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Thieves put train services off track

by Damon Wilkinson
19/ 8/2008

ROCHDALE commuters heading into Manchester faced huge delays on Monday morning after scrap metal thieves cut power to the city centre rail network.

Victoria Station was closed after a copper cable carrying 64,000 volts of electricity was stolen in an overnight raid.

Passengers from Littleborough, Smithy Bridge and further afield were forced to disembark at Rochdale and catch replacement bus services into Manchester.

Some 19 services from Rochdale were cancelled and others turned away after the signalling system failed at 4.20am.

Engineers managed to restore power at 7am but delays continued as a huge backlog of services tried to enter the station.

Neil Sowerby, who works for the Observer’s sister paper the Manchester Evening News, was forced to get off at Rochdale station.

He said: "I got on the 6.06am train from Todmorden and a message came through to say there had been a power failure ahead and the train would stop at Rochdale. We were told replacement buses would be put on but unfortunately Rochdale station was closed and nobody could get out. Some people were crossing the tracks and shimmying down lamp-posts to get out."

A spokesman for Network Rail, the body which operates the railways, said: "Unfortunately this is something we are seeing more and more of. It has been a problem in the North East but it seems to be moving over here. We are working with police to find those responsible. On top of the disruption, people who are carrying out these thefts are risking their lives by messing with the cables. The fault was repaired by engineers but there were knock-on delays for some of the services."

British Transport Police is investigating the theft from trackside signals in the Miles Platting area.

Raiders are believed to have vaulted a security fence and cut out a 10m section of trackside cable carrying power to the signals.