Normal rail services resume on Lurgan and Portadown lines

Normal services have resumed on the Lurgan and Portadown railway line after major delays throughout today.
Just some who were waiting in the rain for trains after signal failures caused major delaysJust some who were waiting in the rain for trains after signal failures caused major delays
Just some who were waiting in the rain for trains after signal failures caused major delays

Hundreds of irate early morning commuters were left queuing and confused when it transpired signalling problems stopped most trains from running to and from Belfast.

Translink later revealed a communications cable had been cut.

Although bus substitutions were put in place, many passengers vented anger on social media due to the lengthy delays and lack of communication.

Former Craigavon Sinn Fein councillor Liam Mackle said the delays meant he would be two hours late for work.

He said that when he arrived in Lurgan for the 8:26am to Great Victoria Street, Belfast, there were about 300 in the queue.

“There weren’t enough buses on to prevent any long delays,” said the former Craigavon councillor who also complained of the ‘very poor communication with those standing waiting for the few buses that were running’.

Translink apologised for any inconvenience.

Earlier on Wednesday Ciaran Doherty of Translink said: “We were doing some scheduled maintenance works on the line into the night and unfortunately we managed to cut one of the communications cables on the line which caused the problem,” he said.

He said they had been “working hard all day to ensure the problem does not roll into this evening”.

“What I can say is that this evening all services are planned to be leaving as normal out of Belfast on the Portadown line,” he added.

“There is a possibility of further delays beyond Lisburn but what we are trying to do is to work hard to make sure they don’t ensue.”

Meanwhile, motorists also faced delays on the M1, as traffic signals at the junction nine off-slip at Moira were not working.