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Thursday 6 Aug 2026

Updated travel advice after signalling outage across Greater Manchester

Region & Route:

North West & Central

| North West & Central: North West

Rail passengers are being given updated travel advice while engineers restore signalling systems after a power cut in East Manchester.

An electricity supply outage* at lunchtime impacted the Manchester Rail Operating Centre, the North West’s main hub for controlling train movements around the network. 

It caused widespread problems across the region, with cancellations and delays to services all day. Network Rail engineers are tonight making good progress fixing the signalling issues. 

However, train services will continue to face cancellations for the rest of today, with warnings of further disruption into tomorrow morning. 

That’s because many trains and their crews are not where they would normally be after this unexpected incident. 

Network Rail and train operators are urging everyone planning on travelling by rail tomorrow to ensure they check before they set off on their journey, either by using National Rail Enquiries or visiting their specific train operator's website for the latest travel advice. 

Ticket acceptance will once again be in place across Transport for Greater Manchester Bee Network buses and Metrolink tram network to help get people to where they need to be. 

Chris Wright, Network Rail’s North West route director, said: “I’m extremely sorry for the disruption today and the very difficult journeys many people have experienced. Our engineers are working tirelessly to restore the signalling systems impacted by the power cut at lunchtime.

“With this work continuing this evening we’re warning people to expect further disruption tomorrow morning. I’d urge people to ensure they check National Rail Enquiries before they set off on any planned journeys tomorrow, with further cancellations and delays likely.”      

Andrew McClements, Customer Experience and Transformation Director at TPE, said: “I’d like to thank our customers for their patience and understanding through what has been a difficult incident to manage. Sadly, we’re not out of the woods yet and we expect some disruption to our services in the morning (Friday) as a knock-on of this afternoon’s issues.

“We are asking anyone planning to travel with TPE on Friday to check carefully before they travel and to allow extra time for any journeys. To help customers we are relaxing ticket restrictions for the whole day, so anyone with an Advance Purchase ticket will be able to travel at any time during the day.”

Warrick Dent, Chief Operating Officer for Northern, said: "I'd like to apologise to all our customers affected by today's disruption in Manchester. We know how frustrating it is to have your journey delayed, cancelled, or disrupted, and I'm sorry for the impact this has had on people's day.

"Our teams have been working hard alongside Network Rail and other train operators to keep customers moving and informed throughout. The scale of today's disruption means customers travelling through Manchester tomorrow morning should also check before they travel, as some knock-on delays may continue."

For the latest information on this developing situation people can check the Manchester Piccadilly X account on @NetworkRailMAN or visit www.networkrail.co.uk.