A power cut that affected large parts of
England has led to delays on numerous train networks across the UK.
Outages began taking place at around 4.30pm on Friday afternoon and were caused by a failure to National Grid’s network.
London Underground passengers shared videos that show station tunnels in complete darkness: Welcome to Clapham Junction #powercutpic.twitter.com/sPppOOqRge— Steph (@stefidoo) August 9, 2019While power was restored within around 30 minutes, the failure has led to delays and cancellations with
London North Eastern Railway advising customers not to travel, suspending all services into and out of London’s King Cross.#LNERUpdate - Due to a major failure of the electricity supply, services into and out of King's Cross are suspended. Customer advice is DO NOT TRAVEL. Customers holding tickets for today, Friday 9th August, may use their tickets tomorrow Saturday 10th August.— London North Eastern Railway (@LNER) August 9, 2019Hull Trains has also suspended all services to and from King’s Cross.
As of 6pm, Thameslink was reporting delays across its network, with trains between Farringdon and Bedford at a stand. ⚠️ #TLUpdates - The power network has failed in the large parts of London and the South East. This has prevented our trains between Farringdon and Bedford from being able to take power and as a result, most of our trains are currently at a stand.ℹ️👇https://t.co/5B8CgV5cH3— Thameslink (@TLRailUK) August 9, 2019National Rail has confirmed that Gatwick Express, Great Northern and Southern services are also being affected while Merseyrail said all services on the Wirral Line in Merseyside are suspended.
Disruption is expected until at least 8pm and people planning to use other lines are being advised to check the National Rail website for updates.
In London,
police officers could be forced to man busy junctions where traffic lights have been shut down by a power cut, a spokeswoman for Transport for London has confirmed.
She said some traffic lights are “not working” but the scale of the problem is not yet known.
Police officers could be called in to “manage the busy junctions, to physically manage them themselves,” she said.
“We’re just assessing how many traffic signals are out.”
Some of TfL’s systems which control traffic lights are also “not operating”, she said.
Harriet Jackson described an “apocalyptic” scene when she witnessed the power outage causing traffic lights to cut out in Battersea, London, after leaving Clapham Junction train station at around 5pm.#ClaphamJunction what just happened?! The whole area plunged into the dark ages for about half an hour... #howdoicross#fridaymadness#powerfailurepic.twitter.com/ysJWKcJ9wI— Harriet Rose Jackson (@harrietrose_93) August 9, 2019“I realised that nothing was open and there was hardly any phone signal,” the 26-year-old told Press Association.
“All the traffic lights were down, but there were no police present, which meant it was dangerous to cross – cars weren’t stopping either.
“It was like witnessing something out of an apocalyptic film.
“No one knew what was going on and, given it’s a Friday afternoon, it’s the last thing you want to encounter.”
The power cut also affected homes and businesses nationwide.
A spokeswoman for Northern Powergrid said 110,000 of its customers lost power.
She said the problem was with the National Grid’s transmission network, which distributes high voltage energy from power stations across the UK.
Northern Powergrid serves 3.9 million homes and businesses in the North East, Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire.
Those affected lost power between around 5.10pm and 6pm – around half an hour later than those in Southern areas of the UK.
The power cuts were “quite spread apart, [which is] quite unusual”, the spokeswoman said.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated. Follow HuffPost
UK on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.