BIRMINGHAM — CrossCountry cancelled almost all of its train services across Great Britain on Sunday after a power cut in Birmingham affected its control centre.
The operator said most services would stay cancelled until further notice, leaving passengers facing major disruption on routes including Glasgow to Edinburgh, Manchester to Birmingham, Cheltenham to Cardiff and Newcastle to Edinburgh.
It said a near normal service was still expected between Peterborough, Cambridge and Stansted Airport, while a rail replacement bus service was running between Leicester and Peterborough.
CrossCountry also said only a very limited number of trains would run from around 6pm, with normal service expected to return on Monday.
Passengers told to use other operators as tickets remain valid
CrossCountry told customers that tickets for Sunday could be used with other train operators on the same route. It also said those tickets would stay valid on CrossCountry services until Wednesday 26 August.
Chiltern Railways said it had added services between Birmingham Moor Street and Oxford, and would accept all CrossCountry tickets via any reasonable route.
LNER said it would also accept CrossCountry tickets to help affected passengers reach their destinations. That gave travellers some flexibility while disruption remained widespread across the network.
The operator urged customers to check for further updates before travelling, as the scale of cancellations meant arrangements could change again during the day.
Heidi Alexander says Network Rail teams are on site restoring power
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was concerned by the outage and understood the frustration it would cause for passengers.
She said the Peterborough, Cambridge and Stansted Airport service was still running, and that publicly owned operators had been asked to lay on extra services where possible.
Alexander added that Network Rail power teams had been sent to the site and were working to restore power and systems as soon as possible.
Her comments came as CrossCountry said it was working closely with relevant partners and would issue further updates once it had more information about the recovery effort.
Compensation and refunds are available for delayed or unwilling passengers
Customers are entitled to delay repay compensation if their train is delayed by 30 minutes or more. Those who decide not to travel can claim a refund.
The disruption comes after a run of delays and cancellations on CrossCountry services, with the passenger watchdog warning the operator earlier this year that it needed to improve its performance.
In June, Transport Focus urged CrossCountry to improve passenger information during disruption and address overcrowding on its trains. Its survey found overall satisfaction on trains was 87% for rail customers, but only 79% for CrossCountry passengers.
CrossCountry customers were also reported to be the most dissatisfied with how the operator handled delays, underlining the scale of concern around reliability before Sunday’s outage.
The latest UK news and stories from Bailey Universe.
