THREE rail companies are warning passengers of train cancellations at short notice because of Covid and staff issues for the rest of this year.

CrossCountry, Transpennine and Northern are all urging passengers to check before travelling from now until after the New Year.

Northern said it may have to cancel trains at short notice through "the impact of COVID on train crew availability" and other causes.

Transpennine said its services may be delayed or cancelled without prior warning "due to a lack of available staff caused by industrial relations issues".

It gave no further details.

CrossCountry said: "Due to train crew availability issues, there will be disruption to CrossCountry services from Monday to Saturday until further notice."

It did not say why it is expecting to have a shortage of train crews.

London North Eastern Railway has not announced any problems with train crew availability.