Rail chaos on key Birmingham-London route following landslip

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Tens of hundreds of travellers are dealing with severely prolonged journeys as a result of a landslip between Rugby and Coventry.

Normally that is an especially busy stretch of line, shared between intercity trains linking London with the West Midlands in addition to native and regional companies.

But Avanti West Coast and London Northwestern Railway are unable to run trains from Birmingham in the direction of the capital on the standard route because of the landslip in a slicing.

Phil Barnes, operations director for Network Rail, stated: “Network Rail engineers are assessing the damage caused by a landslip between Coventry and Rugby and are working on a plan to safely reopen the affected track as soon as possible.

“With one of the two tracks in this area closed to trains, a reduced service is running through the area and we apologise for the disruption to journeys.”

London Northwestern is telling travellers: “Due to a landslide between Coventry and Rugby the line is blocked and we unable to operate services through the area.

“We expect this to last until end of day Tuesday 13 February 2024.”

Avanti West Coast is working some Birmingham-London trains on for much longer route.

A diversion f has been put in place that requires passengers from Birmingham to journey northwest away from London to Stafford, from the place trains are working on the Trent Valley line, avoiding the landslip.

One Edinburgh-London practice ran usually so far as Wolverhampton, the place it reversed to Stafford after which took the diversionary line. It is at present round one hour late.

Dave Whitehouse, security and safety director at Avanti West Coast, stated: “The landslip between Rugby and Coventry means our services to London Euston are unable to operate as normal while Network Rail complete the emergency repairs.

“We are working with Network Rail and other train operators to ensure our customers are able to still travel to and from London while this work takes place over the next days.”

At London Euston station, different Avanti companies, together with to Manchester and Glasgow, have been cancelled because the affect of getting employees and rolling inventory out of place intensifies.

On Monday, tickets can be utilized on Chiltern Railways between Birmingham Moor Street and London Marylebone, or on the CrossCountry hyperlink from Birmingham New Street to Reading and Great Western Railway from there to London Paddington.

Tuesday companies are more likely to be severely affected, with a risk of disruption extending into Wednesday.