Passengers hoping to travel via rail were to use the main line on the East Coast to take them from Edinburgh Waverly to King Cross in London.
However, they have now been advised not to travel via rail since both ends of the line are experiencing a failure in electricity supply.
The Edinburgh Waverley is said to have experienced a power surge, which wiped out the entire signaling system throughout the station.
Consequently, the stations were brought to a halt, and all trains were canceled going to and from the Scottish capital.
As a result, tens of thousands of passengers who had been hoping to travel via rail had to suffer.
Scotland
Soon after the power surge was reported, the relevant authorities sprang into action to restore services.
However, Scotland has a number of speed and position restrictions, which led to various services being canceled.
Among the cancelations were links going all the way to New Castle, as well as Plymouth.
On this note, the route director of Network Rail in Scotland, Liam Sumpter, stated that their signaling systems are pretty complex.
Thus, he believes that it is difficult to identify and repair faults. He went on to make an apology to the people for the disruption, stating that the issue would be resolved at the earliest.
Chaos also reigned on the Southern side of the East Coast main line, which is a direct link between northeast England and Edinburgh. It also connects Edinburgh to Yorkshire and the King’s Cross in London.
Meanwhile, a fault in the wires also caused services to be halted, specifically those operating between Peterborough and Huntingdon.
As a result, trains and crews were out of position, and passengers were left stranded.
Network Rail
During this time, the director of the East Coast route for Network Rail, Paul Rutter, apologized for the hassle and promised that teams were working to rectify the issue.
He went on to add that teams had been deployed to work throughout the night and fix the problem so that trains could operate as per the norm once again.
While the problems are all set to be fixed in no time, some residual delays are likely to occur. It has been predicted that the railway will take a couple of days to get back to normal.
Consequently, the route director of the East Coast advised passengers to check their travel arrangements beforehand.
LNER
Being the primary operator on the route, LNER also suggested that passengers should delay traveling for a couple of days.
It went on to add that it had limited train services and they, too, would be heavily busy. Moreover, given the uncertain weather conditions, more delays and cancelations are expected.
As of now, LNER has taken to reduce the number of trains traveling from Edinburgh to New Castle by exactly half.
This is mainly due to speed restrictions connected to repairs and a viaduct in close proximity to Morpeth.
Moreover, speed restrictions in Scotland are posing difficulties for services from Inverness, Glasgow, and Edinburgh.
