Passengers face second day of delays after train derailment caused by landslip

Disruption has been felt ever since the 04:28 Avanti West Coast service derailed on the West Coast Main Line at Shap, in Cumbria, on Monday morning.

Four of the 87 people on board the 11-carriage train, including staff, were left with minor injuries but no-one required hospital treatment.

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Network Rail engineers worked through the night to remove the damaged train and repair overhead lines. Because of this, the train operator is confident disruption on the line north of Preston and south of Carlisle will clear by Wednesday morning.

But for today, Avanti West Coast customers have been told not to travel further north than Preston or south of Carlisle.

TransPennine Express services, which use the West Coast Main Line, have also been hit by the derailment.

Replacement buses will be running instead for services between Preston and Carlisle, and tickets are being accepted on alternative routes with other train operators.

North West infrastructure director Darren Miller said: "The advice is to check before you travel.

"The train has been recovered so that clears the site now. The overhead lines have been reinstated and we have dug out a lot of the debris that was in the way.

"We do have some track work still left to do... but we are on track with the recovery and we are happy with the progress, considering the weather we have had overnight as well."

The precise cause of the derailment is still being investigated, but Network Rail said early indications suggested the train had hit a landslip.

Operations director Sam MacDougall said: "We believe the train was travelling at approximately 80mph (129km/h) at the point of collision and then stopped very quickly thereafter."

How this landslide occurred was "hard to say", Mr MacDougall added, noting that Network Rail uses track sensors, CCTV and a system that helps to detect movement when ground conditions change.

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, said the derailment should be a "massive wake up call" to the government and to Network Rail "to stop doing track maintenance north of Warrington and all the way through Cumbria and into Scotland on the cheap".

"We have had too many of these things recently, two derailments in my own constituency in 18 months.

"I'm bound to be very concerned on behalf of our communities and indeed everybody else as a rail user."