An electricity supply failure at a communications centre is causing major disruption to trains in the Midlands and north-west England, National Rail has said.
The rail group reported the incident shortly after 2pm and expects journeys to be impacted until at least the end of the day.
A fault with the signalling system at Manchester Piccadilly caused the disruption, CrossCountry Trains posted on social media.
Train operator Northern advised customers not to travel.
Meanwhile, TransPennine Express said: “All trains will be stopped due to a failure of the communication systems on the network. Trains are unable to run safely.”
Services across its entire network will be cancelled and delayed, it added.
Services in the Greater Manchester area, the Midlands and north-west England are being affected by the outage.
An electrical fault at Manchester Piccadilly also halted trains in April.
An extended 12-hour closure of the railway was needed for repairs because of the “complex area where this took place, with over 400 metres of damaged lines”, National Rail said at the time.
A National Rail spokesperson said of the latest incident: “This is expected to cause major disruption until the end of the day.
“If you’re travelling Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, London Northwestern, Northern, TransPennine Express, or Transport for Wales in the affected area, your train may be cancelled, delayed, or revised.
“Please allow extra time to make your journey this afternoon as you may need to use an alternative route or change trains part-way through to reach your destination.”
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