Passengers at London King’s Cross have been told not to travel after overhead wire damage disrupted services to the north, with LNER advising people to put off their journeys until tomorrow.
The damage was reported at 12.28pm on Tuesday (10 November) at Northallerton, in North Yorkshire. Lines between York and Darlington and Middlesbrough were affected, with cancellations and delays of up to an hour, and some lines were closed, leaving trains cancelled, delayed or revised.
LNER services between King’s Cross and Newcastle, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness were affected. Grand Central services between London King’s Cross and Sunderland were also hit, as were Lumo services to Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh.
The disruption spread beyond the East Coast Main Line. CrossCountry services between Plymouth and Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and between Southampton Central and Cardiff Central and Edinburgh, were affected, including services from Reading to Newcastle. TransPennine Express services between Liverpool Lime Street and Newcastle, and between Manchester Airport and Redcar Central, were also disrupted.
Rail replacement buses are operating between York and Newcastle, and tickets for the disrupted services are valid on certain other routes and services. Tickets bought for travel today are valid for use tomorrow, and passengers are advised to check with their operator before setting out. Compensation may be available for those who experienced delays.
Network Rail will be working overnight to repair the overhead wires at Northallerton. No time has been given for services to return to normal.
King’s Cross is London’s main terminus for the East Coast Main Line, and the damage at Northallerton sits on the route used by almost every train heading north from the station. Passengers travelling to Newcastle, Edinburgh and beyond were among those facing the longest waits on Tuesday afternoon.
It is the second rail disruption to hit London travellers on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, a person was hit by a train at Ashford station in Surrey, closing the line between Feltham and Staines, although services there later resumed. Late-night Southern trains between London Bridge and Beckenham Junction are also cancelled this week for engineering work, and buses are replacing trains on the Bexleyheath line overnight from Wednesday to Friday.
King’s Cross station itself was in the news earlier on Tuesday after British Transport Police released CCTV images in connection with a sexual assault in a lift at the station last month.
