Following a 90 second power outage at around 2pm there is still very little movement of trains anywhere in the North West of England as of 11pm- affecting all train services serving Manchester and Liverpool, as Manchester Regional Operations Centre lost all power.
This affects services as far as into Wales, Scotland, London and Devon.
Many commuters are not going to get home tonight, or will be many hours late.
There are very few replacement buses available, but rail tickets are basically being accepted by all service bus operators in the affected area.
This is affecting the West Coast main line as well north of Crewe, although some services there are running, albeit with major delays.
Network Rail hope to restore some functionality over night but there is a red do not travel notice in place until at least 10am Friday, and there is expected to be severe disruption for the whole of Friday.
If planning to travel (especially to an airport) please check the latest travel advice, and consider other modes of transport. Trains and crew will be out of position, and crew may be out of working hours.
Services which do run are likely to be very, very busy.