Media centre

Wednesday 27 Dec 2023

Update for passengers at southern end of Midland Main Line

Region & Route:

Eastern

| Eastern: East Midlands

Network Rail is sorry that the reduced service for passengers at the southern end of the Midland Main Line between London St Pancras and Bedford will continue for the rest of the day.

This is because of a technical problem with part of the signalling control system following essential upgrade work over Christmas.  A reduced Thameslink service is running between Bedford and central London.  EMR, already planned to be affected by work to electrify the Midland Main Line today, is providing road transport to Bedford for onward travel to London and asking passengers to use alternative routes.

Siemens engineers believe they have identified the fault and are designing the fix which will be installed overnight.  This will enable the planned timetable to run tomorrow (Thursday 29 December). However, because of the extent of the disruption today, which means some trains aren’t in the right place, there is likely to be minor disruption until around 10.00 on Thursday.

Gary Walsh, route director for Network Rail, said “I am very sorry for the extensive disruption to passengers today.  The technical problem with part of the signalling control system was not detected as part of the test programme and we are working hard with Siemens to understand why.  We believe we’ve identified the problem and the fix will be installed overnight. 

“We expect to run the full timetable as advertised from around 10am tomorrow.  Services before 10am are likely to have some minor changes because of the extent of the disruption today.  I am sorry that this continues to affect passengers journeys.”

The work over Christmas involved Siemens installing a new system to control signals on the Midland Main Line from Bedford to St Pancras.