Birmingham New Street disruption 02/07/25

43055 · Wednesday at 16:49

There appears to be disruption across the midlands this afternoon due to overhead wire problems at New Street with few departures since around 1330 and what has run has been delayed by up to 2 hours.

Possibly to early to tell but is this likely to continue into tomorrow?

Incident: Longbridge | National Rail

Major disruption at Birmingham New Street expected until the end of the day. Find details of all current incidents on National Rail Enquiries.

www.nationalrail.co.uk

Route(s) affected
Avanti West Coast between London Euston and Wolverhampton / Edinburgh, and also between Birmingham New Street and Glasgow Central / Edinburgh

CrossCountry between Plymouth and Derby, between Bournemouth and Birmingham New Street / Manchester Piccadilly, between Cardiff Central and Birmingham New Street, and also between Birmingham New Street and York

London Northwestern Railway between London Euston / Northampton and Birmingham New Street, between Coventry and Birmingham New Street / Liverpool Lime Street, and also between Birmingham New Street and Crewe

Transport for Wales between Birmingham International and Chester, and also between Birmingham New Street and Aberystwyth / Shewsbury / Crewe / Holyhead

West Midlands Railway between Hereford / Great Malvern and Birmingham New Street, between Redditch / Longbridge and Four Oaks, between Redditch and Birmingham New Street, between Bromsgrove and Lichfield Trent Valley, between Birmingham International and Birmingham New Street / Rugeley Trent Valley, between Birmingham International and Wolverhampton, between Birmingham New Street and Wolverhampton / Shrewsbury, between Birmingham New Street / Wolverhampton and Walsall, and also between Wolverhampton and Hednesford / Rugeley Trent Valley

Description
Some lines have now reopened following damage to the overhead electric wires in the Birmingham New Street area. However if you are travelling, your journey may not run it's full route, and may still be cancelled or be severely delayed by up to 120 minutes.

Network Rail are on site assessing the situation. Please check before you travel. Further updates will follow as soon as information is available.

Major disruption is expected until the end of the day.

This is causing disruption to long distance Great Western Railway services. You can see further details on our disruption page.

Customer advice
Avanti West Coast
Tickets will be accepted on the following routes at no extra cost:

Chiltern Railways between London Marylebone and Birmingham Moor Street

National Express West Midlands between Wolverhampton and Coventry

London Northwestern Railway between Birmingham and London Euston

West Midlands Metro between Birmingham New Street and Wolverhampton

If your train is cancelled, your ticket is valid on one of the two Avanti West Coast services immediately before your booked train, or one of the two immediately after.

CrossCountry
Replacement buses have been requested. We will provide further information once more is known.

Passengers with tickets tickets dated today, 02 July, who have been affected by this disruption can use their tickets to travel tomorrow, 03 July.

Tickets will be accepted on CrossCountry services operating before and after your cancelled service.

Tickets will be accepted on ScotRail between Edinburgh and Glasgow Central / Glasgow Queen Street, via Motherwell at no extra cost.

Tickets will be accepted with the following train operators via any reasonable route, at no extra cost:

Avanti West Coast

Chiltern Railways

East Midlands Railway

Greater Anglia

Great Western Railway

LNER

London Northwestern Railway / West Midlands Railway

London Underground

Northern

South Western Railway

TransPennine Express

Transport for Wales

If you decide to travel from a different station due to this disruption and need to return to that station later, you will also be able to use your existing ticket to do this at no extra cost.

Unfortunately, any seat reservations will not be carried over to another train, but Coach B, H and L are unreserved coaches on CrossCountry services (where available) so please head to them.

London Northwestern Railway and West Midlands Railway
Additionally there is a points failure at Northampton. Trains running through the station may be delayed by up to 30 minutes or cancelled.

Replacement buses are currently running on the following routes:

Between Redditch / Bromsgrove and Longbridge

Between Sutton Coldfield and Lichfield Trent Valley

Between Walsall and Rugeley Trent Valley

Tickets will be accepted on the following routes at no extra cost:

Avanti West Coast between London Euston and Birmingham

CrossCountry between Birmingham New Street and University

West Midlands Railway between Birmingham Moor Street and Shirley, to connect with local buses to Kings Norton / Longbridge / Northfield

West Midlands Metro between Grand Central and Wolverhampton

National Express West Midlands on routes

Bus Route 11A / 11C: Stechford - Acocks Green - Spring Road - Hall Green - Cotteridge (for Kings Norton) - Bournville - Selly Oak

Bus Route 18: Kings Norton - Northfield

Bus Route 23: Birmingham - Five Ways

Bus Route 24: Birmingham - Five Ways

Bus Route 45: Birmingham - Bournville - Kings Norton - Longbridge

Bus Route 47: Birmingham - Bournville - Kings Norton - Northfield - Longbridge

Bus Route 48: University - Bournville - Kings Norton - Northfield - Longbridge

Bus Route 49: Shirley Railway Station - Kings Norton - Northfield - Longbridge

Bus Route 61: Birmingham - University - Selly Oak

Bus Route 63: Birmingham - University - Selly Oak - Bournville - Kings Norton - Northfield - Longbridge

Bus Route 80: Birmingham - Five Ways - Smethwick Galton Bridge - West Bromwich

Bus Route X20: Birmingham - University - Selly Oak - Northfield - Longbridge

Bus Route X21: Birmingham - University - Selly Oak

Bus Route X22: Birmingham - University - Longbridge - Northfield

If you chose to drive your car and park at another station on one of the routes because of this disruption, your rail ticket will be valid to travel back to the same station later in the day to collect your car.

Transport for Wales
Replacement buses have been requested. We will provide further information once more is known.

Tickets will be accepted on the following routes at no extra cost:

CrossCountry services via any reasonable route until further notice

Transport for Wales services between Wolverhampton and Birmingham New Street

West Midlands Railway service between Wolverhampton and Birmingham New Street

Check before you travel:
You can check your journey using the National Rail Enquiries real-time Journey Planner.

For helpful advice if you need to travel on a rail replacement service, including accessibility and bicycle information, please use our Rail Replacement Services page.

You can find the pick-up and set-down location of rail replacement services by checking station signage or by searching for your station on our Find a Station page .

Please be advised that replacement vehicles may be busier than usual, and you should allow extra time for your journey.

Compensation:
You may be entitled to compensation if you experience a delay in completing your journey today. Please keep your train ticket and make a note of your journey, as both will be required to support any claim.

RailUK Forums

SLC001 · Wednesday at 19:04

This is why folks don't use the train. As an infrequent user, I used the train from Northampton to New Street for
the cricket at Edgbaston. No trains until 11pm, no suggestions to what we can do and so it's Uber at £125+.
There will be many who will defend Network Rail and L&NE Trains, but it leaves a bad taste. People we know say, that is why they won't use trains.
As for the queue at the customer desk....
Oh, Northampton had some points fail!

Bletchleyite · Wednesday at 19:09

There certainly are things you could do, piecing together what's on the two WMT websites and the New St departure board on Tiger.

Tram from Edgbaston to New St, Avanti to MKC, WMT to Northampton. There is acceptance on all these. WMT seem to also be operating some trains to Rugby but not all.

Also, of course, a full Delay Repay refund as you're likely to be 2+ hours late.

HerodesAtticus · Wednesday at 19:58

Bletchleyite said:
There certainly are things you could do, piecing together what's on the two WMT websites and the New St departure board on Tiger.

Tram from Edgbaston to New St, Avanti to MKC, WMT to Northampton. There is acceptance on all these. WMT seem to also be operating some trains to Rugby but not all.

Also, of course, a full Delay Repay refund as you're likely to be 2+ hours late.

It's a good half hour plus walk from the cricket stadium to Edgbaston Village tram stop! You'd get most of the way to New St walking that time.

Tilting007 · Wednesday at 20:00

43055 said:
There appears to be disruption across the midlands this afternoon due to overhead wire problems at New Street with few departures since around 1330 and what has run has been delayed by up to 2 hours.

Possibly to early to tell but is this likely to continue into tomorrow?

Incident: Longbridge | National Rail

Major disruption at Birmingham New Street expected until the end of the day. Find details of all current incidents on National Rail Enquiries.

www.nationalrail.co.uk

Dewirement.
Expected 10hrs repair work overnight.

Peter0124 · Wednesday at 20:05

I was on 9M55 and seen the damaged gantry, there was a lot of NR staff nearby, and a stranded train.

As my train was the first one towards Euston, it was very busy after New Street.

BranstonJnc · Wednesday at 20:46

I'm not sure if this will get me shot, but the way the railway is responding to incidents seems to be degrading, and the lack of proactive maintenance seems to be taking its toll. Add to that, once something goes really badly wrong, the service recovery seems borderline impossible and the ability of Network Rail to summon lots of people to proactively fix things (or get a temporary fix) seems lacking.

Looking at this, there's seemingly some electric power available in some places, as some trains look to still be going in and out. If that's the case, why can't XC run via St Andrews, Lifford and into Birmingham? They have an ECS move and route knowledge, I'm sure, if Proof House is the issue. Why can't Avanti just run trains fast from International to Wolves, or Sandwell, and if trains have Wolves crew they need to go there anyway.

What's with this seeming inability for WMT to run their Euston services to International and back? Some trains would have New Street crew caught up in the mess, but many would have Coventry crew who now aren't going to work Cross City trains, there's Bletchley and Northampton. It just looks ugly, to do very little and effectively leave passengers.

And telling someone to go Edgbaston - Birmingham, Birmingham - MK, MK - Northampton when no journey planner and very few people would even think of that, is a bit abstract and slightly obtuse.

coradiafan2000 · Wednesday at 21:05

I got caught up in this- I was on board 1M45 (1300 Bristol Temple Meads- Manchester Piccadilly). We came to a stand briefly just before Bromsgrove, then stopped again at Bromsgrove station. Next to us was a Lichfield service which was supposed to have departed about ten minutes ago.

The doors were released for us to stretch our legs while we waited.The guard kept us updated as best he could over a very crackly PA (really hope these get fixed when the Voyagers are refurbished). Plenty of advice was given over possibly bus routes out to places like Halesowen and Stourbridge as well as reassurances that if passengers chose to book taxis they'd be reimbursed as long as they could provide receipts. Just as well too, I overheard people enquiring about taxis all the way to Manchester as they had flights to catch.

While we were there an XC 170 passed through heading towards Birmingham, but it looked empty. I assume this would have been a Cardiff- Nottingham service that was detrained at Cheltenham or Worcestershire Parkway? Would be interested to know where it was headed- back to Tyseley, if it could make it there?

In the end I chose to get a bus to Stourbridge to travel onwards from there- I'd never been to Stourbridge Town before so at least I got to travel over a new stretch of line!

TTD31 · Wednesday at 21:10

BranstonJnc said:
I'm not sure if this will get me shot, but the way the railway is responding to incidents seems to be degrading, and the lack of proactive maintenance seems to be taking its toll. Add to that, once something goes really badly wrong, the service recovery seems borderline impossible and the ability of Network Rail to summon lots of people to proactively fix things (or get a temporary fix) seems lacking.

Looking at this, there's seemingly some electric power available in some places, as some trains look to still be going in and out. If that's the case, why can't XC run via St Andrews, Lifford and into Birmingham? They have an ECS move and route knowledge, I'm sure, if Proof House is the issue. Why can't Avanti just run trains fast from International to Wolves, or Sandwell, and if trains have Wolves crew they need to go there anyway.

What's with this seeming inability for WMT to run their Euston services to International and back? Some trains would have New Street crew caught up in the mess, but many would have Coventry crew who now aren't going to work Cross City trains, there's Bletchley and Northampton. It just looks ugly, to do very little and effectively leave passengers.

And telling someone to go Edgbaston - Birmingham, Birmingham - MK, MK - Northampton when no journey planner and very few people would even think of that, is a bit abstract and slightly obtuse.

With Network Rail bringing in cuts to maintenance teams budgets and manpower over the past few years it's no surprise this is occurring. Heat has always been an issue that is difficult to manage on the rails but I've personally noticed a lot more failures on the ground than what usually occurs during the summer months.

43055 · Wednesday at 21:25

Tilting007 said:
Dewirement.
Expected 10hrs repair work overnight.

Thanks. Hopefully it all goes as planned and the Derby route is back in the morning.

BranstonJnc said:
I'm not sure if this will get me shot, but the way the railway is responding to incidents seems to be degrading, and the lack of proactive maintenance seems to be taking its toll. Add to that, once something goes really badly wrong, the service recovery seems borderline impossible and the ability of Network Rail to summon lots of people to proactively fix things (or get a temporary fix) seems lacking.

Looking at this, there's seemingly some electric power available in some places, as some trains look to still be going in and out. If that's the case, why can't XC run via St Andrews, Lifford and into Birmingham? They have an ECS move and route knowledge, I'm sure, if Proof House is the issue. Why can't Avanti just run trains fast from International to Wolves, or Sandwell, and if trains have Wolves crew they need to go there anyway.

What's with this seeming inability for WMT to run their Euston services to International and back? Some trains would have New Street crew caught up in the mess, but many would have Coventry crew who now aren't going to work Cross City trains, there's Bletchley and Northampton. It just looks ugly, to do very little and effectively leave passengers.

And telling someone to go Edgbaston - Birmingham, Birmingham - MK, MK - Northampton when no journey planner and very few people would even think of that, is a bit abstract and slightly obtuse.

It looks like Avanti and XC did run a couple of services via Aston between International and Wolverhampton.

londonmidland · Wednesday at 21:31

TTD31 said:
With Network Rail bringing in cuts to maintenance teams budgets and manpower over the past few years it's no surprise this is occurring. Heat has always been an issue that is difficult to manage on the rails but I've personally noticed a lot more failures on the ground than what usually occurs during the summer months.

I've also noticed numerous reports of signals being difficult to see across the network, due to excessive vegetation covering it.

Elecman · Wednesday at 21:41

14.07 to Scotland stood at Stetchford for about half and hour then bypassed new Street to regain the main line at Wolves. The 15.07 stood at Rugby for awhile then went straight up the Trent Valley. The 16.07 finally got through New Street some 40 minutes down.

Russel · Wednesday at 22:16

SLC001 said:
This is why folks don't use the train. As an infrequent user, I used the train from Northampton to New Street for
the cricket at Edgbaston. No trains until 11pm, no suggestions to what we can do and so it's Uber at £125+.
There will be many who will defend Network Rail and L&NE Trains, but it leaves a bad taste. People we know say, that is why they won't use trains.
As for the queue at the customer desk....
Oh, Northampton had some points fail!

I get what you mean, I'm trying to convince my partner that we should use rail more for day trips but whenever we do, something almost always goes wrong and it leaves a bad taste.

Delay repay is nice, but getting to and from where you need to be on time and with a seat is nicer.

Peter0124 · Wednesday at 22:35

Its probably more common for something to go wrong on the WCML in a day than for it to run fine, certainly feels like it this time.

WesternLancer · Wednesday at 22:58

coradiafan2000 said:
I got caught up in this- I was on board 1M45 (1300 Bristol Temple Meads- Manchester Piccadilly). We came to a stand briefly just before Bromsgrove, then stopped again at Bromsgrove station. Next to us was a Lichfield service which was supposed to have departed about ten minutes ago.

The doors were released for us to stretch our legs while we waited.The guard kept us updated as best he could over a very crackly PA (really hope these get fixed when the Voyagers are refurbished). Plenty of advice was given over possibly bus routes out to places like Halesowen and Stourbridge as well as reassurances that if passengers chose to book taxis they'd be reimbursed as long as they could provide receipts. Just as well too, I overheard people enquiring about taxis all the way to Manchester as they had flights to catch.

While we were there an XC 170 passed through heading towards Birmingham, but it looked empty. I assume this would have been a Cardiff- Nottingham service that was detrained at Cheltenham or Worcestershire Parkway? Would be interested to know where it was headed- back to Tyseley, if it could make it there?

In the end I chose to get a bus to Stourbridge to travel onwards from there- I'd never been to Stourbridge Town before so at least I got to travel over a new stretch of line!

Is there any official info on refunds of taxi fares for people who opted for that.

Mate of mine was at the cricket and trying to get back to Derby but gave up after being unable to board the one rammed voyager that left in the time he was at new street c19.30 ish. Got an uber instead as unable to wait and seemingly information for passengers was poor from what he reported to me.

LowLevel · Thursday at 00:04

WesternLancer said:
Is there any official info on refunds of taxi fares for people who opted for that.

Mate of mine was at the cricket and trying to get back to Derby but gave up after being unable to board the one rammed voyager that left in the time he was at new street c19.30 ish. Got an uber instead as unable to wait and seemingly information for passengers was poor from what he reported to me.

Send a copy of Uber receipt and train ticket to the XC customer relations email with a covering note and they'll pay it.

WesternLancer · Thursday at 00:11

LowLevel said:
Send a copy of Uber receipt and train ticket to the XC customer relations email with a covering note and they'll pay it.

Many thanks.

mjc · Thursday at 06:39

Peter0124 said:
Its probably more common for something to go wrong on the WCML in a day than for it to run fine, certainly feels like it this time.

I’m not disputing your experience but I don’t think it’s necessarily representative. Most days for me are fine, or just a few minutes delay.

Russel said:
I get what you mean, I'm trying to convince my partner that we should use rail more for day trips but whenever we do, something almost always goes wrong and it leaves a bad taste.

Delay repay is nice, but getting to and from where you need to be on time and with a seat is nicer.

Sounds like you’ve been really unlucky; the trouble is delays can happen on any transport and you can be just as stuck. At least with the train you get your money back, get stuck on the motorway and that’s just tough luck.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Thursday at 06:43 ==

I was probably one of the lucky ones yesterday, thankfully by pure chance I got the opportunity to leave work early and the one advantage of Voyagers is they don’t care about juice in the wires. They were delayed but still (just about) running.
What surprised me is that there didn’t seem to be any attempt at replacement buses which would usually be provided. Is it because it’s too big of a problem to arrange from New Street when almost everything is off, or do they consider the ticket acceptance on bus/metro sufficient as it gets you to the next station along and just hope the trains are running a short service there?

TheTallOne · Thursday at 07:48

I was very lucky yesterday. I drove to Birmingham that day!

I was going to get the train but by the time I'd driven to the station, I would have just missed one and the one after that was delayed.

It was a shame I hadn't realised there was rail delays when I left the office - as I could have offered a colleague or two a lift home!

1D54 · Thursday at 08:29

Anyone looking at the gaelan site last night would have been very worried indeed with all services showing as cancelled between New Street and Nuneaton for the rest of the day but the 20:52 certainly ran albeit 15 late.

silexa · Thursday at 08:50

1Z99 still on site this morning, after being mobilised off KNN at around 18:00 yesterday, to rescue the unit that was involved in the dewirement. 20205 & 20007 with RailAdventure UBV's for those who wanted to know

DaveyJones · Thursday at 08:53

silexa said:
1Z99 still on site this morning, after being mobilised off KNN at around 18:00 yesterday, to rescue the unit that caused the dewirement. 20205 & 20007 with RailAdventure UBV's for those who wanted to know

Surely "was involved in" is perhaps less presumtious than "Caused" ?

silexa · Thursday at 08:55

mjc said:
I’m not disputing your experience but I don’t think it’s necessarily representative. Most days for me are fine, or just a few minutes delay.

Sounds like you’ve been really unlucky; the trouble is delays can happen on any transport and you can be just as stuck. At least with the train you get your money back, get stuck on the motorway and that’s just tough luck.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Thursday at 06:43 ==

I was probably one of the lucky ones yesterday, thankfully by pure chance I got the opportunity to leave work early and the one advantage of Voyagers is they don’t care about juice in the wires. They were delayed but still (just about) running.
What surprised me is that there didn’t seem to be any attempt at replacement buses which would usually be provided. Is it because it’s too big of a problem to arrange from New Street when almost everything is off, or do they consider the ticket acceptance on bus/metro sufficient as it gets you to the next station along and just hope the trains are running a short service there?

RRB's did run towards Tamworth, Burton & Derby yesterday. However, XC only provided one poor bloke to act as support to contain the absolute riot outside of TKMaxx. Between 14:00-18:00 only 3 buses showed up. After 19:00 more frequent buses started but there was certainly a lot of unhappy punters.

Highlight of my journey home was the 17:03 being announced as running (albeit 45 minutes late), everyone went down onto the platform, for it to pull in and get cancelled. Then even more people rushing up to the very lacking RRB's and the one poor chap trying to control it all.

Despite all that, XC seems to be running okay this morning. Small delays into New Street due to some platforms being blocked but was a reasonably peaceful journey. We shall see what this evening holds however...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Thursday at 08:56 ==

DaveyJones said:
Surely "was involved in" is perhaps less presumtious than "Caused" ?

Wording amended...

Tilting007 · Thursday at 09:04

silexa said:
1Z99 still on site this morning, after being mobilised off KNN at around 18:00 yesterday, to rescue the unit that was involved in the dewirement. 20205 & 20007 with RailAdventure UBV's for those who wanted to know

Still on site as the units haven’t been moved meaning the repairs to the OLE haven’t started….

DarloRich · Thursday at 09:23

the situation was exacerbated by a signal/points failure between Wolverton & Northampton yesterday afternoon.

odetoboy · Thursday at 09:26

HerodesAtticus said:
It's a good half hour plus walk from the cricket stadium to Edgbaston Village tram stop! You'd get most of the way to New St walking that time.

yes, you’d be better off getting the 45/47 bus that drops you off right outside New St.

SLC001 · Thursday at 09:32

There were problems for my son after yesterday. He commutes from Leighton Buzzard and there were delays then.
Can you claim an Uber fate from New Street to Northampton? It's about 6 times the fare! I.e £120.
Whether it is a maintenance issue or not, I hope we haven't had a situation similar to the Heathrow power cut, where there was a known problem but maintenance on the transformer was delayed.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Thursday at 09:35 ==

odetoboy said:
yes, you’d be better off getting the 45/47 bus that drops you off right outside New St.

It was almost quicker to walk because of the traffic and the rush hour!

odetoboy · Thursday at 09:39

SLC001 said:
There were problems for my son after yesterday. He commutes from Leighton Buzzard and there were delays then.
Can you claim an Uber fate from New Street to Northampton? It's about 6 times the fare! I.e £120.
Whether it is a maintenance issue or not, I hope we haven't had a situation similar to the Heathrow power cut, where there was a known problem but maintenance on the transformer was delayed.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Thursday at 09:35 ==

It was almost quicker to walk because of the traffic and the rush hour!

oh right yeah, forgot about that bit! crossing the middleway on a bus is bad enough on a normal day!

Tilting007 · Thursday at 10:01

DarloRich said:
the situation was exacerbated by a signal/points failure between Wolverton & Northampton yesterday afternoon.

Northampton Gateway

The Planner · Thursday at 10:24

Tilting007 said:
Northampton Gateway

Ironic that a brand new piece of infrastructure falls over.

Birmingham New Street disruption 02/07/25

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Route(s) affected​

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CrossCountry​

London Northwestern Railway and West Midlands Railway​

Transport for Wales​

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