One of London’s busiest train stations has been hit by travel disruption as thousands of people are about to travel for the weekend.
Trains on the West Coast Main Line have ground to a halt during one of the busiest times of the week after a major signalling fault in the Stafford and Stoke-on-Trent area.
It is wreaking havoc on all train services on the route, including Avanti West Coast trains between Manchester and London Euston, with cancellations and significant delays likely.
TfL said Euston Underground station had been closed to prevent overcrowding on platforms – but it is now open.
Crowd control efforts are underway with officers from British Transport Police and staff from Network Rail manning the main entrance and exit to the station.
After several delayed services between Euston and Birmingham International, trains have become crammed with passengers standing in the areas separating the carriages.
It is understood that passengers are being stopped from entering the station while people arriving at Euston are being let out.
People outside were heard shouting: ‘Well open the doors then.’
Stranded commuters have taken to X (formerly Twitter) to vent their frustration.
One said: ‘Hell is a real place and it is London Euston station.’
‘Outstanding work,’ another said, sarcastically, ‘making a bad situation worse by keeping passengers outside the station so they missed trains they were booked on thus worsening the congestion in a packed station. Utter incompetence’.
The disruption is expected to last all day today while engineers try to fix it.
Passengers travelling on Avanti, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, London Northwestern Railway and Northern services should brace for trains being axed, delayed by up to 90 minutes or revised.
Travellers were already feeling the brunt of disruption, with many reportedly stuck on board trains along the main line.
An NHS worker, who asked not to be named due to her work, told Metro she missed a talk she was due to give at a different hospital after her Euston to Manchester Avanti train got stuck and diverted to Nuneaton.
She said: ‘I’m feeling disheartened, I’ve been planning for weeks.
‘And it doesn’t help that I have travelled between manchester and London 6 times in the past 3 weeks, and had to claim money back for every single journey due to cancellations or delays of at least 45 mins.’
The frustrated passenger claimed the train shop was closed, meaning they would have no access to food or drink while waiting or the rest of the journey, which had already lasted an hour and a half longer than scheduled.
She continued: ‘I think people are just tired and fed up, and a bit agitated, the train is just getting busier as well as other departures from Nuneaton are getting cancelled and ours it sat at the platform so people are now just boarding this one.’
Avanti West Coast warned that all of its departures from Euston are suspended due to the fault, including trains to and from Manchester, Liverpool, Scotland and North Wales.
It told people not to try to travel today on any of these routes, and tickets will be accepted tomorrow instead.
You are likely to be entitled to claim Delay Repay if the journey is delayed for more than 15 minutes. It is worth noting your journey times and keeping hold of the ticket to make a claim with your train operator.
Full list of affected routes
- Avanti West Coast services between London Euston and Chester / Edinburgh / Glasgow Central / Holyhead / Liverpool Lime Street / Manchester Piccadilly
- CrossCountry services between Birmingham New Street / Bournemouth / Bristol Temple Meads / Paignton and Manchester Piccadilly
- East Midlands Railway services between Newark Castle / Nottingham and Crewe
- London Northwestern Railway services between Birmingham New Street and Liverpool Lime Street, between London Euston / Stafford and Crewe
- Northern services between Stoke-on-Trent and Manchester Piccadilly
