CrossCountry Cancels Trains on Almost All Routes After Birmingham Power Cut

BIRMINGHAM, England — CrossCountry has cancelled trains across almost all of its routes Sunday after a major power cut in Birmingham affected systems at the rail operator’s control centre.

Services to destinations including Edinburgh, Sheffield, Manchester, Bristol, Exeter, Penzance, Cardiff and Bournemouth have been cancelled or significantly reduced.

Power Cut Hits CrossCountry Control Centre

The outage began Saturday and affected the Birmingham building housing CrossCountry’s control centre, leaving many of the systems used to manage train operations unavailable.

CrossCountry said staff are using alternative procedures to operate as many trains as possible, but passengers should expect widespread cancellations and significant disruption throughout Sunday.

Most CrossCountry Routes Affected

Services between Peterborough, Cambridge and Stansted Airport are expected to operate at near-normal levels.

Other rail operators serving Birmingham, including Avanti West Coast, West Midlands Railway, Transport for Wales and Chiltern Railways, are not affected by the CrossCountry control-centre outage.

Passengers booked on cancelled CrossCountry services are being allowed to use their tickets with other participating train operators.