A power cut at CrossCountry’s Birmingham control centre resulted in the cancellation of nearly all train services operated by the company across Great Britain on Sunday. Multiple major routes were impacted by the outages, including services connecting Glasgow to Edinburgh, Manchester to Birmingham, Cheltenham to Cardiff, and Newcastle to Edinburgh.
The rail operator indicated that a limited number of trains would resume operation around 6pm on Sunday, with expectations for normal service to resume by Monday. A near-normal service was maintained on the Peterborough, Cambridge and Stansted Airport route, while replacement bus services operated between Leicester and Peterborough. Passengers holding CrossCountry tickets were permitted to travel with competing operators on equivalent routes, with tickets remaining valid through Wednesday 26 August.
Other rail operators stepped in to assist affected passengers. Chiltern Railways added supplementary services between Birmingham Moor Street and Oxford and agreed to accept CrossCountry tickets via any reasonable route. LNER also announced it would honor CrossCountry tickets to help customers reach their destinations.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander expressed concern about the disruption and confirmed that publicly owned operators were being asked to provide additional services where feasible. Network Rail power teams were deployed to the site to restore electrical systems and operational capacity. Passengers whose trains were delayed by 30 minutes or more are eligible for delay repay compensation, and those choosing not to travel may request refunds.
This incident represents the latest in a pattern of service disruptions affecting CrossCountry. In June, the passenger advocacy organization Transport Focus had issued a warning to the operator regarding performance improvements needed, citing particular dissatisfaction among CrossCountry customers regarding delay management and overcrowding issues.
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