Power failure leads to rail delays

A major power failure on the Translink network has led to travel chaos at Belfast's Great Victoria Street train station.

Hundreds of rail passengers were delayed on their way to work this morning because of a points and signalling system failure at the station.

A spokesperson for Translink confirmed that there had been a problem which resulted in some manual systems being put into place "and when you do that there are a number of overriding safety factors that you have to apply and that automatically implies delays.

"Subsequent to that, of course, trains ended up in the wrong places and a number of delays ensued."

Although a number of delays occurred the spokesperson confirmed that the worst delay was around 35 to 40 minutes. However, this figure had begun to subside by mid afternoon.

(MB)