CrossCountry trains said the disruption was due to ‘significant constraints on train crew availability’

Manchester Piccadilly to Birmingham is among the worst -affected routes(Image: Mark Waugh Manchester Press Photography Ltd)

Dozens of CrossCountry trains have been cancelled today due to a driver shortage.

Services between Manchester Piccadilly and Birmingham are among those worst affected. At the time of writing the CrossCountry website shows more than 70 services have been cancelled.

They also include trains between Manchester and Bristol, Manchester and Southampton and Manchester and Reading.

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In a statement on X, the company said: “Due to significant constraints on train crew availability, there will be disruption to services across our network today.”

National Rail enquiries said: “Constraints on train crew availability mean that there will be some late notice changes to the CrossCountry timetable across their network today. Some services will be cancelled or revised to only run part of their normal route.

“This is with the exception of the route between Birmingham New Street, Leicester and Stansted Airport which is not expected to be impacted.”

Some rail replacements buses will run between Birmingham and Manchester tonight. Three buses will leave Birmingham New Street to Manchester Piccadilly at 10.01pm, stopping at Stafford, Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield, Stockport, Manchester Piccadilly to drop off passengers only.

One bus will run in the opposite direction, leaving Piccadilly at 10.04pm, stopping at Stockport, Macclesfield, Stoke-on-Trent, Stafford, Wolverhampton and Birmingham New Street to drop off passengers only. Meanwhile another bus will leave Wolverhampton to Manchester Piccadilly at 10.19pm.

The problems come a fortnight after CrossCountry was forced to cancel nearly all of its UK services due to a power cut at its control centre. The outage in Birmingham caused disruption across the UK, including on the Manchester to Birmingham route.