A power failure at a critical signalling centre in Manchester on Thursday caused severe disruption across northern England's rail network, leading to hundreds of train cancellations.

Network Rail confirmed that no trains could run between Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Victoria, or to Bolton, starting at 2 pm. This outage affected seven train operators, including Avanti West Coast and Trans Pennine Express, impacting services across the North West.

Chris Wright, Network Rail North West route director, apologised for the significant delays, stating that major disruption was expected for the remainder of the day. The exact cause of the failure was not specified, but it is likely to cause challenges in restoring services safely. Electricity North West is investigating a potential link to an earlier outage on its network. The incident is one of the most serious on the UK rail network since a widespread power cut in August 2019.