CrossCountry cancelled almost all its train services across Great Britain on Sunday, 23 August 2026, following a power failure at its Birmingham control centre. The outage forced the suspension of nearly all routes until further notice throughout the day.
Affected routes and limited services available
Major routes impacted included Glasgow to Edinburgh, Manchester to Birmingham, Cheltenham to Cardiff, and Newcastle to Edinburgh. Despite widespread cancellations, services between Peterborough, Cambridge, and Stansted Airport continued to operate as planned. A rail replacement bus ran between Leicester and Peterborough on the same day. CrossCountry resumed a very limited number of trains from around 6pm on Sunday, aiming to restore
normal service by Monday, 24 August 2026.
Passenger ticket validity and alternative arrangements
Passengers holding CrossCountry tickets valid for 23 August can use them on CrossCountry services until 26 August 2026. Tickets are also accepted on other operators’ trains running the same routes. Chiltern Railways added extra trains between Birmingham Moor Street and Oxford and honored all CrossCountry tickets via reasonable routes. LNER also accepted CrossCountry tickets to assist passengers affected by the disruption. Delay repay compensation is available for delays of 30 minutes or more, and refunds are offered for passengers opting not to travel.
Official responses to the disruption
UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander expressed concern about the power
outage and requested publicly owned train operators to run extra services. She confirmed Network Rail deployed power teams to restore systems at the Birmingham control centre, stating, “The service between Peterborough, Cambridge and Stansted is still running. I’ve asked publicly owned operators to lay on extra services where possible. We’ve also sent Network Rail power teams who are on site and working to restore power and systems as soon as possible.”
A CrossCountry spokesperson apologized to passengers for the “significant and unforeseen disruption,” saying, “While we will run as many trains as possible, passengers should expect significant reductions to services
and cancellations across almost all CrossCountry routes throughout the day. We are working closely with relevant partners and will provide further updates as soon as possible.”
Previous performance context
CrossCountry had been under scrutiny earlier in 2026 for poor performance and customer communication during disruptions. A June survey by Transport Focus recorded a 79% passenger satisfaction rate for CrossCountry, below the 87% satisfaction level across UK rail operators. Issues with overcrowding and delay handling had been highlighted by passenger watchdogs prior to the August outage.
