A MEETING to discuss rail cancellations and delays was postponed after the West Coast Main Line services to and from Scotland was closed because a bird hit overhead wires.
The electrocuted bird incident north of Carlisle caused long delays to Avanti West Coast services between Cumbria, Glasgow Central and Edinburgh.
Transpennine Express said its "meet the manager" event, which had been due to discuss issues at Lockerbie station, had been put on hold.
It comes amid repeated complaints about reliability and poor performance for services at Lockerbie station.
The issues were due to be discussed at the meeting, which Transpennine Express said had been "regrettably" postponed due to the overhead line problems further south.
There was also disruption to ScotRail services between Carlisle and Dumfries.
Rail services into and out of Dumfries and Galloway are already severely disrupted by work to repair a landslip north of Dumfries.
The incident was reported this morning with disruption expected to continue till 8.15pm. A ScotRail source said: Our staff have completed repairs to the damaged overhead lines between Gretna and Carlisle and we are now able to run our trains again through this area."
Trains that have started to run include the 7.33pm from Dumfries to Carlisle and the 9.12pm train from Carlisle to Dumfries.
ScotRail said it would be keeping replacement buses in place at Carlisle and Dumfries to be used when required.
A Network Rail statement said: "We're sorry to passengers being affected by the closure of the West Coast main line north of Carlisle.
"The cables which power trains were brought down by a bird coming into contact with the 25,000 volt electric wires.
"Both lines to and from Scotland will be closed for much of the day as our engineers fix the problem."
Earlier today customers were told in a statement: "Damage to the overhead electric wires just north of Carlisle is causing disruption to trains between Carlisle and Glasgow Central / Edinburgh / Dumfries. Trains may be delayed by up to 60 minutes or cancelled until the end of the day."
National Rail has said that tickets for travel today to from Scotland will be valid for travel tomorrow.
Rail replacement buses had also been requested for Glasgow, Edinburgh, Carlisle and Lockerbie.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel