Electrical failure causes rail disruption in Midlands and north-west England

An electricity supply failure at a communications centre is causing major disruption to trains in the Midlands and north-west England, National Rail has said.

The rail group reported the incident shortly after 2pm and expects journeys to be impacted until at least the end of the day.

TransPennine Express said: “All trains will be stopped due to a failure of the communication systems on the network. Trains are unable to run safely.”

Services across its entire network will be cancelled and delayed, it added.

Meanwhile train operator Northern advised customers not to travel.

Services in the Greater Manchester area, the Midlands and north-west England are being affected by the outage.

A National Rail spokesperson said: “This is expected to cause major disruption until the end of the day.

“If you’re travelling Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, London Northwestern, Northern, TransPennine Express, or Transport for Wales in the affected area your train may be cancelled, delayed, or revised.

“Please allow extra time to make your journey this afternoon as you may need to use an alternative route or change trains part-way through to reach your destination.”

Published: 06/08/2026 by Radio NewsHub