My UK train in 2 weeks got canceled, can I trust the train will go if I book another one for the same day

Avanti have definitely been weird about releasing timetables over the past year or two, but their website claims the timetable for 2-3 April is available. Perhaps it has not made it through to trainline yet?

Testing a trial booking on both Avanti and Trainline, there is no 14.15 train - so I am guessing that what's happened is that:

• the draft timetable had a 14.15 train (there is one on the timetable the week before)
• trainline sold you a ticket for this train
• they were notified by Avanti that the 14.15 is not running
• they cancelled your ticket

However! Both sites agree that the 13.35 and 14.35 departures are not available, and offer to book you a ticket on the 14.55 (changing at Crewe). Trainline list all the direct tickets as "ticket coming soon", and Avanti list them all as "sold out". Tickets for all trains on the Saturday are available through Avanti.

It seems unlikely to me that all Sunday trains are completely sold out, so I think there is a decent chance that the Avanti website is wrong and they have not actually released the direct trains that Sunday - perhaps they are waiting for confirmation of engineering works on the MK-Manchester route before they fix the times? Direct trains are running both tomorrow (Sun 20th) and next week (Sun 27th), but tomorrow it is a 2h45 route and next week 1h33 - so you can definitely see the effect that maintenance work can have on the timetabling, even when the route is running.

If it were me, I would be happy to hold off a couple more days to let the system work itself out and try again. It is unlikely to cost any more (the price for the via-Crewe 14.55 on the 3rd is the same as the standard off-peak direct tomorrow) and I think it is unlikely those tickets will be completely booked up. However, you do have the option of committing now and locking in the via-Crewe ticket, which may well take longer but at least would be confirmed. If you book it through Avanti I think you should be able to change if needed, but I wouldn't be 100% sure that it would go smoothly, so caveat emptor.

Uk rail is in a bit of a mess at the moment.

The Covid pandemic has caused various issues, direct staff absences due to covid are one but far from the only one. A lot of driver/gaurd training was disrupted due to Covid measures. The Pandemic has also made the railway even more of a financial hole for the government and they are trying to tighten the belt leading to relationships between the operators and their staff and unions becoming more strained than usual.

The need to re-plan services to fit the staff available has also sucked up train planning resources, this has lead to timetables being confirmed and seat reservations released much later than they should be.

During the height of the pandemic most of the intercity operators made seat reservations compulsory, at least on paper. Currently my understanding is that none of the operators (except perhaps Caledonian sleeper who had compulsory reservations even pre-pandemic) are actually enforcing compulsory reservations on the ground, but some operators* are still marking their trains as "reservations compulsary" in the timetable data. Online retail systems (and an increasing proportion of ticket machines) won't sell you a ticket without a valid itinerary and that means if a train is marked as "reservations compulsory" they won't sell you a ticket against that itinerary unless they can obtain a reservation.

The data that feeds into the Retail systems cannot distinguish between a compulsory reservation train where all reservations have sold out, and one where the reservations have not been released yet.

National rail enquiries has a section for future engineering works, looking up your date I see there is disruption to Avanti services in the Preston area but nothing that would directly affect a Manchester to Milton keynes journey. There may well be indirect affects though.

This doesn't mean you can't travel, but it does mean if you want to be somewhere by a particular time then you should probably make a larger allowance than usual for delays and cancellations.

I don't use the trainline app, but normally re-booking is not actually necessary with UK rail tickets. If your train is cancelled you can just take a later one (subject to the operator and/or route restrictions on your ticket).

* It looks like GWR, Crosscountry, Grand Central and Hull trains have dropped the compulsory reservations flag. But Avanti, LNER and LUMO are still setting it.

There seems to be something strange going on. National Rails is coming back with an error Trainline has cryptic message

Seeing fewer tickets than usual? Advance tickets may go on sale later than usual due to COVID-19 disruption. Be first to know when tickets are available with Ticket Alerts.

So there seems to be some Covid related restriction on ticket sales but I couldn't find an independent source to confirm this or what the specific restriction might be.

Trainline allows booking for next week but National Rail doesn't. No idea why. The best you can do at the moment is probably wait and see. If there are still no tickets a week before the planned trip, you will need to start looking for alternatives.

can I trust if I book another train on the app in the same day it will actually go ahead,

No trip is ever guaranteed especially not with Covid making a mess of things. If someone actually sells you a ticket, it simply means that, at the time of purchase, they intend to operate the trip (or they are a scammer). But there is always a a small chance that they can't go.

I was in Europe a few weeks ago and wanted to visit my brother on the weekend. The night before the trip a big storm came through and pretty much all the trains that day were cancelled. So I couldn't go. These things do happen.

There are a number of unoffical train information sites (that use the public datafeeds from national rail & network rail.) These can often provide more information that the official sites.

One of these shows that all the XX:15 departures that day have been cancelled (CAN) including the 14:15. It does show though that the XX:35 services are expected to run, albeit with a variation (VAR) to the normal schedule.

This site shows the XX:35 services require reservations though so you'll still need to find somewhere that can sell you a ticket.

Less useful for you, you can see how the 14:15 service is affected on other Sundays too. Here, for example, shows that the 'normal' timetabled (WTT) service was/is valid on Sundays from 12/12/21 to 08/05/22 but that there are changes (VAR) to the service on 20 March, 27 March & 10 April and complete cancellations (CAN) on 3 April, 17 April and 1 May.