Damage to overhead lines affected over 100 services arriving into and departing out of the station
Another ‘do not travel’ warning has been issued for Friday morning(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)
Another ‘do not travel’ warning has been issued ahead of yet more disruption at Manchester Piccadilly on Friday morning (April 17). Piccadilly, which sees around 75,000 people pass through it to other major destinations every day, almost grinded to a halt on Thursday with over 100 services cancelled and many more delayed.
It came after damage was caused to overhead railway lines. It’s understood that the overhead line became ‘tangled’ with the pantograph above the first class carriage of an Avanti service from London at around 11.20pm. This then caused the extensive damage affecting swathes of services coming in and out of the major travel hub.
Damage to overhead lines then affected other services arriving into and departing out of the station throughout the day. Services affected by the issue included Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, Northern, TransPennine Express and Transport for Wales, bound for other major UK destinations.
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Network Rail then announced that all trains before 7am from Piccadilly would be cancelled on Friday. This included early-morning services to Manchester Airport, with repair works to the overhead line continuing throughout the night.
Damage to overhead lines affected over 100 services(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)
Following the majority of the works taking place, further repairs will be carried out until Sunday with more disruption expected until then and passengers urged to check travel beforehand.
In a new post on Thursday night, Northern Rail advised against all travel from the major station before 8am on Friday. A post on X read: “To carry out repairs to the overhead wires this evening, there will be no trains to or from Piccadilly between 22:00 this evening and 08:00 tomorrow morning.
“Our advice is to not to travel on routes to Piccadilly between 22:00 and 08:00. It is not yet known whether a full service will operate after 08:00 tomorrow morning so we strongly advise to check ahead before travelling tomorrow.”
Departure boards were filled with last-minute cancellations(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Chris Wright, North West route director for Network Rail, said: “We are sorry to passengers for the impact of today’s disruption, caused by overhead line damage. The issue is complex but our teams are working hard to repair the railway as soon as possible.
“We have worked closely with our train operator partners to keep passengers on the move wherever possible, so please check the National Rail Enquiries website for the latest information on train services in the coming days.”