// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Thousands of rail passengers hit by power failure disruption
Liverpool Lime Street - a major travel hub in the North West - was among those stations hit by the disruption on Thursday
Thousands of rail passengers have described "nightmare" journeys, after being hit by delays and cancellations following a power failure at a signalling centre that caused major disruption across northern England.
A 90-second power outage occurred in the area covering Network Rail's Manchester Rail Operating Centre just before 14:00 BST on Thursday. The BBC understands there was then a delay to back-up systems kicking in, meaning affected trains had to stop while signalling was down.
Network Rail said "engineers are making good progress fixing the signalling issues" but warned of continuing disruption on Friday.
At least eight rail operators remain affected on Thursday evening.
"We've got to really understand what's gone wrong here, because clearly something has and we've got to make sure we investigate that thoroughly to understand why things haven't restored as we would have expected," said Chris Wright, Route Director NW at Network Rail.
Manchester Rail Operating Centre was opened in July 2014 and houses all the controls to safely operate the railway in the region, including signalling.
According to Network Rail, its operational control boundary spans from Crewe in the south to Carlisle in the north, and from Todmorden in the east to the Welsh border in the west.
The initial power outage on Thursday afternoon was part of a wider power supply outage in the Ardwick area, but the BBC understands there was a delay to the back-up supply kicking in - which exacerbated the problem.
SP Electricity NW released a statement, detailing a power outage which had affected "around 5,000 customers in the Manchester area at 1:40pm today - all power was fully restored within 90 seconds," the company said.