Thousands of rail passengers had their journeys disrupted by delays and cancellations following a power failure. Network Rail has confirmed that on 6 August an electricity supply outage in Manchester affected signalling systems at their local rail operating centre, causing major disruption.
Several media outlets are reporting that there was a delay in backup power systems kicking in, so affected trains had to stop while signalling was down.
Responding to incident, Neil Smith, Director General of AMPS, said:
“When backup power fails it can really cause chaos. This is not just about delayed journeys. People have places they need to be, and the impact of this disruption reaches into their jobs and families, causing untold misery for thousands of travellers.
“Yesterday’s power failure shows exactly why reliable backup power systems are needed to protect the UK’s critical national infrastructure. And reliability really is the key here. It’s no good having an emergency generator if it doesn’t work in an emergency.
“Questions are rightly being asked about the resilience of the system. Network Rail’s review must look at testing regimes and maintenance just as much as the hardware itself. Resilience comes from having power generating systems regularly stress tested by trained professionals. Industry experience tells us that a properly designed backup generator system usually doesn’t fail unless there is human error – often due to lack of maintenance or misunderstanding of control system settings. The power systems supporting critical infrastructure needs to be inspected regularly to ensure they are still fit for purpose and correctly maintained. Aged installations that are not fit for purpose need to be replaced or upgraded.
“These systems are going to keep failing unless we invest in training and upskilling the engineers who install and maintain emergency power generation and have an honest conversation about the suitability of aged equipment. The government needs to treat resilient backup power as a core requirement for protecting critical national infrastructure rather than just an afterthought. Otherwise, this won’t be the last time we see headlines about power failures causing mass disruption.”
More from AMPS
