Passengers across the Midlands and north-west England faced a second day of delays on Friday after a brief power cut disabled the main signalling control centre for the region's railways.
The outage struck at about 1.40pm on Thursday, affecting more than 400 postcodes in Manchester and around 5,000 customers. Among the buildings that lost supply was the Manchester Rail Operating Centre near Ashburys station, the hub that controls signalling across the north-west network.
Ninety seconds was enough
A spokesperson said all power was restored within 90 seconds. That was long enough to cause a day and a half of disruption: the Press Association understands that Network Rail's back-up generators did not activate immediately, and signals across the network defaulted to red, halting services and triggering widespread cancellations.
Network Rail said it had fully restored signalling systems late on Thursday and returned displaced trains to their depots before Friday's service began. By Friday morning it reported that most services across the north-west were running, and that most operators were back to a full timetable, with residual delays as crews and rolling stock returned to their scheduled positions.
What passengers should expect
National Rail Enquiries warned that disruption was likely to continue until around midday on Friday and advised travellers to check before setting out. A number of ticket restrictions were relaxed to help passengers reach their destinations on alternative services.
Network Rail has opened an investigation into why the back-up supply failed to pick up the load. The incident renews a long-standing question about the resilience of signalling infrastructure that depends on external power: a comparable failure in August 2019 prompted a formal review by the Office of Rail and Road.
