More misery on the trains for North-west passengers
8:39am Wednesday 7th January 2009 in Search Module
West Coast Mainline Services from WSigan and Manchester have been badly hit.
Rail passengers endured yet another morning of rush-hour misery today after overhead cable problems halted all but a few trains into one of the UK’s busiest stations.
Neither the Virgin Trains nor London Midland rail companies were able to operate in or out of London’s Euston station today after the cable failure near Wembley in north west London last night.
Most trains from Manchester Piccadilly were cancelled.
Passengers arriving at Euston station this morning were greeted by virtually empty departure boards and announcements telling them to seek alternative routes.
No Virgin or London Midland trains were running from the station this morning and passengers were being directed to other London stations. They were told their tickets would be valid on alternative routes.
Many of those waiting had no idea there were problems until they arrived.
Samantha Buckley, 21, had returned from a skiing holiday in France and expected to catch the 8.20am Manchester Piccadilly service home to Wilmslow.
”I don’t really know what’s going on. I don’t know what I’ll do now,” she said.
The only trains able to use Euston today were those run by the London Overground company.
Virgin had to cancel a number of services and also had to take passengers from Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire to London by bus.
London Midland was not able to run any trains between London and Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, while ScotRail had to divert sleeper services. Trains run by the Southern rail company were also affected.
Commuters battling to get to work against the extreme cold had delays of around 90 minutes because of the Euston problems.
There were also delays of up to an hour for National Express East Anglia passengers this morning following signalling problems at Clacton-on-Sea in Essex.
A Network Rail (NR) spokesman said: “We hope to have a limited service operating out of Euston by midday.”
Today’s travel chaos was particularly harsh for Virgin passengers on the West Coast Main Line, who have been hit by a series of incidents over the last few days.
The line was closed after a light plane crashed near the tracks near Stafford on Friday in an accident which claimed three lives.
Then overhead cable problems at Watford in Hertfordshire led to delays and cancellations on Sunday and Monday this week.
Just as the Watford incident was fixed, West Coast passengers had to put up with more delays yesterday following two overhead wire problems - one north of Rugby in the West Midlands, the other at Bletchley in Buckinghamshire.
To add to yesterday’s difficulties - on a line where a £9 billion upgrade has just been completed - there was a broken rail between Coventry and Birmingham.
The NR spokesman added today: “We have had an extraordinary list of unfortunate incidents. They are not related.”
This is the second new year running that rail passengers have had to endure long hold-ups.
Last year three major engineering projects - including one on the West Coast line at Rugby - overran, resulting in travel chaos. NR was later fined a record £14 million by the Office of Rail Regulation.
