Trains chaos as power line fails in Black Country and Staffordshire
Thousands of train passengers in the Midlands faced travel chaos after an overhead power line came down, causing scores of services to be cancelled or delayed.
There was no respite today as snow drifts continued to cause havoc on routes across the region.
Services between Wolverhampton and Birmingham and across Staffordshire and Shropshire were all affected yesterday as engineers battled for hours to fix the power line problem.
And today no trains were running between Hednesford and Rugeley Trent Valley due to a fresh failure.
The problems first started just before midday yesterday, with repairs not completed until almost eight hours later. Engineers from Network Rail battled for just under four hours from 4pm to fix the problem, which affected the routes between Stoke-on-Trent, Crewe, Stafford, Wolverhampton, Sandwell and Dudley and Birmingham New Street. The line serving Shrewsbury, Telford Central, Cosford, Bilbrook, Wolverhampton and Birmingham New Street was also affected.
London Midland, Virgin Trains, Cross Country and Arriva Trains Wales services were all disrupted.
The line reopened at around 7.30pm, but delays remained through the night.
Those services had returned to normal today, but passengers faced delays this morning as snow drifts were causing problems on the line between Hednesford and Rugeley Trent Valley.
Emergency rail replacement coach services were running between Hednesford and Rugeley Trent Valley in both directions.
Passengers said information boards operating during yesterday's meltdown were unclear, adding to disruption. Gordon Jakes, who was travelling home to Stafford from Wolverhampton and faced a delay of 45 minutes, said: "It's happened in one of the worst places on the network because it's taken out a big area."
During yesterday's disrupton, there were no London Midland trains running from Coseley, Tipton, Dudley Port or Smethwick Rolfe Street. Passengers to and from Smethwick Galton Bridge could still travel to Birmingham Snow Hill or Moor Street.
Services between Birmingham New Street and Rugeley, and New Street to Walsall, were running hourly. Redditch to Lichfield Trent Valley services were running half-hourly with six carriage trains, instead of three.
Passengers could use London Midland tickets on National Express West Midlands buses and the Midland Metro.
