Derailment of freight train at Ely affecting services between Ely and Peterborough

Monday 14 Aug 2017

Derailment of freight train at Ely affecting services between Ely and Peterborough

Region & Route:: Eastern: Anglia; | Eastern

Services between Ely and Peterborough are being affected following the derailment of a freight train that has also caused significant damage to the track. Network Rail engineers expect that the recovery to take several days. Passengers are urged to check with their train operators before traveling this evening and over the next few days.

The incident occurred at approximately 14:40 on Monday 14 August, when 11 wagons of a 33 wagon freight train travelling north of Ely derailed. No one was injured.

Trains are unable to run between Ely and Peterborough and other services through the area may be disrupted or affected by knock-on delays.

Network Rail engineers are on site working to recover the derailed wagons, which is likely to take a number of days as they will require to be lifted away by crane. The track is also damaged and will need to be replaced before services can run again. Further updates and timescales will be released over the next few days.

Simon Ancona, Network Rail’s chief operating officer for Anglia, said: "This is a serious incident and our engineers are on site working tirelessly to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. The recovery is very complex and not helped by the rural location and will take several days. I understand how frustrating this is for passengers and would like to thank them for their patience while we work to get services up and running again.”

The incident affects CrossCountry, East Midlands Trains and Greater Anglia passengers. Passengers are advised to check how their journey may be affected with their train operator, or nationalrail.co.uk

Notes to Editors

Advice for Greater Anglia customers:

Trains are unable to run between Bury St Edmunds and Peterborough.
Buses will operate between Bury St Edmunds and Ely, calling at Ely, Manea, March, Whittlesea and Peterborough, which will be operated by Panther, Young's and Discovery.
Customers at Manea are advised to use the Help Point to arrange onward transport, due to road access issues for the Double Decker Buses.
Greater Anglia services between Norwich and Cambridge, and Ipswich and Cambridge are mostly unaffected.
Customers travelling between Ipswich and Peterborough can travel via London. Tickets will be accepted on London Underground and Virgin Trains East Coast services.

Advice for CrossCountry customers:

Trains are unable to run between Cambridge and Peterborough.
Tickets will be accepted on the following services:
Great Northern on any reasonable route
Virgin Trains between London Euston and Birmingham New Street
London Midland between London Euston and Nuneaton / Birmingham New Street
East Midlands Trains on any reasonable route
Greater Anglia on any reasonable route
Virgin Trains East Coast between London Kings Cross and Peterborough
London Underground between London terminals
Chiltern Railways between London Marylebone and Birmingham Snow Hill

Advice for East Midlands Trains customers:

Trains are unable to run between Norwich and Peterborough.
Advance purchase tickets may be used on other trains, than booked on the affected route.
Tickets will be accepted on the following services:
Greater Anglia services between Norwich and London Liverpool Street / Ely
Great Northern services via London Kings Cross
Virgin Trains East Coast via London Kings Cross on all reasonable routes
CrossCountry on all reasonable routes
Hull Trains on all reasonable routes
Virgin Trains West Coast via London Euston

Check before you travel:
Please use the National Rail Enquiries real-time Journey Planner to check your journey before you travel.

Compensation:
You may be entitled to compensation if you experience a delay in completing your journey today. Please keep your train ticket and make a note of your journey, as both will be required to support any claim.

Contact information

Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
Network Rail press office - Katie Mack
Media relations manager (Anglia route)
0330 8577 132
Katie.Mack@networkrail.co.uk

About Network Rail

We own, operate and develop Britain's railway infrastructure; that's 20,000 miles of track, 30,000 bridges, tunnels and viaducts and the thousands of signals, level crossings and stations. We run 20 of the UK's largest stations while all the others, over 2,500, are run by the country's train operating companies.

Usually, there are almost five million journeys made in the UK and over 600 freight trains run on the network. People depend on Britain's railway for their daily commute, to visit friends and loved ones and to get them home safe every day. Our role is to deliver a safe and reliable railway, so we carefully manage and deliver thousands of projects every year that form part of the multi-billion pound Railway Upgrade Plan, to grow and expand the nation's railway network to respond to the tremendous growth and demand the railway has experienced - a doubling of passenger journeys over the past 20 years.

Media centre