Shropshire passengers affected by train cancellations and severe delays after 'vandalism' causes signalling fault

Chris Denham, a Network Rail spokesperson, said: “Our engineers have been working to fix the problem at Proof House Junction, south of Birmingham New Street, since 4am, however they have not been able to restore the power supply. This will lead to severe delays and cancellations across the city as operators cannot run in or out of the south end of Birmingham New Street.

"I strongly advise passengers to check before they travel this morning and consider if they can find an alternative route to work as disruption is likely to continue for some time.

“We are very sorry for this disruption and a difficult start to the week, and our crews are working as hard as they can to fix the problem.”

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The local routes affected today are:

Euston / Northampton / Coventry / Birmingham services:

Trains may run beyond Coventry

London Midland services will terminate at Birmingham International

New Street / Birmingham International shuttle:

Cannot run.

Cross City North (Birmingham – Lichfield):

Suspended

Cross City South (Birmingham – Redditch):

Trains running but with delays.

Walsall / Rugeley services:

Expect disruption and diversions.

Wolverhampton / Walsall services:

Expect disruption, diversions and cancellations.

London Midland services between Wolverhampton / Birmingham New Street and Walsall will be diverted and not call at stations between Birmingham New Street and Hamstead.

Long distance routes affected today:

• 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

Ticket acceptance

• Chiltern Railways are accepting Virgin Trains tickets between London Marylebone and Birmingham Moor Street.
• London Midland are accepting Virgin Trains tickets via any reasonable route.
• London Midland passengers can use Chiltern Railways, Virgin Trains and National Express West Midlands services on reasonable routes.
• National Express West Midlands buses are accepting tickets on all routes.
• Tickets are valid on all reasonable routes.
• Midland Metro are accepting all train tickets on reasonable routes.
• Cross City coaches are running between Lichfield Trent Valley and Sutton Coldfield.
• National Express are running buses between Sutton Coldfield and Birmingham.

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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."

Passengers affected by delays of more than 30 minutes can claim ticket costs back through delay repay compensation. Information on this is available on their rail service provider's website.