London Paddington station: trains cancelled after ‘major power outage’

Passengers have been urged not to attempt to travel via London Paddington this morning, after a major power failure left some trains stranded on the tracks for hours.

The outage occurred between London and Slough, causing chaos for services connecting the capital to destinations such as Swindon, Reading and Oxford.

“Many trains became stuck between Paddington and Reading due to a loss of power supply,” The Daily Telegraph reports. Some passengers had to be evacuated onto the tracks in order to leave stranded trains.

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As of this morning, all services between Paddington and Slough are suspended. Great Western Rail, which runs services on the affected lines, said it “strongly advise[d]” customers not to attempt to travel this morning:

Other franchises have stepped in to help passengers make their journeys. South Western Railway is accepting GWR tickets on services from London Waterloo to some of the affected stations, while Chiltern Railway will do the same on its services from London Marylebone.

The Heathrow Express has also been suspended, with a replacement bus service brought in to transport travellers to the airport.

Network Rail said that “extensive damage” to four overhead power cables along a 500m-stretch of track in Ealing on Tuesday night was to blame for the disruption.

“We have been working throughout the night to understand the extent of the damage and we are focusing on trying to open some lines into London Paddington as soon as possible,” the rail body added.

Engineers “hope to have two of the four lines back up and running by midday”, Sky News reports, but disruption is expected to continue until the end of the day.