Travel chaos at London Euston on first day of reopening as signaling failure leaves passengers stranded
Passengers travelling in and out of London Euston are enduring major chaos today due to a signalling fault as the West Coast Main Line reopened after being closed for four days over Easter.
Some customers were left stranded on trains for over two hours, with Network Rail apologising for the incident and stressing its engineers are “working to fix the problem as soon as possible”.
Avanti West Coast issued an alert to passengers which stated: “Trains to and from London Euston may be cancelled or delayed due to a fault with the signalling system affecting multiple platforms at the station.”
The West Coast Main Line services stations including Birmingham New Street, Liverpool Lime Street, Manchester Piccadilly and Glasgow Central.
A Network Rail spokesperson said: “We’re so sorry for the disruption at Euston, and we’re doing everything we can to fix it.
⚠️ UPDATE: Services to and from London Euston are continuing to experience significant delays as a result of congestion caused by the signalling issues.
Further cancellations are possible for the remainder of the day, so please continue to check your journey before you travel.— Avanti West Coast (@AvantiWestCoast) April 2, 2024
“Our signalling system is designed to put signals to red if it detects a problem, a kind of safety ‘fail-safe’, and has done so on some of the tracks approaching the station this afternoon.
“We’re working with operators to run trains on the lines and platforms that are working as normal, but there are delays and cancellations as a result.
“We advise passengers to check with their operator before they travel to or from Euston this afternoon while we work to find and fix the problem.”
The disruption comes after Euston was closed for long-distance services between Good Friday and Easter Monday for engineering work, which included renewing the track between the station and Milton Keynes.
It also comes three days before an Aslef strike will result in no Avanti services on Friday, with an amended timetable running on Thursday and Saturday.
The disruption comes after Euston was closed for long-distance services between Good Friday and Easter Monday for engineering work, which included renewing the track between the station and Milton Keynes.
One affected passenger, Paul Carroll, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he has been “stuck on a train for two hours not moving”.
Another passenger reported being “stuck on a train at Stockport for two hours” while another disgruntled traveller said they had been stuck for 131 minutes and that the lack of information had been a “disgrace”.