‘Do not travel’ warning issued after major disruption at Manchester Piccadilly
Passengers face a nightmare rush hour at Manchester Piccadilly station after trains ground to a halt.
Thousands of commuters should brace for disruption after damage to the overhead cables at Manchester Piccadilly hit trains this afternoon.
Engineers are on site, but the disruption will continue until the end of the day, National Rail warned.
Trains to and from the station will be cancelled or delayed by up to 60 minutes.
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Affected trains from London Euston will call at Stockport instead.
Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, Northern, East Midlands Railway, TransPennine Express and Transport for Wales services are among the affected.
Northern told passengers not to travel between Manchester Piccadilly and Crew, Stoke on Trent, Hadfield, Buxton, and Chester as this route will have no rail replacement buses.
Trains are able to run between the station and Manchester Airport, but services will be delayed and cancelled, it said.
Avanti said passengers can use their tickets for today for no extra cost tomorrow instead. And if you had to abandon your journey because of the disruption, you can claim refund, it said.
What trains are cancelled at Manchester Piccadilly?
A chunk of services has already been axed.
Here are some of them that have been listed as cancelled so far.
- Avanti West Coast services to London Euston at 14:54, 15:14, 15:34, and 15:54
- EMR 14:43 to Norwich
- Northern 14:46 to Stoke-on-Trent
- Northern 14:51 to Buxton
Passengers should make note of their travel time as they are likely to be entitled to compensation or delay repay if their journey is more than 15 minutes late.
A spokesperson for Network Rail told Metro: ‘We are currently responding to an issue with overhead line equipment at Manchester Piccadilly which is causing severe disruption to train services.
‘At present, most trains in and out of Piccadilly will be delayed or cancelled.
‘Our teams are on site working to resolve the issue. Disruption is expected to continue until the end of the day. Ticket acceptance is in place on rail and some Bee Network services. Please check with train operators or the National Rail website for more.
‘We are sorry to passengers for the disruption this has caused, and we are working to get people moving as soon as possible.’
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