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Tuesday 24 Nov 2015

Apologies to passengers after signal failure affects travel through the Leamington Spa area

Region & Route:

| North West & Central

Network Rail has apologised to passengers after they faced delays this morning (24 November) following an overnight signal failure between Leamington Spa and Banbury.

Engineers were alerted just before 2am and worked through the night to complete repairs by 7.20am but the incident meant many trains were affected in the early morning peak.

Signals are the railway's traffic lights and guide trains around the network. When there is any problem with them working correctly, signals turn to red and services are stopped in the affected area until the issue is fixed. This keeps trains and passengers, as well as the engineers making the repairs, safe.

The disruption follows Monday’s engineering overrun which also affected services through the area.

Liam Sumpter, area director for Network Rail said: “I apologise to passengers using any trains affected by this morning’s disruption. Although we were able to fix the issue and get trains running before the height of the morning peak, there was still significant disruption to services. We will still be looking into what happened and how we can prevent problems in the future. I reiterate my apology for yesterday’s engineering overrun too and we will be learning lessons as part of our ongoing commitment to provide a better railway for passengers.”

London Midland, CrossCountry and Chiltern Railways services were affected by the incidents, as well as freight trains through the area. 

Passengers should always check before they travel for the latest travel information at www.nationalrail.co.uk.