Don’t even try to go by train!
Chaos for commuters as rail chiefs tell thousands...
BRITAIN’S railways reached a shameful new low yesterday as hundreds of thousands of passengers were told not to travel to London.
Network Rail had to take the humiliating step of advising commuters not to attempt reaching London Victoria – where 250,000 people usually pass through every day – thanks to a signalling fault.
The problem was spotted on Wednesday night but continued causing chaos all day yesterday and was expected to cause delays again today.
As a result, dozens of journeys on Thameslink, Southern, and Gatwick Express lines were cancelled.
Victoria is Britain’s second busiest station, after London Waterloo, but thousands yesterday simply gave up on work yesterday – not least because rail bosses were unable to provide replacement bus services in time.
And those who did struggle on faced sardine-tin crushes,
It was the latest in a series of major snarl-ups to hit the rail service. It started when signalling
‘Southern are ruining country’
equipment at Streatham in south London was discovered to be powerless late on Wednesday. Network Rail engineers failed to fix it working through the night. Rail chiefs said they were trying to arrange replacement buses at ‘key locations’, but they would be ‘subject to availability’ as many were already taking children to school.
Shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald yesterday told Transport minister Jo Johnson in Parliament: ‘It’s never been clearer that there’s something very seriously wrong with the railways on his watch – franchising failure, timetabling chaos and broken promises on investment and people shifting from rail to road.’
Thameslink passengers have already suffered weeks of disruption following the introduction of new timetables in May. And yesterday frustrated travellers shared images on social media of travel disruption and packed carriages.
IT analyst Michael Scriven, 23, said he was caught up in ‘an absolute mess’ on the platform at East Croydon station after passengers on a train travelling towards to Victoria were told to get off there.
Mr Scriven said he tried unsuccessfully to board eight trains to London Bridge, and was ‘the most sardined I’ve ever been’ when he eventually managed to get on to the ninth. Another passenger, Philip Keeler, wrote: ‘So Southern advise not to go to work? Southern are ruining the country for people and business.’ There were long queues for buses as many passengers attempted to travel from closed railway stations to the unaffected London Underground network. But some also complained that they had to pay for their unscheduled bus travel.
Social worker Jessica Edwards, 34, said she paid hundreds s extra per year to travel on the Gatwick Express from Hassocks in to Victoria, only to find the trains were often overcrowded due to cancellations on other services. She said today’s problems had meant arriving an hour late to work. A Network Rail spokesman had said early yesterday: ‘We apologise for the inconvenience caused by the fault and passengers are being advised not to travel with Thameslink, Southern or Gatwick Express from the south into London this morning.’
Last night rail bosses had to admit the chaos would continue into today, after a full day of mayhem. A spokesman for Southern said yesterday: ‘We anticipate disruption will continue until at least 7am tomorrow morning.’
Many passengers complained that rail apps and websites suggested some trains were running despite lines being blocked.
Network Rail’s managing director for the South East route, John Halsall, apologised, admitting: ‘Our job is to provide a reliable railway for train operators and the travelling public and today it’s clear we’ve failed in that task.’
Chief Operating Officer at Govia Thameslink Railway, Nick Brown, said: ‘We encourage any passengers delayed by 15 minutes or more to claim Delay Repay compensation via our websites.’