Read our Privacy noticeHundreds of travellers were left stranded on Thursday after a power failure in Manchester sparked mass disruption across a large swathe of the rail network. Commuters faced two-hour delays and cancellations across the Midlands, Greater Manchester, and northwest England following the outage at a Network Rail operating centre. The Manchester facility that experienced the outage was one of 12 operating centres built to eventually manage the entire British rail network, Network Rail said when it opened in 2014. It was planned that the Manchester Rail Operating Centre would control all of the railway in north-west England by 2034. “The scale of today's disruption means customers travelling through Manchester tomorrow morning should also check before they travel, as some knock-on delays may continue.”