Month of misery for commuters into Waterloo

RAIL commuters paying thousands of pounds for a season ticket face a month of disruption due to major engineering works at the UK’s busiest train station.

Work began at London Waterloo on Saturday, meaning passengers across the South face a hard slog to get to work from today. Nearly half of the station’s platforms will be closed until August 28.

This means there will be fewer South West Trains services from popular commuter locations such as Woking, Guildford and Surbiton.

Passengers are being warned of significant disruption to journeys with queues of up to an hour at Waterloo and key stations along the route.

South West will receive compensation from Network Rail for the disruption, but commuters paying thousands of pounds for a season ticket will only be compensated if they are more than an hour late on the reduced timetable.

Rail chiefs ‘strongly advise’ passengers to avoid travelling during morning and evening rush hour and have even urged commuters to consider taking holiday.

The £800million project to extend the station’s platforms will allow longer, modern trains to operate on suburban routes from December.

A South West Trains spokesman said the compensation from Network Rail took into account not only lost revenue but ‘additional costs’ including extra staff and providing alternative transport.