Rail chaos after major problem at Birmingham New Street

11.45am Update

NETWORK rail engineers have managed to reopen all lines at Birmingham’s New Street Station following this morning’s signalling problems.

However, delays of up to 60 minutes are being forecast and disruption across the network is still severe.

National Rail Enquiries said the situation would start to get back to normal around midday but congestion at the station also meant that some services may be altered or cancelled.

Emergency provisions are still in place, with a limited bus service running on the following routes:
•    Lichfield City to Sutton Coldfield
•    Lichfield City to Lichfield Trent Valley
•    Longbridge to Redditch via Alvechurch and Barnt Green

The routes affected are:
Arriva Trains Wales between Birmingham International and Shrewsbury / Aberystwyth

CrossCountry between Nottingham and Cardiff Central, Newcastle and Reading and also between Birmingham New Street and Stansted Airport / Leicester

London Midland between Birmingham New Street and London Euston / Walsall / Longbridge / Rugeley Trent Valley / Lichfield Trent Valley / Redditch / Liverpool Lime Street / Northampton

Virgin Trains between Wolverhampton / Shrewsbury / Preston / Glasgow Central and London Euston and also between Holyhead / Edinburgh and Birmingham New Street

You can follow this incident on Twitter #BirminghamNewSt

The following alternative travel options are being suggested:

Virgin Trains passengers may use London Midland on reasonable routes and Chiltern Railways between Birmingham Moor Street and London Marylebone.

London Midland passengers may use Chiltern Railways, Virgin Trains and National Express West Midlands services on reasonable routes.

CrossCountry passengers may use Abellio Greater Anglia between Stansted Airport and London Liverpool Street / Peterborough.

A London Midland spokesman said: “We apologise to all our passengers who will be affected by this signal failure. We are working to minimise disruption so that we can start running a full service as soon as Network Rail has repaired the fault.”