booked assistance so any changes are going to mess that up too.

Apparently there are buses from Leeds to Doncaster so Wakefield may be an option

 

[GatwickDepress]

Passed by the station on my way home from work a couple of hours ago. Never seen it so packed.

First weekend of the school holidays here too, so not a good start.

 

[pdq]

Things are moving. I just arrived at Dewsbury (via buses) and a train just set off towards Leeds

 

[tram21]

Lots of LNER trains bound for Leeds have diverted/ are diverting to York, avoiding Wakefield and Leeds.

 

[Peterthegreat]

Lots of LNER trains bound for Leeds have diverted/ are diverting to York, avoiding Wakefield and Leeds.

Some cross country services also diverted via Doncaster.

 

[Crossover]

One train has come through my local station, Bramley. But I think that was largely to get a platform clear for a GC at Interchange

 

[Donny Dave]

Is there a problem in Doncaster as well, or is just the sheet number of trains in the area? I've noticed there is quite a few going to the IEP depot, so that could be causing extra congestion.

 

[northernchris]

Northern have issued their usual 'do not travel' warning to get them out of providing any alternative travel. After seeing the queue for the regular buses, I decided not to travel, so will see how many attempts it takes Northern to issue a refund.

 

[Crossover]

Ironically my friends’ booked train from Bramley was only 10 late!

Not sure will happen at Leeds, mind, but hopefully there is some arrangement

Things seem to be unblocking a bit now. I’ve just seen a train from Leeds to Chester

The PIS at Bramley is in complete meltdown!

 

[bigmanaiq]

Was trying to get home from Doncaster unaware of what had happened at around half 5 ish. Frustrating northern aren’t providing a rail replacement of some sort, luckily im a 25 minute taxi away from Doncaster

 

[Crossover]

Was trying to get home from Doncaster unaware of what had happened at around half 5 ish. Frustrating northern aren’t providing a rail replacement of some sort, luckily im a 25 minute taxi away from Doncaster

Given the whole of West Yorkshire (and then some) has been completely shafted by whatever has happened, it is perhaps unsurprising that there aren’t any RRB’s. It’s not like a single line affected, it is virtually everything

 

[zwk500]

Was trying to get home from Doncaster unaware of what had happened at around half 5 ish. Frustrating northern aren’t providing a rail replacement of some sort, luckily im a 25 minute taxi away from Doncaster

Whilst I understand the frustration, trying to get hold of any drivers for RRB work, let alone enough of them to operate any kind of service, at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon would have been essentially impossible.

It will be interesting to hear what the podcasts have to say in a few weeks. Most of them are quite good at getting interviews with NR and TOCs.

 

[Killingworth]

Just seen a rammed TPE 3 car South Pennine arriving in Sheffield. Preceeding Northern stopper was well filled too. The Tramlines music festival is on this weekend and has kept that line busy without any diverted trsffic - although I could see no official suggestions to do so.

 

[Class158North]

I got caught in this while travelling on 1D17 1403 KGX - LDS. Got held just after South Elmsall for about 85 minutes, then moved forward to Fitzwilliam where we waited about another 25 minutes before finally arriving at Westgate. Although, looking at some of the later services, I probably got it better than others. I do feel for the other passengers caught up in this and the staff having to deal with this too!

 

[MichaelTrains]

This is completely unacceptable by Northern this.

They cancel all the trains and leave 100’s of people stranded with no way of reaching our final destinations.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Jul 2025 ==

One train has come through my local station, Bramley. But I think that was largely to get a platform clear for a GC at Interchange

Yes earlier on Platform one and three were completely stacked full of units.

 

[Iskra]

There are signs that things are coming back to life now.

 

[JordR]

This is completely unacceptable by Northern this.

They cancel all the trains and leave 100’s of people stranded with no way of reaching our final destinations.

Given this appears to be a widespread signalling failure, and Northern don't run the signalling, what exactly would you propose they do? They can't run trains and I don't think a practical bus service could be run on virtually every route in West Yorkshire as has previously been said.

This feels like a really unfortunate event that I'm sure will be investigated by Network Rail after the fact.

 

[Crossover]

This is completely unacceptable by Northern this.

They cancel all the trains and leave 100’s of people stranded with no way of reaching our final destinations.

What do you suggest they do, when the whole of West Yorkshire (and beyond) is crippled?

 

[MichaelTrains]

Given this appears to be a widespread signalling failure, and Northern don't run the signalling, what exactly would you propose they do? They can't run trains and I don't think a practical bus service could be run on virtually every route in West Yorkshire as has previously been said.

This feels like a really unfortunate event that I'm sure will be investigated by Network Rail after the fact.

Source and run rail replacement vehicles.

To just give up and abandon 100s of passengers, many with young children is completely unacceptable.

Talk about a pathetic waving of the white flag.

 

[Crossover]

Source and run rail replacement vehicles.

From where?

It wasn’t a single line affected - there were trains stranded at a whole raft of stations (and in between) for a chunk of the afternoon

 

[nr758123]

What do you suggest they do, when all the whole of West Yorkshire (and beyond) is crippled?

Source and run rail replacement vehicles.

With TPE running a fairly large scale bus replacement service to cover the weekend closure of Stalybridge-Huddersfield-Heaton Lodge, sourcing even more replacement buses and drivers at short notice would be difficult.

 

[Peterthegreat]

Around 300 trains in total were either cancelled or ran horrendously late.
That may have required around a thousand buses. I'm sure they could have managed that if they had tried a little bit harder (sarcasm).

 

[MichaelTrains]

With TPE running a fairly large scale bus replacement service to cover the weekend closure of Stalybridge-Huddersfield-Heaton Lodge, sourcing even more replacement buses and drivers at short notice would be difficult.

So we are just expected to accept that we are stranded and have no way of getting to our destination.

Utterly disgraceful.

 

[800001]

So we are just expected to accept that we are stranded and have no way of getting to our destination.

Utterly disgraceful.

What do you expect the Train companies to do.

I can guarantee each company straight away will have been on the phone to the rail replacement organisers, or in LNER case sat next to the senior controllers in York Roc.

I know very well that 95% of the time only one or two coaches can ever been sourced. Many a time the answer from bus companies is a big fat no.

If they say no, there really isn't a lot that they can do.

Despite what many people on this forum think, rail companies do try and source replacements in situations like this

 

[signed]

So we are just expected to accept that we are stranded and have no way of getting to our destination.

Utterly disgraceful.

In an ideal world with unlimited resources, unlimited workforce, sure

But what do you propose a TOC should do in this situation where fetching any kind of transport, especially bus is very likely to be impossible?

 

[Crossover]

Around 300 trains in total were either cancelled or ran horrendously late.
That may have required around a thousand buses. I'm sure they could have managed that if they had tried a little bit harder (sarcasm).

I’m not huge fan of Northern and some of their decisions, but on this one I really don’t know what else they could have done!

 

[Iskra]

I’ve managed to catch a train into Leeds from Sandal & Agbrigg, and we’ve passed Wakefield Westgate so there’s no going back now

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Jul 2025 ==

Presumably with it being Sunday tomorrow, there could be residual disruption from this continuing into Monday?

 

[norbitonflyer]

Northern have issued their usual 'do not travel' warning to get them out of providing any alternative travel.

All very well to say "do not travel", but at that time of day that's a bit late - most people will be trying to get home. I cuold so easily have been among them as I would have been at Ribblehead when it all went wrong, and would have been stranded at Leeds overnight. At least it's a mild one.