LNER disruption: Thousands of train passengers affected by sudden cancellations

Thousands of passengers using key inter-city rail lines are having their journeys disrupted.

“Staff shortage” has been blamed for the sudden cancellation of key express trains on Britain’s flagship rail line.

LNER, which runs trains on the East Coast main line from London King’s Cross to Yorkshire, northeast England and Scotland, has cancelled a series of morning trains from London to Leeds, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Heading south, trains from Scotland, Leeds and Newcastle have been cancelled or terminated at Doncaster, and others are running with long delays. The 9.15am from Leeds, one of the trains that is running, was “full and standing” on departure – with hundreds of other passengers waiting at stations further down the line.

Longer journeys than normal had already been scheduled for this weekend because of engineering work between Peterborough and Doncaster. Journey times have typically been extended by an hour as trains are diverted via Lincoln.

But on Saturday morning LNER found it did not have sufficient drivers trained on the diversionary route.

At 10am, passengers at King’s Cross were being told to take any train north to Peterborough, from where buses have been arranged to run on the 90-mile journey to Doncaster.

A spokesperson for LNER said: “We apologise to customers affected by disruption today.

“This is due to a shortage of train drivers with requisite route knowledge to operate during today’s engineering works.”

The early train from Edinburgh Waverley, due in at 12.01pm, is running two hours late – with the journey from York to London, which normally takes less than two hours, extending to five hours.

​Further planned engineering work by Network Rail will disrupt early services on Sunday, with no fast trains northbound before 11am.

Rather than face the prospect of two hours on a bus, hundreds of passengers at King’s Cross have headed across to neighbouring St Pancras, from where trains run to Sheffield, in the hope of connecting for trains further north.

As a result, services on East Midlands Railway and connecting links north from Sheffield are reported to be extremely crowded.

The pressure on the Sheffield-London line was intensified by severe disruption on the West Coast main line from Manchester to the capital.

The line between Macclesfield and Stoke-on-Trent is closed because of flooding, and other lines in the area are experiencing problems.

There are widespread cancellations and long delays, and some CrossCountry and Virgin Trains services are being diverted via Crewe – not calling at Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield or Stockport.