A signalling failure at Welwyn Garden City sparked train cancellations and hour-long delays between King’s Cross station and Stevenage on Thursday evening.
LNER, Thameslink, Great Northern, Grand Central, Hull Trains and Lumo services were all affected.
One passenger described how a 23-minute trip from Stevenage to King’s Cross took them 83 minutes on Thursday evening, adding that they were forced to travel home at 5am on Friday morning as no services were running after 11pm.
LNER trains to Leeds and Edinburgh were either delayed by up to an hour or cancelled, with passengers being offered to use their tickets for services on Friday instead.
The 4.30pm LNER service from King’s Cross to Edinburgh Waverley returned to where it started at 6.36pm in a nightmare two-hour “journey to nowhere” for the passengers on board.
LNER said on X, formerly Twitter: “Due to the severity of today's disruption, tickets for travel on [Thursday] will be valid for use on [Friday].
“If you no longer wish to travel, you can obtain a full refund on your unused ticket through your point of purchase.
“We are diverting trains where possible, but please be aware that these services will incur delay. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to your journey.”
The 7.30pm LNER service from Leeds to London King’s Cross was also cancelled.
Customers were told trains were unable to run between Potters Bar and Hatfield ”due to a complete loss of signalling”.
⚠️#LNERUpdate Due to a fault with the signalling system between #LondonKingsCross and #Peterborough, services may be subject to delays when passing in the surrounding area.
— London North Eastern Railway (@LNER) July 18, 2024
ℹ️ For live train updates: https://t.co/GbAnnasXRD pic.twitter.com/snJu2vOIYm
Meanwhile concertgoers on their way to see Suede and the Manic Street Preachers in Alexandra Palace reported being majorly delayed on Great Northern services.
National Rail said: “A fault with the signalling system at Welwyn Garden City means that all lines are blocked. As a result, trains between London and Stevenage may be cancelled, severely delayed by up to 60 minutes or diverted.”
All services that ran between Finsbury Park and Peterborough, Cambridge, and Kings Lynn were diverted via Hertford North, and delayed by up to 20 minutes.
There was also a greatly reduced service between Finsbury Park and Hertford North.
Routes affected were:
- Grand Central between London Kings Cross and Bradford Interchange / Sunderland
- Great Northern between Moorgate and Welwyn Garden City, and between London Kings Cross and Letchworth Garden City / Cambridge / Ely / Kings Lynn
- Hull Trains between London Kings Cross and Hull / Beverley
- LNER between London Kings Cross and Lincoln / Leeds / Harrogate / York / Edinburgh / Glasgow Central / Aberdeen / Inverness
- Lumo between London Kings Cross and Edinburgh
- Thameslink between Brighton and Cambridge, and Horsham and Peterborough
The issues were resolved by Friday morning shortly before UK transport networks were thrown into chaos by a global IT outage.
The outage created last-minute cancellations across Britain’s rail network.
Britain’s biggest train company Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) – which owns Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern – issued an alert on the brands’ social media channels warning of disruption on Friday.
